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connection so you can feel their agony as their bodies get smashed.
        Bodies smashed. Now that's convenient, isn't it? What did she say? It was noisy and running at her, and too fast for her to get out of the way. Like a car or a train. Some kind of vehicle.
        That'll smash you up pretty good. Disfigurement. The gorgeous sister who always got the guys - maybe some guys you wanted for yourself - gets nailed by a car. The Playmate of the Year body turned to a broken pile of gore. Take that, you bitch. Now who's the pretty one?
        Bodie didn't like the way his thoughts were going. He turned the radio on. Dolly Parton, 'Singles Bars and Single Women'. He left the volume low to keep the Hound from disturbing Melanie.
        Maybe she'll fall asleep back there. Sleep, that knits the raveled sleeve of care. She could use it. A couple of hours of forgetting about her damned vision.
         Maybe we shouldn't have called.
        Especially her sister.
        That made it a whole lot worse, finding out that Pen wasn't home, either.
        Where was she? Maybe out at a movie or something. But maybe Pen had been notified of her father's accident and she'd left her place to be with him. At the hospital. At the morgue.
        Or the reverse: Pen the victim, her father the one called away from home.
        One way or the other. That's why nobody answered.
         I'm as bad as she is, Bodie thought. Face it, I'm half expecting the vision to turn out real.
        If it wasn't telepathy or something, it was a mental blowout and Melanie's running on a flat.
         For her sake, it better be real.
         You don't want that, either.
         What you've got here, old pal, is one of your basic no-win situations.
         Heads you've lost your dad or sister, tails you've lost your mind.
         Not me, Melanie. I'm just along for the ride.
         Don't you wish.
         She's part of me, like it or not. Her problems are my problems. It got that way, somehow.
        
***
        
        When he first saw Melanie, she was walking toward him with her books clutched to her chest, her head down, a frown on her face. It was a sunny Friday, late enough in the afternoon so that most classes were over and everyone around the campus seemed cheerful and relaxed. Everyone except this girl mourning over the cracks in the walkway.
        Bodie felt sorry for her. He also felt intrigued. She looked lovely, fragile - ethereal - and quite obviously down in the dumps.
        Badly in need of rescue.
        She was still several yards ahead of him, still gazing at the walk, and he knew she would pass him without looking up.
        So he fished a quarter out of his pocket. He gave it an underhand toss. It clinked on the concrete, bounced, landed on its edge and rolled in a crazy zig-zag toward the girl. Bodie knew, from the slight side-to-side motions of her head, that she was watching the quarter's approach. As it took a swerve to the right, she lengthened her stride. Her sandal slapped it flat. Her frown was gone when she raised her face and met Bodie's eyes. She looked rather satisfied with herself, pleased that she had succeeded in halting the runaway coin.
        'Thanks,' he said. 'It got away from me.'
        She didn't say a word. She was now looking edgy. Maybe feeling intimidated because she was a freshman - so obviously a freshman - and he was old enough to be a grad student or even an instructor. She took one step backward.
        Bodie crouched to pick up the quarter.
        She wore a knee-length skirt. She had slim, pale legs. They had no tan at all. Their whiteness made them seem blatantly naked.
        Bodie had a difficult time forcing his gaze away from them.
        He peeled the quarter off the sidewalk, and stood.
        The girl's face was red. One of her fine, black eyebrows was curled upward in a pretty good imitation of a question mark. Bodie guessed that she had