media for the past six months. Perhaps he had saved lives in Italy,
France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, or in Pago Pago for all she knew.
The word “psychic” definitely was inadequate. Holly couldn’t even think
of a suitable one-word description of his powers.
To her surprise, a sense of wonder had possessed her, like nothing she
had felt since she was a kid. Now, an element of awe stole over her as
well, and she shivered.
Who was this man? What was he?
Little more than thirty hours ago, when she had seen the story about
young Nicholas O’Conner in Boston, Holly had known she was on to a big
story. By the time she examined the material that Newsweb found for her
she felt it might be the biggest story of her career, regardless of how
long she worked as a reporter.
Now she had begun to suspect that it might grow into the biggest story
of this decade.
“Everything okay?”
Holly said, “Everything’s weird,” before she realized that she had not
asked the question of herself The waitress-Bernice, according to the
name embroidered on her uniform blouse-was standing beside the table,
looking concerned. Holly realized that she had been staring intently at
her plate while she’d been thinking about Jim Ironheart, and she had not
taken a bite in some time.
Bernice had noticed and thought something was wrong.
“Weird?” Bernice said, frowning.
“Uh, yeah-it’s weird that I should come into what looks like an ordinary
coffeeshop and get the best blueberry pancakes I’ve ever eaten.”
Bernice hesitated, perhaps trying to decide if Holly was putting her on.
“You. . . you really like ’em?”
“Love them,” Holly said, forking up a mouthful and chewing the cold
sodden pancakes with enthusiasm.
“That’s nice! You want anything else?”
“Just the check,” Holly said.
She continued to eat the pancakes after Bernice left, because she was
hungry and they were there.
As she ate, Holly looked around the restaurant at the colorfully decked
out vacationers who were absorbed in discussions of amusements
experienced and amusements yet to come, and the thrill of being an
insider coursed through her for the first time in years. She knew
something they did not. She was a reporter with a carefully husbanded
secret. When fully researched, when written up in crystalline prose as
direct and yet evocative as Hemingway’s best journalism (well, she was
going to try for that, anyway), the story would earn front-page, top-of
the-page exposure in every major newspaper in the country, in the world.
And what made it so good, what made her tingle, was that her secret had
nothing to do with a political scandal, toxic dumping, or the other
myriad forms of terror and tragedy that fueled the engine of modern news
media. Her story would be one of amazement and wonder, courage and
hope. a story of tragedy avoided, lives spared, death thwarted.
Life is so good, she thought, unable to stop grinning at her fellow
diners.
First thing after breakfast, with the aid of a book of street maps
called the Thomas Guide, Holly located Jim Ironheart’s house in Laguna
Niguel.
She had tracked down the address via computer from Portland, by checking
the public records of real-estate transactions in Orange County since
the first of the year. She had assumed that anyone winning six million
dollars in a lottery might spend some of it on a new house, and she had
assumed correctly. He hit the jackpot-presumably thanks to his
clairvoyance-in early January. On May 3, he finalized the purchase of a
house on Bougainvillea Way. Since the records did not show that he had
sold any property, he apparently had been renting before his windfall.
She was somewhat surprised to find him living in such a modest house.
The neighborhood was new, just off Crown Valley Parkway, and in the
neat, well-landscaped, precision-planned tradition of south Orange
County. The streets were wide, gracefully curved, lined with young
palms and melaleucas, and the houses were all of compatible
Mediterranean styles with roofs in different shades of red and sand and
peach tiles. But even in such a desirable south-county city as Laguna
Niguel, where the per-square-foot cost of a tract home could rival that