The Puppet Master

CHAPTER 2

She moved her briefcase from the floor to the seat beside her. She snapped it open and took out a pen, hoping that would make her point about the seat not being available.

"Sure, sure...I understand." Jill slipped into the seat in front of her.

Alanna made a mental note to talk to Phil today. He could explain some ground rules to the young woman.

Jill turned around in her seat. "Did you have a nice New Year's Eve?"

Alanna decided to write an email to Phil, instead. Right now.

"This was the first New Year's Eve my husband and I spent as married couple," Jill said, leaning her head back against the glass. She was staring into space, caught up for a moment in her own little world, not even realizing that her question had gone unanswered. She refocused her attention on Alanna. "We were married the weekend before I started working here at Moffett. The Friday of Thanksgiving weekend. We had a small ceremony at my parent's house. The immediate family and a handful of friend came over. It was just perfect. Just the way we both wanted it to be."

As much as Alanna wanted to brush her off, the tone of the young woman's voice and the date tugged a string deep inside. She stared down at the cell phone. A haze covered her vision.

That was supposed to be Alanna's wedding weekend, too. Ray and Alanna had planned to be married the day after Thanksgiving. A small ceremony. Just a handful of friends and her grandmother. She hadn't wanted to wear a wedding dress, just a suit. Ray had talked her into choosing a white suit.

The rush of emotions tore at the façade she forced herself to maintain. Alanna closed her eyes, remembering how on the same Friday night this Jill Goldman had been married, she had checked into the hotel in Carmel where she and Ray had planned to spend their wedding weekend. Locked up in that suite, she'd shed so many tears, rehashed it all. Guilt. Denial. More guilt. Why had she encouraged him to go on that trip?

It wasn't her fault. A freak explosion, the police had said. An accident.

Alanna felt a single tear squeeze past her eyelids. She brushed it away.

"Oh, my God," Jill whispered. "It was you they were talking about. I'm so sorry. I heard half a conversation-I didn't know. I never realized it was you. It was your fiancée who died on that boating thing this past fall just before the STEREO satellite launch. How horrible that must have been! I am so sorry."

A lump the size of a basketball had lodged itself in Alanna's throat, but it didn't matter. She felt the bus pull away from the first stop at Moffett Field, the Microsoft facility. She didn't want to talk about this. She shoved her things into the briefcase and closed the top.

Jill's voice was hushed. She was apologizing again, but Alanna couldn't hear it. She'd thought she was done with these sharp, slashing cuts of emotion. The antidepressants she's been given by her doctor before Christmas had been helping. Until now. She needed air. She needed to walk. She needed to screw her head on straight before she arrived at work.

Alanna pushed to her feet.

"Are you okay?" Jill placed a hand on her sleeve.

"I'm fine," Alanna managed to say. She started toward the front of the bus. She could feel the curious glances of a few of the riders as she passed.

"You getting off at the next stop, Alanna?" a voice asked. It was another project manager in Building 23.

She nodded and walked past him, too. The shuttle slowed down at the stop. Alanna cleared her voice, tried to paste on a fake smile. She pulled on her sunglasses, despite the fact that the day was overcast. Too many people were getting out at this stop. She knew some of them. She would have no privacy.

At the last moment, she dropped into a vacated seat. She slid to the window and stared out at the departing riders and the commuters. Men and women, casually dressed, juggled coffees and briefcases and purses as they made their way along the sidewalks. Engineers, researchers, clerical workers, technical types. They were so young, she thought. They seemed to be getting younger every year.

The bus door swung closed, and they pulled away from the curb. Two stops more, she told herself. She could manage two stops.

Alanna froze.

She saw him on the sidewalk. Only for an instant, but she couldn't be mistaken. He was walking toward the bus stop they'd just left. He was wearing a blue blazer and carrying a leather briefcase. His hair was longer, curlier. She stared at his face as the bus flashed past him, her breath crushed from her chest. She whirled in her seat, staring at his back for only a second, and then he was gone.

It was Ray.

Stunned, she sat still, unable to grasp what had just happened.

It couldn't have been Ray. He was dead. It was a freak accident. He was gone.

Alanna was on her feet in an instant.

"Stop!" She scrambled toward the door. "Stop the bus!"