Hulk Peter David (best motivational novels txt) 📖

father. It’s like—” She hesitated, and then pushed on. “—it’s like he suspects you of something.” The moment the words were out of her mouth, she wished that she could retrieve them, or pull them off the recording somehow. Quickly, to make certain that Bruce knew she didn’t believe him capable of any wrongdoing, she said dismissively, “Oh, I don’t know. I was so impatient, as always. I should have heard him out.”

Well, enough self-flagellation for one phone call. Trying to issue Bruce a warning, she said, “I just think they’re planning something, with the lab, with you. Just call me, okay?”

She terminated the call, and then the headlights of a vehicle appeared behind her. A car pulled up, and she was certain that her father had chased her down to tell her more lies about Bruce, to mess with her mind.

A red light was lit on top. It was a police car. Through a loudspeaker, she heard, “Are you in need of assistance?”

She rolled down her window, leaned out, and gave a high sign. Then she started up the engine and eased herself back onto the main road. The cop watched her go. It was very reassuring . . . and it was depressing to realize just how few reassuring sights there were left in the world anymore.

It was some hours later that she returned to her home. It hadn’t been an easy trip. There had been ambulances hurtling around, some sort of accident. And not just in one place; had affected different spots throughout the Berkeley area. Betty, with her supernaturally lousy luck, encountered at least three of them. She kept looking for signs of overturned cars or the similar sights that one routinely espied where disaster vehicles congregated, but there didn’t seem to be any.

Instead she saw trees knocked over, a fire hydrant smashed to one side that was spraying water skyward, stop signs bent in half, and busted up pavement. It was as if some sort of major storm had swept through in isolated areas and disappeared. She’d never heard of Berkeley being prone to tornadoes, but that certainly seemed the only reasonable explanation.

When she got home, she checked her machine. She heard one message from Glen and two from her father, both of which she promptly deleted without listening the moment she heard their voices. There was nothing from Bruce. Why was it that she kept hearing from the men she didn’t want to hear from, and the one man who meant anything to her couldn’t be bothered to pick up the phone, despite the clearly alarming nature of her previous call?

It was ridiculously late for Bruce to still be at the lab, but she tried him anyway. When that attempt failed, she called him at home. No answer there either.

Now she was truly starting to get worried. She went to bed, but didn’t manage to sleep for more than twenty minutes at a stretch before either worries about Bruce, her old nightmares, or the occasional ambulance siren woke her up.

By the time the sun rose, Betty wasn’t feeling much more rested than when she’d first gone to bed. It was earlier than usual, but she reasoned there was no point to hanging around trying to sleep anymore. So she showered and dressed and drove over to the lab—and found it in a state of utter chaos.

The entire area was choked off with emergency vehicles: ambulances, fire trucks, and more police cars than she thought existed in the entirety of Berkeley. She was only able to get within a couple of blocks before finally giving up and parking her car on a side street. She then ran as fast as her high-heeled shoes would allow before encountering some police barricades and a couple of stern officers who wouldn’t let her get any closer.

“But I work there!” she told them.

“Look, lady—” one of the cops began.

“That’s doctor,” she informed him archly.

He shrugged. “Fine. Look, Dr. Lady, until we get this sorted out, ain’t nobody working there.”

“What’s ‘this’? What happened?”

Then she spotted what appeared to be a gaping hole in the roof of the facility . . . and she felt a burst of alarm upon realizing that it was directly over the lab she shared with Bruce.

Suddenly a horrific scenario played itself out for her, one in which Bruce had been up late working and had inadvertently caused some sort of explosion that had—had—

She fought back rising panic. The cops weren’t being of any help. She could see some of the lab security guards, but they were far too distant to hear her calling to them. Even if they did hear, they probably wouldn’t be of much use. One of them was gesticulating wildly, holding his hands wide apart in the instantly recognizable gesture that indicated size. He was talking about something gargantuan, and getting clearly disbelieving looks from the police who were hearing the story. Maybe it was a huge explosion. Maybe . . .

She was accomplishing nothing by standing there and worrying herself sick. Instead she bolted back to her car, jumped in, peeled out, and sped toward Bruce’s house.

Betty’s mind was racing as she tried to determine just what she would do if she got there and discovered Bruce wasn’t home, because that would mean he was at the lab, and he might well be dead.

Arriving at his house some minutes later, she saw his bicycle was chained up outside as usual, so obviously he had come home. That thought calmed her somewhat as she got out, went to the front door, and knocked, at first tentatively, then briskly when no answer was immediately forthcoming. She wondered whether she should be angry or concerned even as she fished around in her bag for her ring of keys. She thumbed through them, found the one for Bruce’s house, and inserted it in the lock. Moments later she was poking her head into the house, calling, “Bruce?” cautiously.

No answer.

She entered, closing the door behind her,