Dean Koontz - From the Corner of His Eye

Clutching the purse as though determined to resist robbery even in death, the guy dropped, sprawled, shuddered, and lay still. He'd gone down with no shout of alarm, with no cry of mortal pain, with so little noise that Junior wanted to kiss him, except that he didn't kiss men, alive or dead, although a man dressed as a woman had once tricked him, and though a dead pianist had once given him a lick in the dark.

Her voice as bright as her bed ensemble, spiritual sister to baby chicks everywhere, yellow Angel raised her head from the pillow and said, “Will you have a wedding?"

“A wonderful wedding,” Celestina promised her, taking a pair of pajamas from a dresser drawer.

Angel yawned at last. “Cake?"

“Always cake at a wedding."

“I like cake. I like puppies."

Unbuttoning her blouse, Celestina said, “Traditionally, puppies don't have a role in weddings."

The telephone rang.

“We don't sell no pizza,” Angel said, because lately they had received a few calls for a new pizzeria with a phone number one digit different from theirs.

Snatching up the phone before the second ring, Celestina said, “Hello?"

“Miss White?"

“Yes?"

“This is Detective Bellini, with the San Francisco Police Department. Is everything all right there?"

“All right? Yes. What-"

“Is anyone with you?"

“My little girl,” she said, and belatedly she realized that this might not be a policeman, after all, but someone trying to determine if she and Angel were alone in the apartment.

“Please try not to be alarmed, Miss White, but I have a patrol car on the way to your address."

And suddenly Celestina believed that Bellini was a cop, not because his voice contained such authority, but because her heart told her that the time had come, that the long-anticipated danger had at last materialized: the dark advent that Phimie had warned her about three years ago.

“We have reason to believe that the man who raped your sister is stalking you."

He would come. She knew. She had always known, but had half forgotten. There was something special about Angel, and because of that specialness, she lived under a threat as surely as the newborns of Bethlehem under King Herod's death decree. Long ago, Celestina glimpsed a complex and mysterious pattern in this, and to the eye of the artist, the symmetry of the design required that the father would sooner or later come.

“Are your doors locked?” Bellini asked.

“There's just the front door. Yes. Locked."

“Where are you now?"

“My bedroom."

“Where's your daughter?"

“Here."

Angel was sitting up in bed, as alert as she was yellow.

“Is there a lock on your bedroom door?” Bellini asked.

“Not much of one."

“Lock it anyway. And don't hang up. Stay on the line until the patrolmen get there."

Junior couldn't leave the dead man in the hall and hope to have any quality time with Celestina.

Aftermath had a way of being discovered, often at the worst of all possible moments, which he had learned from movies and from crime stories in the media and even from personal experience. Discovery always brought the police at high speed, sounding their sirens and full of enthusiasm, because those bastards were the most past-focused losers on the face of the earth, utterly consumed by their interest in aftermath.

He jammed the 9-mm pistol under his belt, grabbed Ichabod by the feet, and dragged him quickly toward the door to Apartment 1. Smears of blood brightened the pale limestone floor in the wake of the body.

These weren't lakes of blood, just smears, so Junior could wipe them up quickly, once he got the corpse out of the hallway, but the sight of them further infuriated him. He was here to bring closure to all the unfinished business of Spruce Hills, to free himself from vengeful spirits, to better his life and plunge henceforth entirely into a bright new future. He wasn't here, damn it, to do building maintenance.

The cord wasn't long enough to allow Celestina to take the telephone handset with her, so she put it down on the nightstand, beside the lamp.

“What's wrong?” Angel asked.

“Be quiet, sugarpie,” she said, crossing the bedroom to the door, which stood only slightly ajar.

All the windows were locked. She was conscientious about them.

She knew that the front door was locked, too, because Wally had waited to hear the deadbolts clack shut. Nevertheless, she stepped into the hall, where the light wasn't on, walked quickly past Angel's bedroom, came to the entrance to the lamplit living room-and saw a man backing through the open front door, dragging something, dragging a dark and large and heavy rumpled something, dragging a Oh, dear sweet Jesus, no.

He had dragged Ichabod halfway across the threshold when he heard someone say, “No."

Junior glanced over his shoulder even as Celestina turned and fled. He caught only a glimpse of her disappearing into the inner hallway.

Focus. Get Ichabod all the way inside. Act now, think later. No, no, proper focus requires an understanding of the need to ize: scrutinize, analyze, and prioritize. Get the bitch, get the bitch! Slow deep breaths. Channel the beautiful rage. A fully evolved man is self-controlled and calm. Move, move, move!

Suddenly so many of Zedd's greatest maxims seemed to conflict with one another, when previously they had together formed a reliable philosophy and guide to success.

A door slammed, and after the briefest of internal debates about whether to ize or act, Junior left Ichabod straddling the threshold. He must get to Celestina before she reached a telephone, and then he could come back and finish moving the body.

Celestina slammed the door, pressed the lock button in the knob, shoved-rocked-muscled the dresser in front of the door, astonished by her own strength, and heard Angel speaking into the phone: “Mommy's moving furniture."

She snatched the handset away from Angel, told Bellini, “He's here,” threw the phone on the bed, told Angel, “Stay close to me,” ran to the windows, and jerked the drapes out of the way.

Commit and command. It doesn't matter so much whether the course of action to which you commit is prudent or hopelessly rash, doesn't matter whatsoever whether society at large thinks it's a “good” thing that you're doing or a “bad” thing. As long as you commit without reservation you will inevitably command, because so few people are ever willing to commit to anything, right or wrong, wise or unwise, that those who plunge are guaranteed to succeed more often than not even when their actions are reckless and their cause is idiotic.

Far from idiotic, Junior's cause was his survival and salvation, and he committed himself to it with every fiber of his body, with all of his mind and heart.

Three doors in the dark hallway: one to the right, ajar, and two to the left, both closed.

To the right first. Kick the door open, simultaneously firing two rounds, because maybe this was her bedroom, where she kept a gun. Mirrors shattered: a tintinnabulation of falling glass on porcelain, glass on ceramic tile, a lot more noise than the shots themselves.

He realized that he'd trashed a deserted bathroom.

Too much clatter, drawing attention. No leisure for romance now, no chance for a two-sister score. just kill Celestina, kill Bartholomew, and go, go.

First room on the left. Move. Kick the door open. The sense of a larger space beyond, no bathroom this time, and darker. Fan the pistol, gripping with both hands. Two quick shots: muffled cough, muffled cough.

Light switch to the left. Blinking in the brightness.

Kid's room. Bartholomew's room. Furniture in cheerful primary colors. Pooh posters on the wall.

Surprisingly, dolls. Quite a few dolls. Apparently the bastard boy was effeminate, a quality he sure as hell hadn't inherited from his father.