Koontz, Dean - Dark Rivers of the Heart Read online

If it had been fixed or jalousied, he would have been trapped. Fortunately, it was a single pane that opened inward from the top on a heavy-duty piano hinge. Collapsible elbow braces on both sides clicked softly when fully extended, locking the window open.

  He expected the faint squeak of the hinge and the click of the braces to elicit a shout from someone outside. But the unrelenting drone of the rain screened what sounds he made. No alarm was raised.

  Spencer gripped the window ledge and levered himself into the opening. Cold rain spattered his face. The humid air was heavy with the fecund smells of saturated earth, jasmine, and grass.

  The backyard was a tapestry of gloom, woven exclusively from shades of black and graveyard grays, washed by rain that blurred its details. At least one man—more likely two— from the SWAT team had to be covering the rear of the house. However, though Spencer's vision was keen, he could not force any of the interwoven shadows to resolve into a human form.

  For a moment his upper body seemed wider than the frame, but he hunched his shoulders, twisted, wriggled, and scraped through the opening. The ground was a short drop from the window. He rolled once on the wet grass and then lay flat on his stomach, head raised, surveying the night, still unable to spot any adversaries.

  In the planting beds and along the property line, the shrubbery was overgrown. Several old fig trees, long untrimmed, were mighty towers of foliage.

  Glimpsed between the branches of those mammoth ficuses, the heavens were not black. The lights of the sprawling metropolis reflected off the bellies of the eastbound storm clouds, painting the vault of the night with deep and sour yellows that, toward the oceanic west, faded into charcoal gray.

  Though familiar to Spencer, the unnatural color of the city sky filled him with a surprising and superstitious dread, for it seemed to be a malevolent firmament under which men were meant to die—and to the sight of which they might wake in Hell. It was a mystery how the yard could remain unlit under that sulfurous glow, yet he could have sworn that it grew blacker the longer he squinted at it.

  The stinging in his legs subsided. His hands still ached but not disablingly, and the burning in his face was less intense than it had been.

  Inside the dark house, an automatic weapon stuttered briefly, spitting out several rounds. One of the cops must be trigger-happy, shooting at shadows or ghosts. Curious. Hair-trigger nerves were uncommon among special-forces officers.

  Spencer scuttled across the sodden grass to the shelter of a nearby triple-trunk ficus. Rising to his feet, with his back against the bark, he surveyed the lawn, the shrubs, and the line of trees along the rear property wall, half convinced he should make a break for it, but also half convinced that he would be spotted and brought down if he stepped into the open.

  Flexing his hands to work off the pain, he considered climbing into the web of wood above him and hiding in the higher bowers. Useless, of course. They would find him in the tree, because they would not admit to his escape until they had searched every shadow and cloak of greenery, both high and low.

  In the bungalow: voices, a door slamming, not even a pretense of stealth and caution any longer, not after the precipitous gunfire. Still no lights.

  Time was running out.

  Arrest, revelation, the glare of videocam lights, reporters shouting questions. Intolerable.

  He silently cursed himself for being so indecisive.

  Rain rattled the leaves above.

  Newspaper stories, magazine spreads, the hateful past alive again, the gaping stares of thoughtless strangers to whom he would be the walking, breathing equivalent of a spectacular train wreck.

  His booming heart counted cadence for the ever quickening march of his fear.

  He could not move. Paralyzed.

  Paralysis served him well, however, when a man dressed in black crept past the tree, holding a weapon that resembled an Uzi. Though he was no more than two strides from Spencer, the guy was focused on the house, ready if his quarry crashed through a window into the night, unaware that the very fugitive he sought was within reach. Then the man saw the open window at the bathroom, and he froze.

  Spencer was moving before his target began to turn. Anyone with SWAT-team training—whether local cop or federal agent—would not go down easily. The only chance of taking the guy quickly and quietly was to hit him hard while he was in the grip of surprise.

  Spencer rammed his right knee into the cop's crotch, putting everything he had behind it, trying to lift the guy off the ground.

  Some special-forces officers wore jockstraps with aluminum cups on every enter-and-subdue operation, as surely as they wore bullet-resistant Kevlar body jackets or vests. This one was unprotected. He exhaled explosively, a sound that wouldn't have carried ten feet in the rainy night.

  Even as Spencer was driving his knee upward, he seized the automatic weapon with both hands, wrenching it violently clockwise. It twisted out of the other man's grasp before he could convulsively squeeze off a burst of warning fire.

  The gunman fell backward on the wet grass. Spencer dropped atop him, carried forward by momentum.

  Though the cop tried to cry out, the agony of that intimate blow had robbed him of his voice. He couldn't even inhale.

  Spencer could have slammed the weapon—a compact submachine gun, judging by the feel of it—into his adversary's throat, crushing his windpipe, asphyxiating him on his own blood. A blow to the face would have shattered the nose and driven splinters of bone into the brain.

  But he didn't want to kill or seriously injure anyone. He just needed time to get the hell out of there. He hammered the gun against the cop's temple, half checking the blow but knocking the poor bastard unconscious.

  The guy was wearing night-vision goggles. The SWAT team was conducting a night stalk with full technological assistance, which was why no lights had come on in the house. They had the vision of cats, and Spencer was the mouse.

  He rolled onto the grass, rose into a crouch, clutching the submachine gun in both hands. It was an Uzi: He recognized the shape and heft of it. He swept the muzzle left and right, anticipating the charge of another adversary. No one came at him.

  Perhaps five seconds had passed since the man in black had crept past the ficus tree.

  Spencer sprinted across the lawn, away from the bungalow, into flowers and shrubs. Greenery lashed his legs. Woody azaleas poked his calves, snagged his jeans.

  He dropped the Uzi. He wasn't going to shoot at anyone. Even if it meant being taken into custody and exposed to the news media, he would surrender rather than use the gun.

  He waded through the shrubs, between two trees, past a eugenia with phosphorescent white blossoms, and reached the property wall.

  He was as good as gone. If they spotted him now, they wouldn't shoot him in the back. They'd shout a warning, identify themselves, order him to freeze, and come after him, but they wouldn't shoot.

  The stucco-sheathed, concrete-block wall was six feet high, capped with bull-nose bricks that were slippery with rain. He got a grip, pulled himself up, scrabbling at the stucco with the toes of his athletic shoes.

  As he slid onto the top of the wall, belly against the cold bricks, and drew up his legs, gunfire erupted behind him. Bullets smacked into the concrete blocks, so close that chips of stucco sprayed his face.

  Nobody shouted a goddamned warning.

  He rolled off the wall into the neighboring property, and automatic weapons chattered again—a longer burst than before.

  Submachine guns in a residential neighborhood. Craziness. What the hell kind of cops were these?

  He fell into a tangle of rosebushes. It was winter; the roses had been pruned; even in the colder months, however, the California climate was sufficiently mild to encourage some growth, and thorny trailers snared his clothes, pricked his skin.

  Voices, flat and strange, muffled by the static of the rain, came from beyond the wall: "This way, back here, come on!"

  Spencer sprang to his feet and flailed throug
h the rose brambles. A spiny trailer scraped the unscarred side of his face and curled around his head as if intent on fitting him with a crown, and he broke free only at the cost of punctured hands.

  He was in the backyard of another house. Lights in some of the ground-floor rooms. A face at a rain-jeweled window. A young girl. Spencer had the terrible feeling that he'd be putting her in mortal jeopardy if he didn't get out of there before his pursuers arrived.

  * * *

  After negotiating a maze of yards, block walls, wrought iron fences, cul-de-sacs, and service alleys, never sure if he had lost his pursuers or if they were, in fact, at his heels, Spencer found the street on which he had parked the Explorer. He ran to it and jerked on the door.

  Locked, of course.

  He fumbled in his pockets for the keys. Couldn't find them. He hoped to God he hadn't lost them along the way.

  Rocky was watching him through the driver's window. Apparently he found Spencer's frantic search amusing. He was grinning.

  Spencer glanced back along the rain-swept street. Deserted.

  One more pocket. Yes. He pressed the deactivating button on the key chain. The security system issued an electronic bleat, the locks popped open, and he clambered into the truck.

  As he tried to start the engine, the keys slipped through his wet fingers and fell to the floor.

  "Damn!"

  Reacting to his master's fear, no longer amused, Rocky huddled timidly in the corner formed by the passenger seat and the door. He made a thin, interrogatory sound of concern.

  Though Spencer's hands tingled from the rubber pellets that had stung them, they were no longer numb. Yet he fumbled after the keys for what seemed an age.

  Maybe it was best to lie on the seats, out of sight, and keep Rocky below window level. Wait for the cops to come . . . and go. If they arrived just as he was pulling away from the curb, they would suspect he was the one who had been in Valerie's house, and they would stop him one way or another.

  On the other hand, he had stumbled into a major operation with a lot of manpower. They weren't going to give up easily. While he was hiding in the truck, they might cordon off the area and initiate a house-to-house search. They would also inspect parked cars as best they could, peering in windows; he would be pinned by a flashlight beam, trapped in his own vehicle.

  The engine started with a roar.

  He popped the hand brake, shifted gears, and pulled away from the curb, switching on windshield wipers and headlights as he went. He had parked near the corner, so he hung a U-turn.

  He glanced at the rearview mirror, the side mirror. No armed men in black uniforms.

  A couple of cars sped through the intersection, heading south on the other avenue. Plumes of spray fanned behind them.

  Without even pausing at the stop sign, Spencer turned right and entered the southbound flow of traffic, away from Valerie's neighborhood. He resisted the urge to tramp the accelerator into the floorboards. He couldn't risk being stopped for speeding.

  "What the hell?" he asked shakily.

  The dog replied with a soft whine.

  "What's she done, why're they after her?"

  Water trickled down his brow into his eyes. He was soaked. He shook his head, and a spray of cold water flew from his hair, spattering the dashboard, the upholstery, and the dog.

  Rocky flinched.

  Spencer turned up the heater.

  He drove five blocks and made two changes of direction before he began to feel safe.

  "Who is she? What the hell has she done?"

  Rocky had adopted his master's change of mood. He no longer huddled in the corner. Having resumed his vigilant posture in the center of his seat, he was wary but not fearful. He divided his attention between the storm-drenched city ahead and Spencer, favoring the former with guarded anticipation and the latter with a cocked-head expression of puzzlement.

  "Jesus, what was I doing there anyway?" Spencer wondered aloud.

  Though bathed in hot air from the dashboard vents, he continued to shiver. Part of his chill had nothing to do with being rain-soaked, and no quantity of heat could dispel it.

  "Didn't belong there, shouldn't have gone. Do you have a clue what I was doing in that place, pal? Hmmmm? Because I sure as hell don't. That was stupid."

  He reduced speed to negotiate a flooded intersection, where an armada of trash was adrift on the dirty water.

  His face felt hot. He glanced at Rocky.

  He had just lied to the dog.

  Long ago he had sworn never to lie to himself. He kept that oath only somewhat more faithfully than the average drunkard kept his New Year's Eve resolution never to allow demon rum to touch his lips again. In fact, he probably indulged in less self-delusion and self-deception than most people did, but he could not claim, with a straight face, that he invariably told himself the truth. Or even that he invariably wanted to hear it. What it came down to was that he tried always to be truthful with himself, but he often accepted a half-truth and a wink instead of the real thing—and he could live comfortably with whatever omission the wink implied.

  But he never lied to the dog.

  Never.

  Theirs was the only entirely honest relationship that Spencer had ever known; therefore, it was special to him. No. More than merely special. Sacred.

  Rocky, with his hugely expressive eyes and guileless heart, with his body language and his soul-revealing tail, was incapable of deceit. If he'd been able to talk, he would have been perfectly ingenuous because he was a perfect innocent. Lying to the dog was worse than lying to a small child. Hell, he wouldn't have felt as bad if he had lied to God, because God unquestionably expected less of him than did poor Rocky.

  Never lie to the dog.

  "Okay," he said, braking for a red traffic light, "so I know why I went to her house. I know what I was looking for."

  Rocky regarded him with interest.

  "You want me to say it, huh?"

  The dog waited.

  "That's important to you, is it—for me to say it?"

  The dog chuffed, licked his chops, cocked his head.

  "All right. I went to her house because—"

  The dog stared.

  "—because she's a very nice-looking woman."

  The rain drummed. The windshield wipers thumped.

  "Okay, she's pretty but she's not gorgeous. It isn't her looks. There's just . . . something about her. She's special."

  The idling engine rumbled.

  Spencer sighed and said, "Okay, I'll be straight this time. Right to the heart of it, huh? No more dancing around the edges. I went to her house because—"

  Rocky stared.

  "—because I wanted to find a life."

  The dog looked away from him, toward the street ahead, evidently satisfied with that final explanation.

  Spencer thought about what he had revealed to himself by being honest with Rocky. I wanted to find a life.

  He didn't know whether to laugh at himself or weep. In the end, he did neither. He just moved on, which was what he'd been doing for at least the past sixteen years.

  The traffic light turned green.

  With Rocky looking ahead, only ahead, Spencer drove home through the streaming night, through the loneliness of the vast city, under a strangely mottled sky that was as yellow as a rancid egg yolk, as gray as crematorium ashes, and fearfully black along one far horizon.

  TWO

  At nine o'clock, after the fiasco in Santa Monica, east-bound on the freeway, returning to his hotel in Westwood, Roy Miro noticed a Cadillac stopped on the shoulder of the highway. Serpents of red light from its emergency flashers wriggled across his rain-streaked windshield. The rear tire on the driver's side was flat.

  A woman sat behind the steering wheel, evidently waiting for help. She appeared to be the only person in the car.

  The thought of a woman alone in such circumstances, in any part of greater Los Angeles, worried Roy. These days, the City of Angels wasn't the easygoing pla
ce it had once been—and the hope of actually finding anyone living even an approximation of an angelic existence was slim indeed. Devils, yes: Those were relatively easy to locate.

  He stopped on the shoulder ahead of the Cadillac.

  The downpour was heavier than it had been earlier. A wind had sailed in from the ocean. Silvery sheets of rain, billowing like the transparent canvases of a ghost ship, flapped through the darkness.

  He plucked his floppy-brimmed vinyl hat off the passenger seat and squashed it down on his head. As always in bad weather, he was wearing a raincoat and galoshes. In spite of his precautionary dress, he was going to get soaked, but he couldn't in good conscience drive on as if he'd never seen the stranded motorist.

  As Roy walked back to the Cadillac, the passing traffic cast an all but continuous spray of filthy water across his legs, pasting his pants to his skin. Well, the suit needed to be dry-cleaned anyway.

  When he reached the car, the woman did not put down her window. Staring warily at him through the glass, she reflexively checked the door locks to be sure they were engaged.

  He wasn't offended by her suspicion. She was merely wise to the ways of the city and understandably skeptical of his intentions.

  He raised his voice to be heard through the closed window: "You need some help?"

  She held up a cellular phone. "Called a service station. They said they'll send somebody."

  Roy glanced toward the oncoming traffic in the eastbound lanes. "How long have they kept you waiting?"

  After a hesitation, she said exasperatedly, "Forever."

  "I'll change the tire. You don't have to get out or give me your keys. This car—I've driven one like it. There's a trunk-release knob. Just pop it, so I can get the jack and the spare."

  "You could get hurt," she said.

  The narrow shoulder offered little safety margin, and the fast-moving traffic was unnervingly close. "I've got flares," he said.

  Turning away before she could object, Roy hurried to his own car and retrieved all six flares from the roadside-emergency kit in the trunk. He strung them out along the freeway for fifty yards behind the Cadillac, closing off most of the nearest traffic lane.