But true. A man just couldn’t sit down and say “I refuse to believe in lightning.” It didn’t make sense. You had to believe what your mind told you ... and his mind was telling him wild things.
It all fit. Hell, it fit with a perfection that was absolutely fantastic, but crazy enough to be the truth. Nick Danson, commercial artist, disappeared thirteen months ago and every police agency in the country can’t locate him. It was as if the earth had opened and swallowed him; but it hadn’t been the earth, it had been the sky. They had done it ... the Martians, or whatever the hell they were.
Why? Why steal a Terran?
To replace him? To send an alien being down to take the place of the Terran they had stolen. That took care of the confusion the watch had represented. For awhile it had looked as though Nick had piloted that space ship, but now Nolan [p87] knew better. It wasn’t Nick. It was an alien!
Beth!
Had an alien, posing as Nick, located Beth and was now engaged in using her to help in whatever they had come here to do? How many other Missing Persons cases were wrapped up in this thing? How many aliens were walking the streets of earth right now? To hell with that, Nolan, he roared at himself. The important thing is Beth. You’ve got to find out about this thing and stop it, before something happens to her.
He started the car, slammed it into gear and gunned it out onto the street, the tires screaming a protest...
[p89]
CHAPTER TEN
Janet was more than a beautiful woman and a good model. She was white heat and surging womanhood all dolled up in a body like that of a French movie star. She was as wanton as a Polynesian dancer and as demanding as a nympho. Lying there beside her relaxed nakedness, Nick Danson felt like another man - a tired one.
He laid his hand over the swelling rise of her breast and slid it down the flat velvet of her stomach. She made a small sound in her throat and kissed him on the cheek with lips like branding irons.