Dark Rivers of the Heart Read Free Page A

corner, into the rain, to the Explorer.
        Through the side window, Rocky watched him approaching. As Spencer opened the door, the dog retreated to the passenger seat.
        Spencer got in the truck and pulled the door shut, bringing with him the smell of damp denim and the ozone odor of the storm. "You miss me, killer?"
        Rocky shifted his weight from side to side a couple of times, and he tried to wag his tail even while sitting on it.
        As he started the engine, Spencer said, "You'll be pleased to hear that I didn't make an ass of myself in there."
        The dog sneezed.
        "But only because she didn't show up."
        The dog cocked his head curiously.
        Putting the car in gear, popping the hand brake, Spencer said, "So instead of quitting and going home while I'm ahead of the game, what do you think I'm going to do now? Hmmm?"
        Apparently the dog didn't have a clue.
        "I'm going to poke in where it's none of my business, give myself a second chance to screw up. Tell me straight, pal, do you think I've lost my mind?"
        Rocky merely panted.
        Pulling the truck away from the curb, Spencer said, "Yeah, you're right.
        I'm a basket case."
        He headed directly for Valerie's house. She lived ten minutes from the bar.
        The previous night, he had waited with Rocky in the Explorer, outside The Red Door, until two o'clock in the morning, and had followed Valerie when she drove home shortly after closing time.
        Because of his surveillance training, he knew how to tail a subject discreetly. He was confident that she hadn't spotted him.
        He was not equally confident, however, about his ability to explain to her-or to himself-why he had followed her. After one evening of conversation with her, periodically interrupted by her attention to the few customers in the nearly deserted lounge, Spencer was overcome by the desire to know everything about her. Everything.
        In fact, it was more than a desire. It was a need, and he was compelled to satisfy it.
        Although his intentions were innocent, he was mildly ashamed of his budding obsession. The night before, he had sat in the Explorer, across the street from her house, staring at her lighted windows; all were covered with translucent drapes, and on one occasion her shadow played briefly across the folds of cloth, like a spirit glimpsed in candlelight at a seance. Shortly before three-thirty in the morning, the last light went out. While Rocky lay curled in sleep on the backseat, Spencer had remained on watch ana other hour, gazing at the dark house, wondering what books Valerie read, what she enjoyed doing on her days off, what her parents were like, where she had lived as a child, what she dreamed about when she was contented, and what shape her nightmares took when she was disturbed.
        Now, less than twenty-four hours later, he headed to her place again, with a fine-grain anxiety abrading his nerves. She was late for work. just late. His excessive concern told him more than he cared to know about the inappropriate intensity of his interest in this woman.
        Traffic thinned as he drove farther from Ocean Avenue into residential neighborhoods. The languorous, liquid glimmer of wet blacktop fostered a false impression of movement, as if every street might be a lazy river easing toward its own far delta.
        Valerie Keene lived in a quiet neighborhood of stucco and clapboard bungalows built in the late fifties. Those two- and three-bedroom homes offered more charm than space: trellised front porches, from which hung great capes of bougainvillea; decorative shutters flanking windows; interestingly scalloped or molded or carved fascia boards under the eaves; fanciful rooflines; deeply recessed dormers.
        Because Spencer didn't want to draw attention to himself, he drove past the woman's place without slowing. He glanced casually to the right, toward