Dean Koontz - (1989)

by Midnight(Lit)

  Simultaneously Godiva leaped forward, through the open door, into the

  night.

  "She's got a horse!" Tucker shouted.

  "She's on a horse!"

  The dapple-gray sprinted straight toward the meadowed slope that led to

  the sea a couple of hundred yards away, where the last muddy-red light

  of the sunset painted faint, speckled patterns on the black water. But

  Chrissie didn't want to go down to the shore because she was not sure

  how highh the tide was. At some places along the coast, the beach was

  not broad even at low tide; if the tide were high now, deep water would

  meet rocks and bluffs at some points, making passage impossible. She

  could not risk riding into a dead end with her parents and Tucker in

  pursuit.

  Even without the benefit of a saddle and at a full gallop, Chrissie

  managed to pull herself into a better position astride the mare, and as

  soon as she was no longer leaning to one side like a stunt rider, she

  buried both hands in the thick white mane, gripped fistfuls of that

  coarse hair, and tried to use it as a substitute for reins. She urged

  Godiva to turn left, away from the sea, away from the house as well,

  back along the stables, and out toward the half-mile driveway that led

  to the county road, where they were more likely to find help.

  Instead of rebelling at this crude method of guidance, patient Godiva

  responded immediately, turning to the left as prettily as if she had a

  bit in her teeth and had felt the tug of a rein. The thunder of her

  hooves echoed off the barn walls as they raced past that structure.

  - 25 "You're a great old girl!" Chrissie shouted to the horse.

  "I love you, girl."

  They passed safely wide of the east end of the stable, where she had

  first entered to get the mare, and she spotted Tucker coming out of the

  door. He was clearly surprised to see her heading that way instead of

  down to the ocean. He sprinted toward her, and he was startlingly

  quick, but he was no match for Godiva They came to the driveway, and

  Chrissie kept Godiva on the soft verge, parallel to that hard-surfaced

  lane. She leaned forward, as tight against the horse as she could get,

  terrified of falling off, and every hard thud of hooves jarred through

  her bones. Her head was turned to the side, so she saw the house off to

  the left, the windows full of light but not welcoming. It was no longer

  her home; it was hell between four walls, so the light at the windows

  seemed, to her, to be demonic fires in the rooms of Hades.

  Suddenly she saw something racing across the front lawn toward the

  driveway, toward her. It was low and fast, the size of a man but

  running on all fours-or nearly so-loping, about twenty yards away and

  closing. She saw another equally bizarre figure, almost the size of the

  first, running behind it. Though both creatures were backlit by the

  house lights, Chrissie could discern little more than their shapes, yet

  she knew what they were. No, correct that She knew who they probably

  were, but she still didn't know what they were, though she had seen them

  in the upstairs hall this morning; she knew what they had been people

  like her-but not what they were now.

  "Go, Godiva, go!"

  Even without the flap of reins to signal the need for greater speed, the

  mare increased the length of her stride, as if she shared a psychic link

  with Chrissie.

  Then they were past the house, tearing flat-out across a grassy fields,

  paralleling the macadam driveway, whizzing toward the county road less

  than half a mile to the east. The nimble-footed mare worked her great

  haunch muscles, and her powerful stride was so lullingly rhythmic and

  exhilarating that Chrissie soon was hardly aware of the rocking-jolting

  aspect of the ride; it seemed as if they were skimming across the earth,

  nearly flying.

  She looked over her shoulder and did not see the two loping figures,

  although they were no doubt still pursuing her through the multilayered

  shadows. With the muddy-red candescence along the western horizon

  fading to deep purple, with the lights of the house rapidly dwindling,

  and with a crescent moon beginning to thrust one silver-bright point

  above the line of hills in the east, visibility was poor.

  Though she could not see those pursuers who were on foot, she had no

  difficulty spotting the headlights of Tucker's blue Honda. In front of

  the house, a couple of hundred yards behind her now, Tucker swung the

  car.around in the driveway and joined the chase.

  Chrissie was fairly confident that Godiva could outrun any man or beast

  other than a better horse, but she knew that the mare was no match for a

  car. Tucker would catch them in seconds. The man's face was clear in

  her memory the bony brow, sharp-ridged nose, deeply set eyes like a pair

  of hard, black marbles. He'd had about him that aura of unnatural

  vitality that Chrissie sometimes had seen in her parents-abundant

  nervous energy coupled with a queer look of hunger. She knew he would do

  anything to stop her, that he might even attempt to ram Godiva with the

  Honda.

  He could not, of course, use the car to follow Godiva overland.

  Reluctantly Chrissie employed her knees and the mane in her right hand

  to turn the mare away from the driveway and the county road, where they

  were most likely to reach help quickly. Godiva responded without

  hesitation, and they headed toward the woods that lay at the far side of

  the meadow, five hundred yards to the south.

  Chrissie could see the forest only as a black, bristly mass vaguely

  silhouetted against the marginally less dark sky. The details of the

  terrain she must cross appeared to her more in memory than in reality.

  She prayed that the horse's night vision was keener than hers.

  "That's my girl, go, go, you good old girl, go!" she shouted

  encouragingly to the mare.

  They made their own wind in the crisp, still air. Chrissie was aware of

  Godiva's hot breath streaming past her in crystallized plumes, and her

  own breath smoked from her open mouth. Her heart pounded in time with

  the frantic thumping of hooves, and - 27 she felt almost as if she and

  Godiva were not rider and horse but one being, sharing the same heart

  and blood and breath.

  Though fleeing for her life, she was as pleasantly thrilled as she was

  terrified, and that realization startled her. Facing death or in this

  case something perhaps worse than death-was peculiarly exciting, darkly

  attractive in a way and to an extent that she could never have imagined.

  She was almost as frightened of the unexpected thrill as of the people

  who were chasing her.

  She clung tightly to the dapple-gray, sometimes bouncing on the horse's

  bare back, lifting dangerously high, but holding fast, flexing and

  contracting her own muscles in sympathy with those of the horse. With

  every ground-pummeling stride, Chrissie grew more confident that they

  would escape. The mare had heart and endurance. When they had

  traversed three-quarters of the field, with the woods looming, Chrissie

  decided to turn east ag
ain when they reached the trees, not straight

  toward the county road but in that general direction, and Godiva fell.

  The mare had put a foot in some depression-a ground squirrel's burrow,

  the entrance to a rabbit's warren, perhaps a natural drainage

  ditch-stumbled, and lost her balance. She tried to recover, failed, and

  fell, bleating in terror.

  Chrissie was afraid that her mount would crash down on her, that she

  would be crushed, or at least break a leg. But there were no stirrups

  to ensnare her feet, no saddle horn to snag her clothes, and because she

  instinctively let go of the dapple-gray's mane, she was thrown free at

  once, straight over the horse's head and high into the air. Though the

  ground was soft and further cushioned by a thick growth of wild grass,

  she met it with numbing impact, driving the air from her lungs and

  banging her teeth together so hard that her tongue would have been

  bitten off if it had been between them. But she was three yards away

  from the horse and safe in that regard.

  Godiva was the first to rise, scrambling up an instant after crashing

  down. Eyes wide with fright, she cantered past Chrissie, favoring her

  right foreleg, which evidently was only sprained; if it had been broken,

  the horse would not have gotten up.

  Chrissie called to the mare, afraid the horse would wander off. But her

  breath was coming in ragged gasps, and the name issued from her in a

  whisper "Godiva!"

  The horse kept going west, back toward the sea and the stables.

  By the time Chrissie got up on her hands and knees, she realized that a

  lame horse was of no use to her, so she made no further effort to recall

  the mare. She was gasping for breath and mildly dizzy, but she knew she

  had to get moving because she was no doubt still being stalked. She

  could see the Honda, headlights on, parked along the lane more than

  three hundred yards to the north. With all the bloody glow of sunset

  having seeped out of the horizon, the meadow was black. She could not

  determine if low, swift-moving figures were out there, though she knew

  they must be approaching and that she would surely fall into their hands

  within a minute or two.

  She got to her feet, turned south toward the woods, staggered ten or

  fifteen yards until her legs recovered from the shock of her fall, and

  finally broke into a run.

  Over the years Sam Booker had discovered that the length of the

  California coast was graced by charming inns that featured

  master-quality stonework, weathered wood, cove ceilings, beveled glass,

  and lushly planted courtyards with used-brick walkways. In spite of the

  comfortable images its name evoked and the singularly scenic setting

  that it enjoyed, Cove Lodge was not one of those California jewels. It

  was just an ordinary stucco, two-story, forty-room, rectangular box,

  with a drab coffee shop at one end, no swimming pool. Amenities were

  limited to ice and soda machines on both floors. The sign above the

  motel office was neither garish nor in the artistic mode of some modern

  neon, just small and simple-and cheap.

  - 29 The evening desk clerk gave him a second-floor room with an ocean

  view, though location didn't matter to Sam. Judging by the dearth of

  cars in the lot, however, rooms with a view were not in short supply.

  Each level of the motel had twenty units in banks of ten, serviced by an

  interior hall carpeted in short-nap orange nylon that seared his eyes.

  Rooms on the east overlooked Cypress Lane; those on the west faced the

  Pacific. His quarters were at the northwest corner a queen-size bed

  with a sagging mattress and worn blue-green spread, cigarette-scarred

  nightstands, a television bolted to a stand, table, two straight-back

  chairs, cigarette-scarred bureau, phone, bathroom, and one big window

  framing the night-blanketed sea.

  When disheartened salesmen, down on their luck and teetering on the edge

  of economic ruin, committed suicide on the road, they did the deed in

  rooms like this.

  He unpacked his two suitcases, putting his clothes in the closet and

  bureau drawers. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the

  telephone on the nightstand.

  He should call Scott, his son, who was back home in Los Angeles, but he

  couldn't do it from this phone. Later, if the local police became

  interested in him, they would visit Cove Lodge, examine his

  long-distance charges, investigate the numbers he had dialed, and try to

  piece together his real identity from the identities of those with whom

  he had spoken. To maintain his cover, he must use his room phone only

  to call his contact number at the Bureau office in L.A a secure line

  that would be answered with "Birchfield Securities, may I help yol-19 "

  Furthermore, in phone-company records that it was registered to

  Birchfield, the nonexistent firm with which Sam was supposedly a

  stockbroker; it could not be traced ultimately to the FBI. He had

  nothing to report yet, so he did not lift the receiver. When he went

  out to dinner, he could call Scott from a pay phone.

  He did not want to talk to the boy. It would be purely a duty call. Sam

  dreaded it. Conversation with his son had ceased to be pleasurable at

  least three years ago, when Scott had been thirteen and, at that time,

  already motherless for a year. Sam wondered if the boy would have gone

  wrong quite as rapidly or so completely if Karen had lived. That avenue

  of thought led him, of course, to the contemplation of his own role in

  Scott's decline Would the boy have turned bad regardless of the quality

  of the parental guidance that he received; was his fall inevitable, the

  weakness in him or in his stars? Or was Scott's descent a direct result

  of his father's failure to find a way to steer him to a better, brighter

  path?

  If he kept brooding about it, he was going to pull a Willy Loman right

  there in Cove Lodge, even though he was not a salesman.

  Guinness stout.

  Good Mexican food.

  Goldie Hawn.

  Fear of death.

  As a list of reasons for living, it was damned short and too pathetic to

  contemplate, but perhaps it was just long enough.

  After he used the bathroom, he washed his hands and face in cold water.

  He still felt tired, not the least refreshed.

  He took off his corduroy jacket and put on a thin, supple leather

  shoulder holster that he retrieved from a suitcase. He'd also packed a

  Smith Wesson .38 Chief's Special, which he now loaded. He tucked it

  into the holster before slipping into his jacket again. His coats were

  tailored to conceal the weapon; it made no bulge, and the holster fit so

  far back against his side that the gun could not be seen easily even if

  he left the jacket unbuttoned.

  For undercover assignments, Sam's body and face were as well tailored as

  his jackets. He was five eleven, neither tall nor short. He weighed one

  hundred and seventy pounds, mostly bone and muscle, little fat, yet he

  was not a thick-necked weightlifter type in such superb condition that

  he would draw attention. His face was nothing
special neither ugly nor

  handsome, neither too broad nor too narrow, marked neither by unusually

  sharp nor blunt features, unblemished and unscarred. His sandy-brown

  hair was barbered in a timelessly moderate length and style that would

  be unremarkable in an age of brush cuts or in an era of shoulder-length

  locks.

  Of all the aspects of his appearance, only his eyes were truly

  arresting. They were gray-blue with darker blue striations. Women had

  often told him that his were the most beautiful eyes they had ever seen.

  At one time he had cared what women said of him.

  - 31 He shrugged, making sure the holster was hanging properly.

  He did not expect to need the gun that evening. He had not begun to

  nose around and draw attention to himself; and since he had not yet

  pushed anyone, no one was ready to push back.

  Nevertheless, from now on he would carry the revolver. He could not

  leave it in the motel room or lock it in his rental car; if someone

  conducted a determined search, the gun would be found, and his cover

  would be blown. No middle-aged stockbroker, searching for a coastal

  haven in which to take early retirement, would go armed with a

  snub-nosed .38 of that make and model. It was a cop's piece.

  Pocketing his room key, he went out to dinner.

  After she checked in, Tessa Jane Lockland stood for a long time at the

  big window in her room at the Cove Lodge, with no lights on. She stared

  out at the vast, dark Pacific and down at the beach from which her

  sister, Janice, supposedly had ventured forth on a grimly determined

  mission of self-destruction.

  The official story was that Janice had gone to the shore alone at night,

  in a state of acute depression. She had taken a massive overdose of