What the Night Knows

by Dean Koontz

  Nicky successfully finished the painting of the children. She hung it in the living room, where the baroque mirror once had been. She continued to imagine scenes and make them real, as she would until the end of her days.

  A year after they prevented Blackwood from keeping the hateful promise, John and Nicky flew back to John’s hometown, where he had not been for twenty-one years. For three days, they walked the streets that he had walked as a boy. The residence in which his lost family lived had been torn down, another built. It looked like a good house. Each day, they went to the cemetery where the four graves were side by side, and they spread a blanket to sit on the grass. Embedded in each gravestone was a porcelain medallion bearing a photo of the deceased. The sun had not faded them, nor had two decades of weather worn away the glaze. John found the faith to ask forgiveness for having failed them, and he felt forgiven. He no longer dreaded that a moment might come, after the world and outside of time, when he might see them again, because he was able at last to imagine that such an encounter would be about one thing and one only—love.

  At last at peace, he and Nicky flew home, where they belonged.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DEAN KOONTZ is the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers. He lives in Southern California with his wife, Gerda, their golden retriever, Anna, and the enduring spirit of their golden, Trixie.

  Correspondence for the author should be addressed to:

  Dean Koontz

  P.O. Box 9529

  Newport Beach, California 92658