When Lightning Strikes, Page 2

Kelly, I miss you, baby. I miss you so much. ...

  Flipping open the cap, she poured a couple�more than a couple?�capsules into her palm and downed them with the glass of cloudy, tepid water on her bedside table.

  She flopped back on the bed, staring up at the midnight blue ceiling dappled with Day-Glo stars. The brilliant golden spots soothed her now, as they always did. She reached across her bed and switched off her lamp, letting the pretend galaxy become her world.

  Fleetingly she remembered how ridiculous she had felt when she first decorated her bedroom. It wasn't a grownup's room; it was a child's haven, an escape from the adult world. She'd painted the walls a deep midnight blue that mirrored the night sky. On the ceiling, she'd pressed a thousand glow-in-the-dark stars and painted a fluorescent full moon.

  At the time she hadn't known why she'd done it, but when she'd gone to bed that first night, she'd understood. She'd felt like Max in Where the Wild Things Are, a child in the middle of a vast, but somehow friendly, unknown. This room lulled her, protected her,

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  bathed her in starlight. Here, even when she couldn't sleep, she was safe.

  Outside, the rain raged, pounded against the windows and roof, but gradually Lainie stopped listening to it. After a while, she stopped hearing it altogether. She focused all her thoughts on the monotonous cadence of her breathing, all her sights on the glittering starbursts of her own universe.

  She felt the tingling presence of the booze and the pills in her bloodstream, and tried her best to relax, to sink into the softness of the bed and disappear.

  It didn't work.

  With a disgusted sigh, she jackknifed to a sitting position and yanked her knees to her chest. There would be no sleep for her tonight.

  She reached for the crushed pack of Marlboros by her bedside and lit up her last cigarette. Inhaling deeply, she leaned back against the polished mahogany of her headboard and exhaled slowly.

  She didn't want to sleep anyway, not really, not the way her sleep was. It was other people's slumber that she craved�quiet, restful, filled with peace. For her, sleeping wasn't like that, never had been. For her, falling asleep was like falling into the bowels of hell itself.

  No wonder she was an insomniac. She had been for years upon years. The pills and booze rarely worked, rarely brought the peaceful oblivion she sought. More often than not, she was awake for days, until her body literally gave out. Then she'd fall into a coma-deep sleep that ended only when the horrifying nightmares began.

  "Don't think about it," she whispered aloud. She needed to get her mind on something else, something besides her loneliness and fear. The book.

  II

  The thought came to her like a gift from God. She could switch on her computer and slide into the quiet, comfortable world of her own imagination.

  She stumbled into her office and sat down at the computer without bothering to turn on the light. She pushed two buttons and flopped back in her chair. The machine came to life with the familiar thwop�buzz and settled into readiness; the droning sound of its mechanical breathing filled the quiet, shadowy room.

  The green cursor blinked at her, appearing and disappearing against the blackness of the empty screen.

  The large window behind her desk shook with the force of the rain hammering against it. The wooden dividers rattled against the aged glass, made a sound like the chattering of an old man's teeth. Lainie felt a chill of apprehension and hugged herself, trying not to look outside.

  But the storm drew her eye, lured her into the writhing, half-lit, tempestuous world. Nature had transformed her ordinarily placid backyard into a pulsing vortex of sound and movement. The swing set, long ago forgotten by Kelly, tossed its empty swings in the wind. Lainie could almost hear the rusty squeak of the old chains. Rain marched across her shake roof and splashed over the leaf-filled gutters, drizzling down the window in sheets of silver.

  Lainie swallowed hard and brought her shaking hands to the keyboard, manipulating the keys with the speed of a professional typist, zipping through the menus until she came to the file for her new book, When Lightning Strikes.

  She smiled at the irony of the title and pulled up chapter sixteen, quickly skimming where she'd left off yesterday.

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  "You don't have to run anymore, Jessica. Can't you see that? You can stay here, with me. Always ..."

  Jessie looked up at him, her eyes drowning in hot tears. "I can't. I wish to God I could."

  Joe felt the weight of her fear like a cold hand against his heart. "They'll stop looking for you soon. They'll forget. The West is a place for forgetting, Jess. Hell, most of us don't even use our real names."

  Lainie closed her eyes and let out a tired sigh, bowing her head. No wonder she liked the plot of this book so well. There were so many things in her life she wanted to forget, ached to forget. Tiny, niggling memories that besieged her when the sky was dark and the thunder rolled.

  The West is a place for forgetting.

  If only there were somewhere like that. Someplace where Lainie could start over, could be the parent she wanted to be, the woman she wanted to be. Someplace where she made the rules.

  Suddenly a huge, hammering gust of wind ricocheted off her window. Rain clawed at the sweaty pane, thunder roared across the night. Lightning ripped the cloudy sky apart and landed in a white-hot streak in her backyard. A huge madrone tree split down the center in a cloud of blue light and shooting sparks. The eerie light pulsed through the window and smashed into the computer.

  Sensations exploded through Lainie. The computer keys heated up, scalded the sensitive flesh of her fingertips. She tried to jerk her hands back, but she couldn't move. Her hands tingled. The acrid odor of burning flesh choked her throat and nose.

  Panicked, she blinked at the computer, trying to see clearly. An odd glow emanated from her keyboard, made the keys appear to be floating atop the polished

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  mahogany of her desk. The computer made a quiet thump. The words on the screen blipped into nothingness, leaving in their stead a gaping, empty black square wreathed in impossible neon green light.

  She tried to scream, but couldn't. A dull, pounding throb started at the base of her skull. Her eyelids slid closed and seemed to stick. She tried vainly to open them. A sandy dryness crept up her throat, made her achingly thirsty.

  She tried to remain upright, but it felt as if someone had plucked a string from her insides and was slowly, inexorably unwinding her. She had a crazy, demented vision of what would be left of her when this was over. Nothing but a pile of old, rotted rope.

  Sensations swirled like hot mists through her body, seeping, tingling into every drop of her blood. The impossible scent of roses mingled with dust clogged her nostrils, their smells so real and cloying that for a moment she couldn't breathe.

  She started to fall forward. It was like a dream fall; slow and spiraling and unstoppable. Her forehead hit the keyboard, and this time the keys were icy cold. She shivered and hunched into a shaking ball.

  Slowly, fighting it every step of the way, Lainie fell into the darkness that had come for her.

  

  15

  Chapter Two

  Lainie had never felt so relaxed. She sighed deeply, savoring the completely unexpected feeling. She couldn't remember the last time she'd awakened like this, with an almost effervescent sense of peace. She was used to greeting each day with a mixture of dread and distrust.

  But not this morning; today she felt great. Refreshed, relaxed. The familiar pain in her hips and lower back had vanished, and for once she felt young at thirty-five instead of irritatingly old.

  Then she remembered last night. It hadn't really been like going to sleep. It had been more like . .. falling.. . .

  "Weird," she mumbled, hearing a scratchy early morning harshness in the word. She liked it. Anything was better than her regular voice. It was one of the few things she really couldn't stand about herself. Her too wide hips, she acc
epted; her fleshy thighs, she ignored. But her voice drove her crazy. It had a breathy softness that was completely at odds with her personality.

  Reluctantly she cracked one eye open, expecting to see the bumpy, slightly out-of-focus mountain range of computer keys.

  She saw dirt. A lot of dirt.

  She blinked and tried again, opening her eyes slowly this time.

  14

  She was sprawled on the main road of a quaint, old-fashioned town. On either side of the street were false-fronted wooden buildings shoved together like wobbly blocks, their entrances connected by a sagging, gray-planked boardwalk.

  She frowned. The place looked like every cow town west of the Pecos in the late 1880s.

  The detail was flawless. Hell, she half expected Linda Evans and Kenny Rogers to come striding out of the nearest saloon, maybe with Reba singing in the doorway.

  She sat back on her heels and put her hands on her thighs. Where was she? And how had she gotten here?

  She hadn't been drunk enough to leave her house last night. Had she? Had she somehow boarded a plane headed southwest?

  Fear quickened her heartbeat. No ...

  She couldn't have. She remembered falling asleep at her computer.

  You remember? The word came back at her, ice-cold and cruel. Back in her teenage years, when she'd been doing a lot of drugs, she had often wakened in strange places. And what she remembered usually had only the barest link to reality.

  Was that the explanation? Had she been so high�or low�on Jack Daniel's and sleeping pills that she'd slipped into her old routine?

  It hadn't happened to her in years. Not since before she got pregnant. Motherhood had saved her, given the tough little girl from the streets a safe haven and a place to belong. Lainie was smarter now, more responsible. She wouldn't have gotten so blind drunk that she'd accidentally board a plane. She no longer had anything to run away from.

  Except an empty house . ..

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  The thought was chilling. She knew she'd drunk too much last night, popped a few too many pills�neither of which she'd done in years. She'd tried so hard to stay on the straight and narrow path recently, but God knew, even though she did her best to be responsible, she failed at almost everything in her personal life. Any-thing's possible with you....

  No. She'd come so far since her zone days. She wouldn't have lapsed so easily back into that trap. She couldn't have. And no matter how much sense it made, no matter how precisely it matched her image of herself, she refused to believe it.

  "Damn," she cursed, shoving a dirty hand through her cropped hair. Wishing like hell she had a cigarette, she glanced again down the street.

  There were people in the street, people and horses and buggies. Everything you'd expect in a scene from Young Guns .. . except they weren't moving.

  Horses were poised at hitching rails, completely still. In the middle of the street, a wagon was at a dead stop, the horse's hoof frozen an inch above the ground. In the buckboard's seat, two men were looking at each other, faces arrested in masks of anger�eyebrows furrowed, mouths open, eyes narrowed. The boardwalk was dotted with people, everyone motionless and silent.

  She brushed her dirty hands on her jeans and got to her feet, cramming her fists in her baggy pockets. Across the street, like a crowned tooth amidst a decaying mouth, sat a brick building�the only one in town, and obviously built to last. It was large and square with perfectly matched windows that flanked twin oak doors. Above the doors, in huge, ornate letters, were the words

  FORTUNE FLATS BANK.

  Relief rushed through Lainie. She should have

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  known. This wasn't real. None of this was real. She was still asleep at her computer. This was all a dream.

  It had to be because this town didn't exist. She'd created Fortune Flats, designed and named the buildings, even imagined the dirty, dusty road. It was the fictional town where her current book was set.

  She was looking at chapter one�she could tell by the four horses clustered in front of the bank. The bank was being robbed right now, and Skeeter Johnson�the dim-witted lookout�was standing frozen on the boardwalk, clutching the coil of reins. Waiting, watching.

  She grinned. She was dreaming about her book. It was only natural, since she'd gone to sleep working on it.

  Suddenly she was excited. She looked up and down the street, trying to soak in as much information as she could. This wasn't exactly as she'd imagined the town; the detail was too perfect. Her subconscious was obviously kicking in, supplying tidbits of information from her extensive research.

  What an opportunity! She'd never dreamt in this level of detail before, never actually learned anything from her dreams. But now she saw the possibilities. She could meander through the buildings, see the setting, feel the desert heat, meet the people. It would give her book a verisimilitude unlike any she'd achieved before.

  Damn, she hoped she remembered this in the morning.

  She headed to the bank first�and why not? It was where the book began.

  Killian pointed his Winchester at the teller.

  The small, pointy-faced man behind the brass bars blanched. Two nickel-sized spots of color seeped through his pale cheeks. "I-I don't think I oughta give you no money. I-It wunt be right. M-Mr. Harold Springs

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  s-said I w-was responsible for all the funds in this bank."

  "Uh-huh."

  The teller swallowed so hard, his Adam's apple slid up and down his knobby throat. "I'm-mean, / wunt mind givin' it to you, but it ain't my money. You u-understand how it is...."

  "Shoot him, boss," Mose said in his gravel-stained voice. "We don't got time fer this shit." He spun toward the teller and pointed his pearl-handled pistol at the man's balding head.

  "Yeah," Purty chimed from the corner, where three people lay facedown on the floor in front of him.

  Killian lifted a gloved hand for silence. "See, Mr.. .." He glanced at the brass plate along the teller's cage. "Mr. Ernest Lubb, you're trying to be a hero now."

  Ernest looked for a moment as if he were going to smile. His pencil-thin lips wobbled uncertainly. The color on his cheeks darkened a shade. "Well, I wouldn't say�"

  " 'Cept you got yourself a problem."

  The teller choked on the end of his sentence and blinked at Killian. "Wh-What's that?"

  "Only one way to become a hero in a bank robbery."

  Ernest wet his colorless lips. Sweat broke out along his wrinkled forehead. "H-How's that?"

  Killian raised his Winchester a hair, enough so that the gaping hole at the end of the barrel was fixed on Ernest's scrawny chest. "You gotta kill me or die tryin'."

  Ernest swallowed hard. "Oh."

  "Were you thinkin' on takin' it that far?"

  The teller opened his mouth, revealing a set of yellowed teeth. He looked for a moment like he was going

  19

  to speak, but he didn't. Nothing came out except a high-pitched squeak.

  Killian nodded, almost smiled. Old Ernie wasn't going to risk his life for someone else's gold. "Good decision. Now, put all the money in those bags."

  Ernest nodded and reached for the big burlap bags Purty had tossed through the bars. With shaking, sweaty hands, he shoved bills and coins into the nearest sack.

  Killian lowered the rifle's barrel, but didn't draw his finger off the trigger. His narrowed eyes scanned the bank, taking in every detail, every nuance of sound or movement. Sunlight pulsed through the dusty windows overhead, illuminating the three bodies sprawled, hands behind their heads, on the cold stone floor. Purty stood in the corner, his gun pointed negligently at the people strewn like dolls at his feet. Mose was at the end of the long oak teller's counter, his twin pistols poised and ready.

  It was going all right; better than Killian had thought it would. Better than usual, in fact. The break-in had gone without a hitch, and except for Ernie's momentary bout of conscience, everyone had done as they'd been as
ked. Outside, the town was as quiet as a tomb.

  So why did Killian have that nagging, irritating sense that something was wrong?

  It could be because of Skeeter. The man didn't have the sense God gave a goat, and he was as likely to shoot Killian as to protect him. But lookout was a damn easy job, after all. Especially in a backwater town with a fat, lazy drunkard of a sheriff. It didn't take any special brains. Just a pair of eyes, and Skeeter had that at least.

  Yeah, Killian told himself for the hundredth time since he'd shoved through the bank's oak doors, guns drawn. This job was goin' along fine. Hell, they'd be outta here in less than five minutes.

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  So why did he feel so unsettled? As if it were a goddamn poor day for a bank robbery. As if he were gonna have to kill someone before this thing was over ...

  Lainie strolled across the street. When she stepped up onto the boardwalk, it was as if a switch had been flipped. The town burst into bustling, chatting, laughing life. Horse-drawn buggies churned down the road amid a roiling wake of dust and the catchy clip-clop cadence of moving hooves. The boardwalk creaked beneath the weight of a dozen booted feet hurrying from store to store.

  The hustle and bustle of the place surprised her. Whenever she imagined an old western town, it was quiet�the crack of old leather as a cowhand climbed down from the saddle, the tinny strains of a poorly played piano through half-open saloon doors. But this was . . . more. The town had a pulsing heartbeat of sound and movement, a life she'd somehow never expected. All this time she'd thought of the West in vaguely ghost-town-like terms, but it was nothing like that. It was like New Orleans, lively and loud.

  She made a mental note, praying she remembered it when she woke up, and reached for the bank's doorknob.

  "Stop!" yelled a scratchy male voice.

  Lainie paused and turned around. The man holding the horses was staring at her. His face was as pale as the underside of a snake, his rheumy eyes as big as quarters.

  "Y-You oughtn't to go in there, miss," he stammered, swallowing hard.

  Lainie couldn't help smiling. Skeeter was exactly as she'd created him�a tall, bowlegged cowhand wearing baggy, too short pants and a dirty shirt. Watery, pleasant

  21

  eyes stared out at her from a dusty, leather-lined face. If she remembered her words correctly, he had the heart of a lion and the brain of a gnat. "You'd best be watching for the sheriff, Skeeter, and don't worry about me."