Chapter One
The battered white van had made her uneasy.
Lara Gibson sat at the bar of Vesta's Grill on De Anza in Cupertino, California,
gripping the cold stem of her martini glass and ignoring the two young
chip-jocks standing nearby, casting flirtatious glances at her.
She looked outside again, into the overcast drizzle, and saw no sign of the
windowless Econoline that, she believed, had followed her from her house, a few
miles away, to the restaurant. Lara slid off the bar stool and walked to the
window, glanced outside. The van wasn't in the restaurant's parking lot. Nor was
it across the street in the Apple Computer lot or the one next to it, belonging
to Sun Microsystems. Either of those lots would've been a logical place to park
to keep an eye on her — if the driver had in fact been stalking her.
No, the van was just a coincidence, she decided — a coincidence aggravated by a
splinter of paranoia.
She returned to the bar and glanced at the two young men who were alternately
ignoring her and offering subtle smiles.
Like nearly all the young men here for happy hour they were in casual slacks and
tie-less dress shirts and wore the ubiquitous insignia o ... read full excerpt from: The Blue Nowhere ebook
