Simultaneously Godiva leaped forward, through the open door, into the
night.
"She's got a horse!" Tucker shouted.
"She's on a horse!"
The dapple-gray sprinted straight toward the meadowed slope that led to
the sea a couple of hundred yards away, where the last muddy-red light
of the sunset painted faint, speckled patterns on the black water. But
Chrissie didn't want to go down to the shore because she was not sure
how highh the tide was. At some places along the coast, the beach was
not broad even at low tide; if the tide were high now, deep water would
meet rocks and bluffs at some points, making passage impossible. She
could not risk riding into a dead end with her parents and Tucker in
pursuit.
Even without the benefit of a saddle and at a full gallop, Chrissie
managed to pull herself into a better position astride the mare, and as
soon as she was no longer leaning to one side like a stunt rider, she
buried both hands in the thick white mane, gripped fistfuls of that
coarse hair, and tried to use it as a substitute for reins. She urged
Godiva to turn left, away from the sea, away from the house as well,
back along the stables, and out toward the half-mile driveway that led
to the county road, where they were more likely to find help.
Instead of rebelling at this crude method of guidance, patient Godiva
responded immediately, turning to the left as prettily as if she had a
bit in her teeth and had felt the tug of a rein. The thunder of her
hooves echoed off the barn walls as they raced past that structure.
- 25 "You're a great old girl!" Chrissie shouted to the horse.
"I love you, girl."
They passed safely wide of the east end of the stable, where she had
first entered to get the mare, and she spotted Tucker coming out of the
door. He was clearly surprised to see her heading that way instead of
down to the ocean. He sprinted toward her, and he was startlingly
quick, but he was no match for Godiva They came to the driveway, and
Chrissie kept Godiva on the soft verge, parallel to that hard-surfaced
lane. She leaned forward, as tight against the horse as she could get,
terrified of falling off, and every hard thud of hooves jarred through
her bones. Her head was turned to the side, so she saw the house off to
the left, the windows full of light but not welcoming. It was no longer
her home; it was hell between four walls, so the light at the windows
seemed, to her, to be demonic fires in the rooms of Hades.
Suddenly she saw something racing across the front lawn toward the
driveway, toward her. It was low and fast, the size of a man but
running on all fours-or nearly so-loping, about twenty yards away and
closing. She saw another equally bizarre figure, almost the size of the
first, running behind it. Though both creatures were backlit by the
house lights, Chrissie could discern little more than their shapes, yet
she knew what they were. No, correct that She knew who they probably
were, but she still didn't know what they were, though she had seen them
in the upstairs hall this morning; she knew what they had been people
like her-but not what they were now.
"Go, Godiva, go!"
Even without the flap of reins to signal the need for greater speed, the
mare increased the length of her stride, as if she shared a psychic link
with Chrissie.
Then they were past the house, tearing flat-out across a grassy fields,
paralleling the macadam driveway, whizzing toward the county road less
than half a mile to the east. The nimble-footed mare worked her great
haunch muscles, and her powerful stride was so lullingly rhythmic and
exhilarating that Chrissie soon was hardly aware of the rocking-jolting
aspect of the ride; it seemed as if they were skimming across the earth,
nearly flying.
She looked over her shoulder and did not see the two loping figures,
although they were no doubt still pursuing her through the multilayered
shadows. With the muddy-red candescence along the western horizon
fading to deep purple, with the lights of the house rapidly dwindling,
and with a crescent moon beginning to thrust one silver-bright point
above the line of hills in the east, visibility was poor.
Though she could not see those pursuers who were on foot, she had no
difficulty spotting the headlights of Tucker's blue Honda. In front of
the house, a couple of hundred yards behind her now, Tucker swung the
car.around in the driveway and joined the chase.
Chrissie was fairly confident that Godiva could outrun any man or beast
other than a better horse, but she knew that the mare was no match for a
car. Tucker would catch them in seconds. The man's face was clear in
her memory the bony brow, sharp-ridged nose, deeply set eyes like a pair
of hard, black marbles. He'd had about him that aura of unnatural
vitality that Chrissie sometimes had seen in her parents-abundant
nervous energy coupled with a queer look of hunger. She knew he would do
anything to stop her, that he might even attempt to ram Godiva with the
Honda.
He could not, of course, use the car to follow Godiva overland.
Reluctantly Chrissie employed her knees and the mane in her right hand
to turn the mare away from the driveway and the county road, where they
were most likely to reach help quickly. Godiva responded without
hesitation, and they headed toward the woods that lay at the far side of
the meadow, five hundred yards to the south.
Chrissie could see the forest only as a black, bristly mass vaguely
silhouetted against the marginally less dark sky. The details of the
terrain she must cross appeared to her more in memory than in reality.
She prayed that the horse's night vision was keener than hers.
"That's my girl, go, go, you good old girl, go!" she shouted
encouragingly to the mare.
They made their own wind in the crisp, still air. Chrissie was aware of
Godiva's hot breath streaming past her in crystallized plumes, and her
own breath smoked from her open mouth. Her heart pounded in time with
the frantic thumping of hooves, and - 27 she felt almost as if she and
Godiva were not rider and horse but one being, sharing the same heart
and blood and breath.
Though fleeing for her life, she was as pleasantly thrilled as she was
terrified, and that realization startled her. Facing death or in this
case something perhaps worse than death-was peculiarly exciting, darkly
attractive in a way and to an extent that she could never have imagined.
She was almost as frightened of the unexpected thrill as of the people
who were chasing her.
She clung tightly to the dapple-gray, sometimes bouncing on the horse's
bare back, lifting dangerously high, but holding fast, flexing and
contracting her own muscles in sympathy with those of the horse. With
every ground-pummeling stride, Chrissie grew more confident that they
would escape. The mare had heart and endurance. When they had
traversed three-quarters of the field, with the woods looming, Chrissie
decided to turn east ag
ain when they reached the trees, not straight
toward the county road but in that general direction, and Godiva fell.
The mare had put a foot in some depression-a ground squirrel's burrow,
the entrance to a rabbit's warren, perhaps a natural drainage
ditch-stumbled, and lost her balance. She tried to recover, failed, and
fell, bleating in terror.
Chrissie was afraid that her mount would crash down on her, that she
would be crushed, or at least break a leg. But there were no stirrups
to ensnare her feet, no saddle horn to snag her clothes, and because she
instinctively let go of the dapple-gray's mane, she was thrown free at
once, straight over the horse's head and high into the air. Though the
ground was soft and further cushioned by a thick growth of wild grass,
she met it with numbing impact, driving the air from her lungs and
banging her teeth together so hard that her tongue would have been
bitten off if it had been between them. But she was three yards away
from the horse and safe in that regard.
Godiva was the first to rise, scrambling up an instant after crashing
down. Eyes wide with fright, she cantered past Chrissie, favoring her
right foreleg, which evidently was only sprained; if it had been broken,
the horse would not have gotten up.
Chrissie called to the mare, afraid the horse would wander off. But her
breath was coming in ragged gasps, and the name issued from her in a
whisper "Godiva!"
The horse kept going west, back toward the sea and the stables.
By the time Chrissie got up on her hands and knees, she realized that a
lame horse was of no use to her, so she made no further effort to recall
the mare. She was gasping for breath and mildly dizzy, but she knew she
had to get moving because she was no doubt still being stalked. She
could see the Honda, headlights on, parked along the lane more than
three hundred yards to the north. With all the bloody glow of sunset
having seeped out of the horizon, the meadow was black. She could not
determine if low, swift-moving figures were out there, though she knew
they must be approaching and that she would surely fall into their hands
within a minute or two.
She got to her feet, turned south toward the woods, staggered ten or
fifteen yards until her legs recovered from the shock of her fall, and
finally broke into a run.
Over the years Sam Booker had discovered that the length of the
California coast was graced by charming inns that featured
master-quality stonework, weathered wood, cove ceilings, beveled glass,
and lushly planted courtyards with used-brick walkways. In spite of the
comfortable images its name evoked and the singularly scenic setting
that it enjoyed, Cove Lodge was not one of those California jewels. It
was just an ordinary stucco, two-story, forty-room, rectangular box,
with a drab coffee shop at one end, no swimming pool. Amenities were
limited to ice and soda machines on both floors. The sign above the
motel office was neither garish nor in the artistic mode of some modern
neon, just small and simple-and cheap.
- 29 The evening desk clerk gave him a second-floor room with an ocean
view, though location didn't matter to Sam. Judging by the dearth of
cars in the lot, however, rooms with a view were not in short supply.
Each level of the motel had twenty units in banks of ten, serviced by an
interior hall carpeted in short-nap orange nylon that seared his eyes.
Rooms on the east overlooked Cypress Lane; those on the west faced the
Pacific. His quarters were at the northwest corner a queen-size bed
with a sagging mattress and worn blue-green spread, cigarette-scarred
nightstands, a television bolted to a stand, table, two straight-back
chairs, cigarette-scarred bureau, phone, bathroom, and one big window
framing the night-blanketed sea.
When disheartened salesmen, down on their luck and teetering on the edge
of economic ruin, committed suicide on the road, they did the deed in
rooms like this.
He unpacked his two suitcases, putting his clothes in the closet and
bureau drawers. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the
telephone on the nightstand.
He should call Scott, his son, who was back home in Los Angeles, but he
couldn't do it from this phone. Later, if the local police became
interested in him, they would visit Cove Lodge, examine his
long-distance charges, investigate the numbers he had dialed, and try to
piece together his real identity from the identities of those with whom
he had spoken. To maintain his cover, he must use his room phone only
to call his contact number at the Bureau office in L.A a secure line
that would be answered with "Birchfield Securities, may I help yol-19 "
Furthermore, in phone-company records that it was registered to
Birchfield, the nonexistent firm with which Sam was supposedly a
stockbroker; it could not be traced ultimately to the FBI. He had
nothing to report yet, so he did not lift the receiver. When he went
out to dinner, he could call Scott from a pay phone.
He did not want to talk to the boy. It would be purely a duty call. Sam
dreaded it. Conversation with his son had ceased to be pleasurable at
least three years ago, when Scott had been thirteen and, at that time,
already motherless for a year. Sam wondered if the boy would have gone
wrong quite as rapidly or so completely if Karen had lived. That avenue
of thought led him, of course, to the contemplation of his own role in
Scott's decline Would the boy have turned bad regardless of the quality
of the parental guidance that he received; was his fall inevitable, the
weakness in him or in his stars? Or was Scott's descent a direct result
of his father's failure to find a way to steer him to a better, brighter
path?
If he kept brooding about it, he was going to pull a Willy Loman right
there in Cove Lodge, even though he was not a salesman.
Guinness stout.
Good Mexican food.
Goldie Hawn.
Fear of death.
As a list of reasons for living, it was damned short and too pathetic to
contemplate, but perhaps it was just long enough.
After he used the bathroom, he washed his hands and face in cold water.
He still felt tired, not the least refreshed.
He took off his corduroy jacket and put on a thin, supple leather
shoulder holster that he retrieved from a suitcase. He'd also packed a
Smith Wesson .38 Chief's Special, which he now loaded. He tucked it
into the holster before slipping into his jacket again. His coats were
tailored to conceal the weapon; it made no bulge, and the holster fit so
far back against his side that the gun could not be seen easily even if
he left the jacket unbuttoned.
For undercover assignments, Sam's body and face were as well tailored as
his jackets. He was five eleven, neither tall nor short. He weighed one
hundred and seventy pounds, mostly bone and muscle, little fat, yet he
was not a thick-necked weightlifter type in such superb condition that
he would draw attention. His face was nothing
special neither ugly nor
handsome, neither too broad nor too narrow, marked neither by unusually
sharp nor blunt features, unblemished and unscarred. His sandy-brown
hair was barbered in a timelessly moderate length and style that would
be unremarkable in an age of brush cuts or in an era of shoulder-length
locks.
Of all the aspects of his appearance, only his eyes were truly
arresting. They were gray-blue with darker blue striations. Women had
often told him that his were the most beautiful eyes they had ever seen.
At one time he had cared what women said of him.
- 31 He shrugged, making sure the holster was hanging properly.
He did not expect to need the gun that evening. He had not begun to
nose around and draw attention to himself; and since he had not yet
pushed anyone, no one was ready to push back.
Nevertheless, from now on he would carry the revolver. He could not
leave it in the motel room or lock it in his rental car; if someone
conducted a determined search, the gun would be found, and his cover
would be blown. No middle-aged stockbroker, searching for a coastal
haven in which to take early retirement, would go armed with a
snub-nosed .38 of that make and model. It was a cop's piece.
Pocketing his room key, he went out to dinner.
After she checked in, Tessa Jane Lockland stood for a long time at the
big window in her room at the Cove Lodge, with no lights on. She stared
out at the vast, dark Pacific and down at the beach from which her
sister, Janice, supposedly had ventured forth on a grimly determined
mission of self-destruction.
The official story was that Janice had gone to the shore alone at night,
in a state of acute depression. She had taken a massive overdose of
Dean Koontz - (1989) Page 4