‘Why would they be worried about us?’
‘We’re such a troubled species, so confused, self-destructive. I think the aliens want to help us achieve enlightenment.’
‘By examining our genitals? Then those guys sitting ringside at nude-dancing clubs only want to help the girls on the stage to achieve enlightenment.’
From behind him, she reached around to his forehead, drawing light circles on his brow with her fingers. ‘You’re such a wise guy.’
‘I write detective novels.’
‘Maybe you’ve even been abducted,’ she said.
‘Not me.’
‘You wouldn’t remember.’
‘I’d remember,’ he assured her.
‘Not if the aliens didn’t want you to.’
‘Just a wild shot in the dark here – but I bet you think you’ve been abducted.’
She stopped massaging his brow and pulled him around to face her again. Her murmur fell to a conspiratorial whisper: ‘What if I told you there are a few nights when I’ve had missing hours, blank spots, where I just seem to have blacked out, gone into a fugue state or something. All abductees report these missing hours,
these holes in their memories where their abduction experiences have been erased or suppressed.’
‘Del, dear sweet loopy Del, please don’t be offended, please understand that I say this with affection: I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that you had a couple of these missing hours every day of the week.’
Puzzled, she said, ‘Why would I be offended?’
‘Never mind.’
‘Anyway, I don’t have them every day of the week -only one or two days a year.’
‘What about ghosts?’ he asked.
‘What about them?’
‘Do you believe in ghosts?’
‘I’ve even met a few,’ she said brightly. ‘What about the healing power of crystals?’ She shook her head. ‘They can’t heal, but they can focus your psychic power.’
‘Out-of-body experiences?’
‘I’m sure it can be done, but I like my body too much to want to leave it even for a short time.’
‘Remote viewing?’
‘That’s easy. Pick a town.’
‘What?’
‘Name a town.’
‘Fresno,’ he said.
With bubbly confidence, she said, ‘I could describe any room in any building in Fresno – where I’ve never been in my life, by the way – and if we drove up there tomorrow, you’d see it was just like I said.’
‘What about Big Foot?’
She put a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggle. ‘You’re such a goof, Tuong Tommy. Big Foot is bull-shit, invented by the tabloids to sell newspapers to gullible fools.’
He kissed her.
She kissed him too. She kissed him better than he had ever been kissed before. She had a talent for it, like throwing knives.
When at last he pulled back from her, Tommy said, ‘I’ve never met anyone remotely like you, Deliverance Payne – and I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.’
‘One thing’s for sure. If it had been any other woman who picked you up from your burning car, you wouldn’t have lived half this long.’
That was inarguably true. No other woman – no other person – he had ever met would have reacted with such equanimity when the demon had slammed against the window and fastened itself to the glass with its hideous sucker pads. No one else could have done the stunt driving necessary to detach the repulsive beast from the van – and perhaps no one else, even having seen the creature, would have accepted Tommy’s devil-doll story so unequivocally.
‘There is such a thing as fate,’ she told him.
‘I suppose there might be.’
‘There is. Destiny. It’s not written in stone, however. On a spiritual level, completely unconsciously, we make our destinies for ourselves.’
Bewilderment and joy swelled in Tommy, and he felt as though he were a child just beginning to unwrap a wonderful gift. ‘That doesn’t sound as totally crazy to me as it would have an hour or two ago.’
‘Of course, it doesn’t. I suspect that while I wasn’t looking, I’ve made you my destiny, and it’s beginning to seem as if you’ve made me yours.’
Tommy had no answer to that. His heart was pounding. He had never felt this way before. Even if he’d had a computer keyboard in front of him and time to think, he would not easily have been able to put these new feelings into words.