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On the fourteenth day of February, two things happened: a TWa jet carrying two hundred and forty-six people exploded in the air above Tokyo, Japan, and a derangedthree people and wounding five others before he took refuge in a JC Penney&039;s Both these news ite Mary Terror dra it to that part of the newscasts and papers known as "the coffin corner": dead items
The fifteenth dawned Laura Clayborne awakened soht She lay in bed for a while, getting her bearings; so The sleeping pills tended to do it Everything was confused and uncertain, an entangleth to face another day, a h the blinds The sun was shining, the sky was blue It indy outside, and it looked very cold There were, of course, no more reporters The reporters had trickled away, day after day The press conferences held by the FBI - which were really only attempts to keep the story neorthy - had ceased luring the reporters in The press conferences had stopped There was never any news Mary Terror had vanished, and with her had vanished David
Laura went to the bathroom She didn&039;t look at her face in the ht She felt as if she&039;d aged ten years in the twelve days since David had been stolen Her joints throbbed like an old woman&039;s, and she constantly had headaches Stress, the doctor had told her Perfectly understandable in this situation See this pink pilli Take half of one twice a day and call me if you need me Laura splashed cold water into her face Her eyelids were swollen, her body bloated and sluggish She felt etness between her thighs, and she touched down there Watery reddish fluid on her fingertips The stitches had pulled loose again; nothing would hold her together anyht of not knowing that was killing her Was David deadi Murdered and thrown into the weeds by the roadsidei Had she sold hi to use him in some kind of cultish ritei all those questions had been pondered by Neil Kastle and the FBI, but there were no answers
Soe to cry suddenly overwhel now, growing stronger She gripped the sink, her head bent forward an ih her mind "No!" she said as the first tears burned her eyes "No, da and her teeth clenched so hard her jaws ached The stor and ruh the untidy bedrooh the den and to the kitchen Her bare feet were cold on the floor Her first stop, as usual, was the answering erator and drank orange juice straight from the carton She took the array of vita one after another the pills that ht have choked a horse Then she stood in theto decide if she should have raisin bran or oatmeal
First, call Kastle She did His secretary, who&039;d initially been sweetness and Georgia peaches but was now more crisp and lemony at Laura&039;s sometimes-dozen calls a day, said Kastle was out of the office and wouldn&039;t be back until after three No, there was no progress Yes, you&039;ll be the first to know Laura hung up Raisin bran or oatmeali It seemed a very difficult decision
She had Wheat Chex She ate standing up, and she spilled soain, but she reo She wiped the drops of one ho, Laura knew, of a cold war between her and her &039;shad started back to work Soot to make some money, he&039;d told her anyway, there&039;s no use just sitting around here waiting, is therei
Doug had said soe He&039;d looked at her, the Wall Street Journal on the sofa beside him, and he&039;d said, "If David&039;s dead, it won&039;t be the end of the world"
That re blade "Do you think he&039;s deadi" she&039;d asked hi he&039;s dead I&039;oes on no matter what happens"
"My God My God" Laura&039;s hand had gone to herwith horror "You do think he&039;s dead, don&039;t youi Oh Jesus, you do!"
Doug had stared at her with heavy-lidded eyes, and Laura had seen the truth in the out of the house, racing away in his Mercedes Laura had called C Jannsen&039;s number When a woman had answered, Laura had said bitterly, "He&039;s on his way You can have hi up, but not with a sla wasn&039;t worth the effort So on the bed, cutting apart their wedding pictures with scissors It came to her, as she&039;d sat with the shards ofher mind Then she&039;d put all the pieces into a little pile atop the dresser and she&039;d taken two sleeping pills and searched for rest
What to doi What to doi She wasn&039;t ready for work yet She could i to cover a social function and collapsing in the foie gras She put on the coffeepot, and she wandered around the kitchen straightening things that were already straight as she passed near the telephone, she thought of calling Neil Kastle again Maybe there would be some news She picked up the phone, put it down, picked, it up once more, finally left it in a helter-skelter of indecision
Straighten up in the den, she thought Yes, it needed straightening
Laura walked in and spent a few azines in the basket where they collected She chose issues that were two or three months old and stacked theo It had an article about breastfeeding in it This one couldn&039;t go, either, it had an article about how babies responded to azines to the bookshelves, and began to line the voluer-sized books gave her a fit of consternation and then she caing
Its title was Burn This Book
Laura took the book down Mark Treggs, the holdover hippie No author&039;s photo Mountain top Press, Chattanooga, Tennessee a post office box She skis had talked about the Weather Underground and the Store 72, she found it: "The Love Generation, bleeding from a thousand wounds inflicted by the ht of July 1, 1972, when police in Linden, New Jersey, cornered the terrorist Storm Fronters in a suburban tract house Four Storht, one was captured alive but wounded, and fourtheir s searched, but they could not find Soitives, took them into her forests You can hear it still today if you put your ear to the right track: the Stor their wounds, like old bears in a cave Maybe hairs huddled over candles with their stashes of pot and acid I knew one of the Storo before the flames destroyed the flowers She was a nice kid fro iti To her I send a e: keep the faith, and love the one you&039;re with"
Laura&039;s gaze flickered back up the page I knew one of the Storm Fronters
Not Mary Terrell She was born in Richht help the FBI find her babyi
Laura took the book to the telephone She dialed Kastle&039;s number in such a hurry that she messed up and had to redial His secretary, the le No, Mrs Clayborne, Mr Kastle isn&039;t in yet I told you before, he won&039;t be back until after three No, I&039;m sorry, I don&039;t have a number where he can be reached Mrs Clayborne, it&039;s not doing anybody any good for you to keep calling I&039; possible is being done to find your -
Bullshit Laura hung up