Dark Rivers of the Heart: A Novel
Dean Koontz
Language: English
Pages: 576
ISBN: 0345533038
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Do you dare step through the red door? Spencer Grant had no idea what drew him to the bar with the red door. He thought he would just sit down, have a slow beer or two, and talk to a stranger. He couldn’t know that it would lead to a narrow escape from a bungalow targeted by a SWAT team. Or that it would leave him a wanted man.
But now Spencer is on the run from mysterious and ruthless men. He is in love with a woman he knows next to nothing about. And he is hiding from a past he can’t fully remember. On his trail is a shadowy security agency that answers to no one—including the U.S. government—and a man who considers himself a compassionate Angel of Death. But worst of all, Spencer Grant is on a collision course with inner demons he thought he’d buried years ago—inner demons that could destroy him if his enemies don’t first.
previously. Therefore, although that session was the longest and most ardent to date, they concluded before midnight. Thereafter, they lay chastely side by side on her bed, in the soft blue glow of indirect neon, each of them guarded by the loving eyes of the other’s reflection in the ceiling mirror. Eve was as naked as the day that she’d slipped into the world, and Roy was fully clothed. In time they enjoyed a deep and restful sleep. Because he had brought an overnight bag, Roy was able to get
shot her twice in the chest. A silencer was screwed to the barrel; both rounds made only soft popping sounds. Penelope Bettonfield dropped to the floor and lay motionless on her side, with her hands still entangled in the dish towel. Her eyes were open, staring across the floor at his wet, dirty galoshes. The Beatles began “Good Morning, Good Morning.” It must be the Sgt. Pepper album. He crossed the kitchen, put the pistol on the counter, and crouched beside Mrs. Bettonfield. He pulled off
yellow in the glow of the bug light, but he sensed that she was as pale as bleached bone. She stared at the closed door that led from the vestibule to the basement stairs. Nodding at it, she said, “He considered that, down there, to be part of his work?” “Nobody knows for sure. That’s what he seemed to imply. But he might have been playing games with the cops, the psychiatrists, just having his fun. He was an extremely intelligent man. He was able to manipulate people so easily. He enjoyed doing
hoping to learn something from the way in which the devices were linked. A fly crept along his left temple. He brushed impatiently at it. Not a fly. A bead of sweat. “What’s wrong?” Alfonse Johnson asked. He loomed at Roy’s side—abnormally tall, armored, and armed, as if he were a basketball player from some future society in which the game had evolved into a form of mortal combat. On the screen, the count had reached forty. Roy paused with his hands full of cables, listened to the whirrrrr,
attention to any malfunctioning recorder, she tested each unit to be certain that it was working. If even one disc or machine failed, the agency might lose information of incalculable value: Las Vegas was the heart of the country’s underground economy, which meant that it was a nexus of criminal activity and political conspiracy. Casino gambling was primarily a cash business, and Las Vegas was like a huge, brightly lighted pleasure ship afloat on a sea of coins and paper currency. Even the