The Vision

The Vision Read Free

Book: The Vision Read Free
Author: Dean Koontz
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Thrillers, fiction suspense
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“Don’t leave the car.”
    “If I need you,” Barnes told Goldman, “you’ll come with me. No one will be hurt.” He was concerned that the woman was undermining his authority. He glanced at her. “We need a number for the house you’ve described, a street address.”
    “Don’t press,” her husband said sharply. With everyone but Mary he had a voice like two rough steel bars scraped against each other. “It won’t do any good whatsoever to press her. It’ll only interfere.”
    “It’s okay, Max,” she said.
    “But I’ve told them before,” he said.
    She faced front once more. “I see . . . the rear door of the house. It’s open.”
    “Where’s the man, the killer?” Max asked.
    “He’s standing in a dark room . . . small . . . the laundry room . . . that’s what it is . . . the laundry room behind the kitchen.”
    “What’s he doing?”
    “He’s opening another door . . . to the kitchen . . . no one in there . . . a dim light on over the gas range . . . a few dirty dishes on the table . . . he’s standing . . . just standing there and listening . . . left hand in a fist to stop the thumb from bleeding . . . listening . . . Benny Goodman music on a stereo in the living room . . .” Touching Barnes’s arm, a new and urgent tone in her voice, she said, “Just two blocks from here. On the right. The second house . . . no, the third from the corner.”
    “You’re positive?”
    “For God’s sake,
hurry!

    Am I about to make a fool of myself? Barnes wondered. If I take her seriously and she’s wrong, I’ll be the punch line of bad jokes for the rest of my career.
    Nevertheless, he switched on the siren and tramped the accelerator to the floor. The tires spun on the pavement. With a squeal of rubber, the car surged forward.
    Breathlessly she said, “I still see . . . he’s crossing the kitchen . . . moving slowly . . . ”
    If she’s faking all this, Barnes thought, she’s a hell of a good actress.
    The Ford raced along the poorly lit street. Rain snapped against the windshield. They swept through a four-way stop, then toward another.
    “Listening . . . listening between steps . . . cautious . . . nervous . . . taking the knife out of his overcoat pocket . . . smiling at the sharp edge of the blade . . . such a big knife . . . ”
    In the block she had specified they fishtailed to a stop at the curb in front of the third house on the right: a pair of matched magnolias, a winding walk, a two-story stucco with lights on downstairs.
    “Goddamn,” Goldman said, more reverently than not. “It fits her description perfectly.”

2
    Barnes got out of the car as the siren moaned into silence.
    The revolving red emergency lights cast frenetic shadows on the wet pavement. Another black-and-white had pulled in behind the first, adding its beacons to the cascade of bloody color.
    Several men had already climbed out of the second car. Two uniformed officers, Malone and Gonzales, hurried toward Barnes. Mayor Henderson, round and shiny in his black vinyl rain slicker, looked like a balloon bouncing along the street. Close behind him was whip-thin little Harry Oberlander, Henderson’s most vocal critic on the city council.
    The last man was Alan Tanner, Mary Tanner Bergen’s brother. Ordinarily, he would have been in the first car with his sister; but he and Max had argued earlier and were keeping away from each other.
    “Malone, Gonzales . . . split up,” Barnes said. “Flank the house. Go around it and meet at the rear door. I’ll take the front. Now move it!”
    “What about me?” Goldman asked.
    Barnes sighed. “You better stay here.”
    Goldman was relieved.
    Taking the .357 Magnum from his holster, Barnes hurried up the tile walk. The name “Harrington” was printed on the mailbox. As he rang the doorbell, the rain suddenly lost most of its power. The downpour became a drizzle.
    Alerted by the

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