Dean Koontz - Relentless

The possibility that I could mistake my luminous and slender Penny for the dour hulk of Shearman Waxx was so absurd that my disbelief dissolved. I broke my paralysis.

Suddenly my heart mimicked iron on turf, the frantic thud of racing horses’ heels. I hurried to the open door, hesitated at the threshold, but then crossed it. The hallway was deserted.

Waxx had been headed toward the back of the house. I followed the shorter length of the hall to the kitchen, half expecting to find him selecting a blade from the knife drawer beside the cooktop.

Even as that image crossed my mind, I was embarrassed by my near hysteria. Shearman Waxx would surely disdain such melodrama in real life as much as he scorned it in fiction.

He lurked neither in the kitchen nor in the adjacent family room that flowed from it. One of the French doors to the back patio stood open, suggesting that he had departed by that exit.

Standing in the doorway, I surveyed the patio, the swimming pool, and the backyard. No sign of Waxx.

That eerie stillness had befallen the world again. The water in the pool lay as smooth as a sheet of glass.

While I had been reading, gunmetal clouds had armored the sky. They did not billow, neither did they churn, but looked as flat and motionless as a coat of paint.

Because we lived in the safest neighborhood of a low-crime community, we were in the habit of leaving our most-used doors unlocked during the day. That would change.

Bewildered by Waxx’s intrusion, I closed the French door and engaged the deadbolt.

Abruptly, I realized that the critic might have done more than pass through the house. If he had left by the family room, he could have entered elsewhere—and could have done some kind of damage.

Engaged in strange science, Milo was upstairs in his bedroom with Lassie.

In her second-floor studio, Penny painted the wide-eyed, sharp-beaked owl that hunted the band of heroic mice in her current book.

Although the dog had not barked and though no one had cried out in pain or terror, my mind insisted on the most unlikely scenario, on bludgeoned heads and cut throats. Our modern world is, after all, full of flamboyant violence; as often as not, the evening news is as disturbing as any slasher film.

I climbed the back stairs two at a time.

Milo’s bedroom door stood open, and he sat at his desk, alive and beguiled by electronic gizmos that meant less to me than would ancient tablets of stone carved with runes.

On the desk, watching her master at work, sat Lassie. She looked up as I entered, but Milo did not.

“Did you see him?” I asked.

Milo, who can multitask better than a Cray supercomputer, stayed focused on the gizmos but said, “See who?”

“The man…a guy wearing a red bow tie. Did he come in here?”

“You mean the man with three eyes and four nostrils?” he asked, revealing that perhaps he had been more aware of my spy game at the restaurant than I had realized.

“Yes, him,” I confirmed. “Did he come in here?”

“Nope. We would have freaked if he did.”

“Shout if you see him. I’ll be right back.”

The door to Penny’s studio was closed. I flung it open, rushed inside, and found her at the easel.

So dimensional was the image of the villain owl that it seemed to be flying at me from out of the canvas, beak wide to rend and eyes hot for blood.

Certain that she knew the cause of my breathless entrance, Penny spoke before I could say a word: “Did the coffeemaker assault you or have you used the dishwasher again and flooded the kitchen?”

“Big problem,” I said. “Milo. Come quick.”

She put down her brush and hurried after me. When she saw Milo tinkering in peace and Lassie without hackles raised, Penny sighed with relief and said to me, “The punch line better be hilarious.”

“Stay here with him. Brace the door with that chair when I leave.”

“What? Why?”

“If someone asks you to open the door, even if it sounds like me, don’t open it.”

“Cubby—”

“Ask something only I would know—like where we went on our first date. He probably can’t imitate my voice—I mean, he’s not a comic-book supercriminal, for God’s sake—but you never know.”

“He who? What’s wrong with you?”

“There was an intruder. I think he’s gone, but I’m not sure.”

Her eyes widened as might those of a mouse in the sudden shadow of a swooping owl. “Call 911.”

“He’s not that kind of intruder.”

“There isn’t any other kind.”

“Besides, I might have imagined him.”

“Did you see him or not?”

“I saw something.”

“Then it’s 911.”

“I’m a public figure. The media will follow the cops, it’ll be a publicity circus.”

“Better than you dead.”

“I’ll be okay. Use the chair as a brace.”

“Cubby—”

Stepping into the shorter of the two upstairs hallways, I pulled the door shut. I waited until I heard the headrail of the straight-backed chair knock against the knob as she jammed it into place.

Dependable Penny.

Reason argued that a renowned critic and textbook author like Shearman Waxx was not likely to be a psychopath. Eccentric, yes, and perhaps even weird. But not homicidal. Reason, in its true premodern meaning, had served me well for many years.

Nevertheless, from a hall table, I seized a tall, heavy vase with a fat bottom and a narrow neck. Flat-footed athlete that I am, I held it as I would have held a tennis racket—awkwardly.

In addition to Milo’s quarters, this back hall served two small guest rooms, a bath, and a utility closet. Quickly, quietly, I opened doors, searched, found no one.

As I turned toward the longer of the two second-floor hallways—off which lay the master suite, Penny’s studio, and another bedroom that we used for storage—I heard a noise downstairs. The short-lived clatter rose through the back stairwell, from the kitchen, and the silence in its wake had an ominous quality.

Ceramic vase held high, as if I were a contestant in a Home and Garden Television version of a reality show like Survivor , defending my home with any available decorative item, I cautiously descended the stairs.

Waxx wasn’t in the kitchen or in the family room beyond. All appeared to be in order.

The swinging door between the kitchen and the downstairs hall was closed. I didn’t think it had been closed earlier.

As I eased open the door, I saw Waxx at the far end of the hallway, exiting my study on the right, crossing the foyer.

“Hey,” I called to him. “What’re you doing?”

He didn’t reply or glance at me, but disappeared into the library.

I considered calling 911, after all, but the nonchalance with which Shearman Waxx toured our house began to seem more weird than menacing. When Hamal Sarkissian called Waxx strange, he most likely meant eccentric.

In his reviews he assaulted with words, but that did not mean he was capable of real violence. In fact, the opposite was usually true: Those who trafficked in hostile rhetoric might inspire others to commit crimes, but they were usually cowards who would take no risk themselves.

Still armed with the vase, I followed the hallway to the foyer and pursued Waxx into the library.

In some higher-end Southern California neighborhoods, a library is considered as necessary as a kitchen, a symbol of the residents’ refinement. About a third of these rooms contain no books.

In those instances, the shelves are filled with collections of bronze figurines or ceramics. Or with DVDs. But the space is still referred to as the library.

In another third, the books have been bought for their handsome bindings. They are meant to imply erudition, but a visitor’s attempt to have a conversation about any title on display will inspire the host either to talk about the movie based on the book or to retreat to the bar to mix another drink.