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Page 23.
 They met at Aerodynamic Donuts Since 1936. It was already dark. Thunder growled distantly. Lightning flashed beyond the skyline. Rain poured against the windows. The place smelled of coffee and donuts.
"I got away early," Lexa said hunching over a donut. Her blue eyes glittered. "Jeff, you look like you've seen a ghost."
He reached over and put his hands over hers, and withdrew them quickly. "Lexa, you haven't by any chance seen a manuscript called The Future Of The Race, have you?"
She stared at him, and her voice sounded small and unsure. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I have."
"Oh God," Jeff said. "No."
She seemed to lose her cocky humor. She put her donut down and wiped her lips absently, while her eyes widened. "Don't tell me..."
"Yes!" he said. "Lexa, for heaven's sake. You didn't sign your name to the rejection slip, did you?"
"As a matter of fact," she said, "I did."
He thought, the hell with whatsisname, and put his hands over hers. "Lexa, I'm afraid you may be in danger."
She laughed. "Max Dusenbery must be batting a thousand."
"What do you mean? Who is Max Dusenbery?"
"Well, I suppose you'd find out sooner or later." She toyed with her donut. "He's a mystic. A clairvoyant. Some would say a nut. And Grandfather looks on him as something... like an old family member. Can you believe it?"
Jeff shrugged. "Old people... well, maybe they are friends because they've been around a long time..."
"Oh Jeff." She clutched her coffee cup. "They don't even like each other that much. There is some dark union between those two, and I've never been able to figure it. When I saw Grandfather last week (he was SO mad at me) he mentioned that Max Dusenbery had had a premonition that I'd be killed."
"Great," Jeff said.
"YOU don't take that kind of stuff seriously, do you?"
He wanted to blurt out how much he cared about her, but obviously did not dare.
"Jeff..." she rubbed his hands in hers. "Jeff, come on, some of us have to keep a sane head about ourselves, don't we?"
"I'm trying," he said. He suddenly took her hands in his and held them. Just HELD them. And it felt RIGHT.
She either seemed not to notice, or else felt just the way he did. So they sat there holding hands while the rain beat down outside and the place smelled of donuts and, each time the door opened on a customer, water and fresh air.
Then she seemed to see the counter man staring at them. She withdrew her hands. "It's good to have you as a friend," she said.
"Of course," Jeff said.
"So you think someone might be out to kill me? Throw me into a clock?" Her eyes once again had that warmly sarcastic light.
"We have to assume the worst," Jeff said. "I guess I'd better tell you. I'm working with the police, and we're sending him a phony acceptance letter to draw him out. I'm going to be the bait."
"Oh no!" She grabbed his hands again, horrified.
"Come on, I'll walk you to your car." He rose, and she followed suit. "I'll talk McCarthy into putting a tail on you just in case."
Outside, under his umbrella, she clung to his arm. "You'll have to meet my mother one of these days. She's sometimes a little bit loony, but who isn't?"
They came to Lexa's car, a blue Dodge. Jeff waited while she started it up. Or tried to. The starter chugged and whined. Nothing. She got out. "It won't start. Darn! I forgot this happens every time it rains real hard."
"I could check your distributor," Jeff shouted over the rain. Cars swished past. Neons hunched overhead.
She came up close. "Not tonight. I'll take a taxi home."
"I'll drive you home."
"No," she said pushing against his arms, "I wouldn't ask that of you." Her face, pale and concerned, turned up.
"I would like to."
She froze, holding his coat sleeve like something she wasn't sure what to do with. Then she said, "Would you please?" There was warmth and surrender in her voice.
He bent down, until their faces were nearly touching. He could see the fright in her eyes, the panic on her lips, the way she held her breath.
Her eyelids fluttered shut. She tilted her face back, and he pulled her tightly against him. She managed a dismayed groan, then her lips parted under the assault of his own. Their tongues touched. She melted against his strong embrace, her hands hard against his back.
Then, like a person drowning, she struggled. She pushed violently away, palming him in the ribs. He bent over, breathless. She said: "I'm so so sorry. I am so sorry. Oh no, I'll just take a cab."
Just then a cab floated by in the rain, its roof surmounted by placards. Jeff watched in a haze as Lexa splashed through puddles. The taxi stopped, and she pulled open the rear door.
Half expecting Thomas Armaday at the wheel, to take her away forever, Jeff staggered into the street. He crossed before the cab and peered at the driver.
The driver rolled his window down a few inches. It was a middle-aged black man wearing a cowboy hat. He said: "Sorry, Mister, you'll have to catch the next one."
Jeff backed away, and saw a last glimpse of Lexa's distraught face as the taxi sped past him in the direction of the suburbs.
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