Black Lightning - By John Saul Page 0,1

he knew.

Discreetly, he’d followed her.

She lived not far from the university, in an old Spanish-Moorish-style apartment building the man had always liked.

Afterward, he made a point of walking by the building every few days. He’d seen the woman several times, and nodded to her.

The dance had begun.

It had gone on for several weeks, the two of them circling around each other in a strange pavane that was almost like a courtship.

They began nodding to each other, then saying hello.

He had begun to absorb the routines of her life, and found her—as he found most people—to be pathetically predictable.

Today, for instance, being a bright and cheerful Sunday, he was almost certain the woman would take lunch in a bag and go to bask in the rare warmth on the lawn of the university, where she would pretend to be reading a book while actually watching for a man—nearly any man, he had discovered—to show interest in her.

Today he would be the man to show interest.

Today the dance would end.

He left his car at home that morning, taking the motor home he’d bought four years ago, when the study had commenced. Perfect for field trips, he often drove it into the mountains even on weekends when he wasn’t working on his research, parking it near any one of hundreds of babbling streams while he indulged himself in his only passion outside of his project: fly-fishing.

Today he drove the motor home up to the university, parked it in the nearly deserted depths of the cavernous garage, and locked it. Taking his own lunch and two bottles of lemon-flavored sparkling water with him, he climbed the stairs to the surface and started across the lawn toward the spot that was the woman’s favorite.

Half an hour later, after she’d consumed half the contents of the bottle of sparkling water he offered her, she frowned, then shook her head.

“Something wrong?” the man asked, his gentle voice freighted with benevolent concern.

“I—I’m not sure,” the woman replied. “Suddenly I feel—” She hesitated, then stood up. “I’d better get home!”

The man scrambled to his feet and began gathering both their things. “Maybe I should drive you,” he suggested.

The woman started to decline his offer, but a second later, changed her mind. He could see that the color had begun to fade from her lips.

“If you could …” she began, but then, feeling lightheaded and dizzy, her voice faded.

Gratefully, she accepted the man’s proffered arm and let him lead her down into the garage, where his motor home waited.

Even before he drove it out into the bright daylight, the woman had drifted into unconsciousness, and was now spread out on the sheet of plastic he’d placed on the floor.

He pulled out of the garage, went west two blocks, turned right up to N.E. 45th Street, and headed west to Interstate 5. Taking the highway south, he exited at Route 520, heading east toward Redmond.

After a while he wound up into the foothills, looking for the right spot.

Somewhere off the road.

Somewhere secluded.

Somewhere near a stream, so he could do a little fishing after his work was done.

Finally he found the spot: a narrow road, one he’d used before, but not for years. A half mile through the trees and he emerged into a clearing next to a fast-moving stream. He looked around.

He was alone.

Now he began his preparations.

First, he stripped naked, folding his clothes neatly and stowing them in the drawer beneath the queen-sized berth at the motor home’s rear.

After pulling on a pair of rubber surgical gloves, he covered the bed with a sheet of plastic and moved the unconscious woman onto it.

He continued working with the sheets of plastic, methodically lining the entire interior of the motor home; one of his prime rules when carrying out an experiment was that nothing must be contaminated.

Finally he was ready.

Undressing the woman, he gazed at her naked body for a few moments, savoring the life that seemed to radiate from it even as she slept.

Her breasts moved rhythmically up and down as she breathed, and when he lay his fingers gently on her neck, he could feel the pounding of her pulse.

He laid out the tools he knew he would need, then picked up the instrument he’d purchased the day before for this specific experiment, and squeezed its trigger.

It squealed shrilly as its blade began to spin.

The man began his work.

The blade of the cordless saw sliced through skin and flesh, parting the woman’s sternum in a single quick cut up the