Rising Storm

still have believed in her innocence. She was that kind of friend.

'C'mon,' Di said, standing and snatching the paper out of her friend's hands.

'You can read this on the bus.'

There were a couple of policemen talking to a young, dark-haired woman as they entered the bus station. One of them glanced at Wendy and Di as they walked by. When they entered the Burger King he looked away. 'You've only got twenty-five minutes,' Di said, checking the clock.

'Then I guess I'd better skip the Whopper.' Wendy sighed. 'I'm not really all that hungry.'

'Get some fries, then,' Di suggested. 'And some orange juice.'

' There's a combination,' Wendy muttered. But she did as her friend suggested. It was easier, and she was too tired.

Glancing out the window, Di pointed. Wendy looked out and saw the cops talking to yet another dark-haired girl.

'Whaddaya think is going on?' Di asked.

Wendy shook her head. 'Maybe somebody ran away,' she suggested.

'Huh.' Di shrugged. 'Maybe they're trolling for dates.'

They looked at each other and grinned. Then they passed the next few minutes in eating and idle chatter.

As they walked to the bus bay for Boston, Di said, 'Y'know, you might want to think about reporting those guys. I'll back you about their invitation. I mean, you got away okay, but somebody else might not be so lucky.'

Wendy nodded. 'I know,' she said. 'I just can't right now. I still feel kind of sick and I just want to get to my own room. Y'know?' She looked up into her friend's sympathetic face and reached out for a good-bye hug.

'Excuse me, girls.'

They looked up to find themselves confronted by the police they'd noticed earlier.

'Could we ask you a few questions, please?'

'Sure,' Di said.

Wendy nodded, then she pointed vaguely toward the bus bay. 'My bus is boarding, though.'

Both looked at her as though expecting her to continue.

Wendy cleared her throat. 'Sure, what do you want to know?'

They wanted to know if Wendy and Diana knew who Ron Labane was, did they go to his speech, how did they feel about him, and most important, where had they been last night.

'Well, I went out clubbing,' Di said happily. 'But my buddy here got food poisoning and spent the night at the dorm yawning in Technicolor.'

For some reason the phrase sent a spasm though Wendy's stomach and she put her hand over her mouth, just in case.

'Sorry,' Di said, wincing.

'So you were by yourself last night?' one of the cops said. They both moved slightly closer to her.

'Well,' Di said, wincing again, 'I just couldn't… I mean, she was soooo sick.

She said it was okay if I went out. But I kept coming back to check on her, so it isn't like I deserted her.' She gave the cops a kind of an accusing look.

'How many times did you look in on her, miss?' the cop asked.

'Oh, I dunno. Four?' She'd changed clubs four times, so that seemed right. Di looked at Wendy.

'I think so,' Wendy said. 'I was kind of out of it.'

The cops looked at her. 'You do look a little pale,' one of them said.

'There's a flu going around Boston,' Wendy said, quite truthfully.

The cops moved back slightly. Just then the station announced the last call for her bus and Wendy pointed outside. 'I have to go,' she said.

The two policemen looked at each other. 'Okay, thanks for your cooperation.

We'll get your address from your friend here, in case we need to speak to you again.'

'Okay.' Wendy hugged Di. 'Thanks,' she said, meaning it. 'I'll call you later.'

'Yeah. I want to be sure you got home okay.'

As the bus pulled out Di was still talking to the police, but they were laughing at some joke she'd made. Except for the uniforms, they could have been any pair of young guys flirting.

Wendy read the paper as the roadside ribbons of urban sprawl, interrupted by occasional patches of woods, rolled by outside the grimy window of the bus.

Labane had made a call to the police to report that a young woman with long red hair had been stalking him, threatening him. He'd asked the police to investigate, but by the time they arrived at the inn he was already dead. Three high-caliber

gun shots to the head from close range, the coroner reported.

They're looking for me, Wendy thought. They just don't know it yet. But they'd find her name on the list of New Day show attendees, they'd find her name on the pledge list, she'd subscribed to the magazine, her name was all over his lists.

Just the way a stalker's would be.

She'd been well and truly set up by those guys.

Somewhere along the way she drifted off to sleep again. She came to with the bus driver giving her a gentle shake. 'Miss,' he said quietly. 'Miss.'

She looked into his fatherly face for a moment, confused. Then she asked, 'Are we there yet?'

He grinned. 'Yep. I came back to get something and I noticed you. You almost got a trip back to Amherst.' He raised his brows. 'Good weekend?'

She shook her head tiredly, then smiled. 'Memorable anyway.'

'Good for you,' he said. 'Make as many memories as you can.' He tapped his head. 'Supposed to be good for your brain.'

'I'll keep that in mind.' Wendy smiled as she slipped out of the seat.

'You got any luggage down below?' the driver asked.

She shook her head and pulled her duffel from the overhead rack. 'Just this.

Thanks.'

They made their way down the aisle and he waited for her to get off before he closed the door, then they said good-bye and went their separate ways. Wendy moved slowly through the crowd of travelers, still feeling groggy. She wandered out the front doors and stopped to look around.

John, she thought. The name brought her head up. Yes, John. He'd been running from the cops since he was, like… born! I need to talk to him.

Gripping the strap of her duffel, she turned on her heel to go back into the bus station to the bank of phones and ran smack into Yam's narrow chest.

'Hey!' she said, and gave him a one armed hug. 'Am I glad to see you!'

'Me, too,' he said. 'Keep walking, we've got to get out of here; the cops are looking for you.'

'Oh God,' she said. 'Already?'

'Yep, we're supposed to meet Snog at the Coop.'

Yam explained that they'd pooled their resources and come up with fifteen hundred in cash for her.

'Snog got to your computer; there wasn't anything there that needed to be erased, but we had to check. Did you leave any disks or anything around?'

'No. All my stuff is at the central drop.' She shook her head. 'I don't do written notes. At least not about that.' She was referring to the CPU John had given them.

'Good.' He gave her a brief, nervous smile. 'C'mon.'

Upstairs at the Coop they found Snog and Carl waiting for them at a corner table near the big windows that