Shadowfires

by Dean R. Koontz

  Shadowfires

  Dean R. Koontz

  A woman’s relief over the death of her husband gives way to mind-numbing terror in this shockingly suspenseful thriller.

  Rachael’s request for a quick and clean divorce enraged her husband. She had never seen Eric so angry, so consumed by pure and terrifying hatred. Then, in the heat of the moment, Eric was struck down in a traffic accident. His death was instantaneous. Shocked and relieved, Rachael had nothing left to fear. Until Eric’s body disappeared from the morgue — and Rachael was stalked by someone who looked like her dead husband…

  Dean R. Koontz

  Shadowfires

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Dick and Ann Laymon who simply can't be as nice as they seem.

  And a special hello to Kelly.

  Epigraph

  A gasp of breath,

  a sudden death:

  the tale begun.

  — The Book of Counted Sorrows

  PART ONE

  DARK

  To know the darkness is to love the light,

  to welcome dawn and fear the coming night.

  — The Book of Counted Sorrows

  1

  SHOCK

  Brightness fell from the air, nearly as tangible as rain. It rippled down windows, formed colorful puddles on the hoods and trunks of parked cars, and imparted a wet sheen to the leaves of trees and to the chrome on the bustling traffic that filled the street. Miniature images of the California sun shimmered in every reflective surface, and downtown Santa Ana was drenched in the clear light of a late-June morning.

  When Rachael Leben exited the lobby doors of the office building and stepped onto the sidewalk, the summer sunshine felt like warm water on her bare arms. She closed her eyes and, for a moment, turned her face to the heavens, bathing in the radiance, relishing it.

  “You stand there smiling as if nothing better has ever happened to you or ever will,” Eric said sourly when he followed her out of the building and saw her luxuriating in the June heat.

  “Please,” she said, face still tilted to the sun, “let's not have a scene.”

  “You made a fool of me in there.”

  “I certainly did not.”

  “What the hell are you trying to prove, anyway?”

  She did not respond, she was determined not to let him spoil the lovely day. She turned and started to walk away.

  Eric stepped in front of her, blocking her way. His gray-blue eyes usually had an icy aspect, but now his gaze was hot.

  “Let's not be childish,” she said.

  “You're not satisfied just to leave me. You've got to let the world know you don't need me or any damn thing I can give you.”

  “No, Eric. I don't care what the world thinks of you one way or the other.”

  “You want to rub my face in it.”

  “That's not true, Eric.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Hell, yes. You're just reveling in my humiliation. Wallowing in it.”

  She saw him as she had never seen him before, a pathetic man. Previously he'd seemed strong to her, physically, emotionally, and mentally strong, strong-willed, strongly opinionated. He was aloof, too, and sometimes cold. He could be cruel. And there had been times during their seven years of marriage when he had been as distant as the moon. But until this moment, he'd never seemed weak or pitiable.

  “Humiliation?” she said wonderingly. “Eric, I've done you an enormous favor. Any other man would buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate.”

  They had just left the offices of Eric's attorneys, where their divorce settlement had been negotiated with a speed that had surprised everyone but Rachael. She had startled them by arriving without an attorney of her own and by failing to press for everything to which she was entitled under California's community-property laws. When Eric's attorney presented a first offer, she had insisted it was too generous and had given them another set of figures that had seemed more reasonable to her.

  “Champagne, huh? You're going to be telling everyone you took twelve and a half million less than you deserved just so you could get a quick divorce and be done with me fast, and I'm supposed to stand here grinning? Christ.”

  “Eric—”

  “Couldn't wait to be done with me. Cut off a goddamn arm to be done with me. And I'm supposed to celebrate my humiliation?”

  “It's a matter of principle with me not to take more than-”

  “Principle, my ass.”

  “Eric, you know I wouldn't—”

  “Everyone'll be looking at me and saying, ‘Christ, just how insufferable must the guy have been if it was worth twelve and a half million to be rid of him!”

  “I'm not going to tell anyone what we settled for,” Rachael said.

  “Bullshit.”

  “If you think I'd ever talk against you or gossip about you, then you know even less about me than I'd thought.”

  Eric, twelve years her senior, had been thirty-five and worth four million when she'd married him. Now he was forty-two, and his fortune totaled more than thirty million, and by any interpretation of California law, she was entitled to thirteen million dollars in the divorce settlement — half the wealth accumulated during their marriage. Instead, she insisted on settling for her red Mercedes 560 SL sports car, five hundred thousand dollars, and no alimony — which was approximately one twenty-sixth of what she could have claimed. She had calculated that this nest egg would give her the time and resources to decide what to do with the rest of her life and to finance whatever plans she finally made.

  Aware that passersby were staring as she and Eric confronted each other en the sun-splashed street, Rachael said quietly, “I didn't marry you for your money.”

  “I wonder,” he said acidly and irrationally. His bold-featured face wasn't handsome at the moment. Anger had carved it into an ugly mask — all hard, deep, down-slashing lines.

  Rachael spoke calmly, with no trace of bitterness, with no desire to put him in his place or to hurt him in any way. It was just over. She felt no rage. Only mild regret. “And now that it's finally over, I don't expect to be supported in high style and great luxury for the rest of my days. I don't want your millions. You earned them, not me. Your genius, your iron determination, your endless hours in the office and the lab. You built it all, you and you alone, and you alone deserve what you've built. You're an important man, maybe even a great man in your field, Eric, and I am only me, Rachael, and I'm not going to pretend I had anything to do with your triumphs.”

  The lines of anger in his face deepened as she complimented him. He was accustomed to occupying the dominant role in all relationships, professional and private. From his position of absolute dominance, he relentlessly forced submission to his wishes — or crushed anyone who would not submit. Friends, employees, and business associates always did things Eric Leben's way, or they were history. Submit or be rejected and Destroyed — those were their only choices. He enjoyed the exercise of power, thrived on conquests as major as million-dollar deals and as minor as winning domestic arguments. Rachael had done as he wished for seven years, but she would not submit any longer.

  The funny thing was that, by her docility and reasonableness, she had robbed him of the power on which he thrived. He had been looking forward to a protracted battle over the division of spoils, and she had walked away from it. He relished the prospect of acrimonious squabbling over alimony payments, but she thwarted him by rejecting all such assistance. He had pleasurably anticipated a court fight in which he would make her look like a gold-digging bitch and reduce her, at last, to a creature without dignity who would be willing to settle for far less than was her due. Then, although leaving her rich, he would have felt that the war had been won and he had beaten her into submission
. But when she made it clear that his millions were of no importance to her, she had eliminated the one power he still had over her. She had cut him off at the knees, and his anger arose from his realization that, by her docility, she had somehow made herself his equal — if not his superior — in any further contact they might have.

  She said, “Well, the way I see it, I've lost seven years, and all I want is reasonable compensation for that time. I'm twenty-nine, almost thirty, and in a way, I'm just beginning my life. Starting out later than other people. This settlement will give me a terrific start. If I lose the bundle, if someday I have reason to wish I'd gone for the whole thirteen million… well, then that's my tough luck, not yours. We've been through all this, Eric. It's finished.”

  She stepped around him, trying to walk away, but he grabbed her arm, halting her.

  “Please let me go,” she said evenly.

  Glaring at her, he said, “How could I have been so wrong about you? I thought you were sweet, a bit shy, an unworldly little fluff of a girl. But you're a nasty little ball-buster, aren't you?”

  “Really, this is an absolutely crazy attitude. And this crude behavior isn't worthy of you. Now let me go.”

  He gripped her even tighter. “Or is this all just a negotiating ploy? Huh? When the papers are drawn up, when we come back to sign everything on Friday, will you suddenly have a change of heart? Will you want more?”

  “No, I'm not playing any games.”

  His grin was tight and mean. “I'll bet that's it. If we agree to such a ridiculously low settlement and draw up the papers, you'll refuse to sign them, but you'll use them in court to try to prove we were going to give you the shaft. You'll pretend the offer was ours and that we tried to strong-arm you into signing it. Make me look bad. Make me look as if I'm a real hard-hearted bastard. Huh? Is that the strategy? Is that the game?”

  “I told you, there's no game. I'm sincere.”

  He dug his fingers into her upper arm. “The truth, Rachael.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Is that the strategy?”

  “You're hurting me.”

  “And while you're at it, why don't you tell me all about Ben Shadway, too?”

  She blinked in surprise, for she had never imagined that Eric knew about Benny.

  His face seemed to harden in the hot sun, cracking with more deep lines of anger. “How long was he fucking you before you finally walked out on me?”

  “You're disgusting, she said, immediately regretting the harsh words because she saw that he was pleased to have broken through her cool facade at last.

  “How long?” he demanded, tightening his grip.

  “I didn't meet Benny till six months after you and I separated,” she said, striving to keep a neutral tone that would deny him the noisy confrontation he apparently desired.

  “How long was he poaching on,the Rachael?”

  “If you know about Benny, you’ve had me watched, something you've no right to do.”

  “Yeah, you want to keep your dirty little secrets.”

  “If you have hired someone to watch me, you know I've been seeing Benny for just five months. Now let go. You're still hurting me.

  A young bearded guy, passing by, hesitated, stepped toward them, and said, “You need help, lady?”

  Eric turned on the stranger in such a rage that he seemed to spit the words out rather than speak them, “Butt out, mister. This is my wife, and it's none of your goddamn business.”

  Rachael tried to wrench free of Eric's iron grip without success.

  The bearded stranger said, “So she's your wife — that doesn't give you the right to hurt her.”

  Letting go of Rachael, Eric fisted his hands and turned more directly toward the intruder.

  Rachael spoke quickly to her would-be Galahad, eager to defuse the situation. “Thank you, but it's all right. Really. I'm fine. Just a minor disagreement.”

  The young man shrugged and walked away, glancing back as he went.

  The incident had at last made Eric aware that he was in danger of making a spectacle of himself, which a man of his high position and self-importance was loath to do. However, his temper had not cooled. His face was flushed, and his lips were bloodless. His eyes were the eyes of a dangerous man.

  She said, “Be happy, Eric. You've saved millions of dollars and God knows how much more in attorneys fees. You won. You didn't get to crush me or muddy my reputation in court the way you had hoped to, but you still won. Be happy with that.”

  With a seething hatred that shocked her, he said, “You stupid, rotten bitch. The day you walked out on me, I wanted to knock you down and kick your stupid face in. I should've done it. Wish I had. But I thought you'd come crawling back, so I didn't. I should've. Should've kicked your stupid face in.” He raised his hand as if to slap her. But he checked himself even as she flinched from the expected blow. Furious, he turned and hurried away.

  As she watched him go, Rachael suddenly understood that his sick desire to dominate everyone was a far more fundamental need than she'd realized. By stripping him of his power over her, by turning her back on both him and his money, she had not merely reduced him to an equal but had, in his eyes, unmanned him. That had to he the case, for nothing else explained the degree of his rage or his urge to commit violence, an urge he had barely controlled.

  She had grown to dislike him intensely, if not hate him, and she had feared him a little, too. But until now, she had not been fully aware of the immensity and intensity of the rage within him. She had not realized how thoroughly dangerous he was.

  Although the golden sunshine still dazzled her eyes and forced her to squint, although it still baked her skin, she felt a cold shiver pass through her, spawned by the realization that she'd been wise to leave Eric when she had — and perhaps fortunate to escape with no more physical damage than the bruises his fingers were certain to have left on her arm.

  Watching him step off the sidewalk into the street, she was relieved to see him go. A moment later, relief turned to horror.

  He was heading toward his black Mercedes, which was parked along the other side of the avenue. Perhaps he actually was blinded by his anger. Or maybe it was the brilliant June sunlight flashing on every shiny surface that interfered with his vision. Whatever the reason, he dashed across the southbound lanes of Main Street, which were at the moment without traffic, and kept on going into the northbound lanes, directly into the path of a city garbage truck that was doing forty miles an hour.

  Too late, Rachael screamed a warning.

  The driver tramped his brake pedal to the floorboards. But the shriek of the truck's locked wheels came almost simultaneously with the sickening sound of impact.

  Eric was hurled into the air and thrown back into the southbound lanes as if by the concussion wave of a bomb blast. He crashed into the pavement and tumbled twenty feet, stiffly at first, then with a horrible looseness, as if he were constructed of string and old rags. He came to rest facedown, unmoving.

  A southbound yellow Subaru braked with a banshee screech and a hard flat wail of its horn, halting only two feet from him. A Chevy, following too close, rammed into the back of the Subaru and pushed it within a few inches of the body.

  Rachael was the first to reach Eric. Heart hammering, shouting his name, she dropped to her knees and, by instinct, put one hand to his neck to feel for a pulse. His skin was wet with blood, and her fingers slipped on the slick flesh as she searched desperately for the throbbing artery.

  Then she saw the hideous depression that had reshaped his skull. His head had been staved in along the right side, above the torn ear, and all the way forward past the temple to the edge of his pale brow. His head was turned so she could see one eye, which was open wide. staring in shock, though sightless now. Many wickedly sharp fragments of bone must have been driven deep into his brain. Death had been instantaneous.

  She stood up abruptly, tottering, nauseated. Dizzy, she might have fallen if the driver of the garbage truc
k had not grabbed hold of her, provided support, and escorted her around the side of the Subaru, where she could lean against the car.

  There was nothin' I could do,” he aid miserably.

  “I know,” she said.

  “Nothin' at all. He run in front of me. Didn't look. Nothin' I could do.”

  At first Rachael had difficulty breathing. Then she realized she was absentmindedly scrubbing her blood-covered hand on her sundress, and the sight of those damp rusty-scarlet stains on the pastel-blue cotton made her breath come quicker, too quick. Hyperventilating, she slumped against the Subaru, closed her eyes, hugged herself, and clenched her teeth. She was determined not to faint. She strove to hold in each shallow breath as long as possible, and the very process of changing the rhythm of her breathing was a calming influence.

  Around her she heard the voices of motorists who had left their cars in the snarl of stalled traffic. Some of them asked her if she was all right, and she nodded, others asked if she needed medical attention, and she shook her head — no.

  If she had ever loved Eric, that love had been ground to dust beneath his heel. It had been a long time since she'd even liked him. Moments before the accident, he'd revealed a pure and terrifying hatred of her, so she supposed she should have been utterly unmoved by his death. Yet she was badly shaken. As she hugged herself and shivered, she was aware of a cold emptiness within, a hollow sense of loss that she could not quite understand. Not grief. Just… loss.

  She heard sirens in the distance.

  Gradually she regained control of her breathing.

  Her shivering grew less violent, though it did not stop entirely.

  The sirens grew nearer, louder.

  She opened her eyes. The bright June sunshine no longer seemed clean and fresh. The darkness of death had passed through the day, and in its wake, the morning light had acquired a sour yellow cast that reminded her more of sulfur than of honey.