Dean Koontz - Ashley Bell

This is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2016

First published in the USA in 2015 by Bantam Books,

an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,

A division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Copyright © Dean Koontz 2015

Cover design by Richard Augustus © HarperCollins Publishers 2016

Cover photographs © Demurez Cover Arts/

plainpicture (main image); Shutterstock.com(wasps)

Dean Koontz asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Text design by Virginia Norey

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source Edition 9780007520350

Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780007520329

Version 2017-02-23

With much affection, this book is dedicated to

Susan (Allison) Cathers, my sister from another mother.

Thank you for thirty years of kindness and excellence.

She …

Hears the song in the egg of a bird.

—James Dickey, Sleeping Out at Easter

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Part 1: The Woman Who Intended to Marry a Hero

Chapter 1: The Girl Whose Mind Was Always Spinning

Chapter 2: Another Perfect Day in Paradise

Chapter 3: The Salon

Chapter 4: Searching for the Silver Lining

Chapter 5: Pet the Cat

Chapter 6: The Frightening Pace of Examination

Chapter 7: The Power of Cookies

Chapter 8: Hammered and Fully Prosecuted

Chapter 9: Into the Tunnel of Fate

Chapter 10: The Kind of Girl She Is

Chapter 11: A Time When She Believed in Magic

Chapter 12: Footsteps of a Man Unseen

Chapter 13: Young Again in Grief

Chapter 14: She Sat Up, Sat Up, Sat Up in Bed

Chapter 15: One Moment of Truth Among Many

Chapter 16: A Memory Inexplicable in These Circumstances

Chapter 17: In the Hours Before the Crisis

Chapter 18: Something Bad and Something Worse

Chapter 19: If Only It Were Just a Ghost

Chapter 20: A Condition of Complete Simplicity

Chapter 21: Half a World Away From Home

Chapter 22: What the Hell Just Happened?

Chapter 23: She Just Can’t Leave It Alone

Chapter 24: How Sweet It Would Be If It Could Be True

Chapter 25: Captain? Are You Up There, Captain?

Chapter 26: People of Sinister Intentions

Chapter 27: What She Did When She Didn’t Go Insane

Chapter 28: A Visit From the Doctor

Chapter 29: The Poison-Ivy Itch of Intuition

Chapter 30: Proud Collector of 10,000 Heads

Chapter 31: Crazy When You Least Expect It

Part 2: Girl With a Mission, Girl on the Run

Chapter 32: Solange st. Croix and the Butterfly Effect

Chapter 33: Waiting for the Wrong People to Show Up

Chapter 34: The I of the Needle

Chapter 35: A World and a Half Away

Chapter 36: Scrabblemancy

Chapter 37: Every Mama’s Babies Got to Pee

Chapter 38: Give Death a Kiss

Chapter 39: Love Call and War Cry

Chapter 40: Downhill, Over the Edge, Into Chaos

Chapter 41: The Warrior Olaf and His Valkyrie

Chapter 42: The Book of Leaping Panther and Gazelle

Chapter 43: Three Days in a Locked Room

Chapter 44: Adjusting to Paranoia

Chapter 45: No Haven From Her Enemies

Part 3: From Time to Time the World Goes Mad

Chapter 46: Where She Went When She Couldn’t Go Home Again

Chapter 47: Night Visitors

Chapter 48: Extraction

Chapter 49: The Man Who Borrowed the Names of Death

Chapter 50: Fog and the Fog of Time

Chapter 51: Thunder Crusher

Chapter 52: Going Home With the Dead

Chapter 53: Walk the Board, Dudette

Chapter 54: A Taste of the Caterpillar’s Mushroom?

Chapter 55: The Photograph

Chapter 56: Out of Chaos, Conviction

Part 4: Putting the Pieces Together at the Risk of Falling Apart

Chapter 57: Breakfast With a Side of Surprise

Chapter 58: Off the Grid

Chapter 59: The First to Recognize Her Talent

Chapter 60: The Panther of Lost Time

Chapter 61: As I Lay Dying

Chapter 62: A Smile From the Past

Chapter 63: Sleeping on a Sea of Troubles

Chapter 64: A Literary Lion’s Den

Chapter 65: Silence Like a Cancer Grows

Chapter 66: He Who Would Rather Die Than Share

Chapter 67: A Little Time to Chill

Chapter 68: A Man, a Dog, a Moment

Chapter 69: Cash, Key, and Contact

Chapter 70: Cookies, Tea, and Dark History

Chapter 71: An Old Woman With a Junk-Shop Memory

Chapter 72: Questions Not Asked

Chapter 73: Just Before the Swarm

Chapter 74: Hermione, Hermione, and the Men in Black

Chapter 75: Girls, Thugs, and the Remade Woman

Chapter 76: Two Dead Girls

Chapter 77: The Collar That Restrains Her

Chapter 78: In Hiding From a Nonexistent Husband

Chapter 79: Paxton Reflecting

Chapter 80: The Truth She Dares Not Face

Chapter 81: The Ultimate Traitor

Part 5: Out of the Ashes of Memory

Chapter 82: Returning to the Place That She Called Evil

Chapter 83: What Do You Need Most?

Chapter 84: While Waiting for an Eskimo Pie

Chapter 85: The Library of Babel

Chapter 86: To Break Her Spirit

Chapter 87: No Dragons, no Skulls, no Hearts

Part 6: The Girl Who Was and Wasn’t There

Chapter 88: The Best Western That Wasn’t

Chapter 89: Master of Her Fate, Captain of Her Soul

Chapter 90: The First Shock of Three

Chapter 91: The Second Shock of Three

Chapter 92: The Third Shock of Three

Chapter 93: Heart to Heart in a Desperate Hour

Part 7: Two Girls Needing to Be Found

Chapter 94: The Girl We Only Think We Know

Chapter 95: A Familiar House Never Seen Before

Chapter 96: The Box of Ordinary Things

Chapter 97: Where Shadows Live Their Shadow Lives

Chapter 98: A Little Trove of Traumas

Chapter 99: The Girl Who Loved Horses

Chapter 100: The Clock, the Watch, and the Ovens

Chapter 101: Devious and Numerous

Chapter 102: The Wicked Witch Lets Her Hair Down

Chapter 103: Valiant Girls Do Not Go Mad

Chapter 104: Boozer, Baker, Starmaker

Chapter 105: The Passenger

Chapter 106: A Father’s Intuition

Chapter 107: By the Skin of Their Teeth

Chapter 108: The Enduring Chill

Part 8: Bibi to Bell

Chapter 109: The Eight-Fingered Waitress and the Possibility of Death

Chapter 110: The Girl in Need of Discipline