Mr. Murder. By: Dean R. Koontz

pair of deep sinks. Everything is clean and pleasant under the

fluorescent lights.

He takes off the raincoat and the grossly soiled flannel shirt. He wads

up both the shirt and the coat and stuffs them into a large trash can

that stands in one corner.

His chest is unmarked by bullet wounds. He doesn’t need to look at his

back to know that the single exit wound is also healed.

He washes his armpits at one of the laundry sinks and dries with paper

towels taken from a wall dispenser.

He looks forward to taking a long hot shower before the day is done, in

his own bathroom, in his own home. Once he has located the false father

and killed him, once he has recovered his family, he will have time for

simple pleasures. Paige will shower with him.

She will enjoy that.

If necessary, he could take off his jeans and wash them in one of the

laundry-room machines, using coins taken from the owner of the Buick.

But when he scrapes the crusted food off the denim with his fingernails

and works at the few stains with damp paper towels, the result is

satisfactory.

The sweater is a pleasant surprise. He expects it to be too large for

him, as the raincoat was, but the dead man evidently did not buy it for

himself. It fits perfectly. The colon-cranberry red–goes well with

the blue jeans and is also a good color for him. If the room had a

mirror, he is sure it would show that he is not only inconspicuous but

quite respectable and even attractive.

Outside, dawn is just a ghost light in the east.

Morning birds are chirruping in the trees.

The air is sweet.

Tossing the Buick keys into some shrubbery, abandoning the car and the

dead man in it, he proceeds briskly to the nearest multiple stall

carport and systematically tries the doors of the vehicles parked under

the bougainvillea-covered roof. Just when he thinks all of them are

going to be locked, a Toyota Camry proves to be open.

He slips in behind the wheel. Checks behind the sun visor for keys.

Under the seat. No such luck.

It doesn’t matter. He’s nothing if not resourceful. Before the sky has

brightened appreciably, he hot-wires the car and is on the road again.

Most likely, the owner of the Camry will discover it’s missing in a

couple of hours, when he’s ready to go to work, and will quickly report

it stolen. No problem. By then the license plates will be on another

car, and the Camry will be sporting a different set of tags that will

make it all but invisible to the police.

He feels invigorated, driving through the hills of Laguna Niguel in the

rose light of dawn. The early sky is as yet only a faded blue, but the

high formations of striated clouds are runneled with bright pink.

It is the first day of December. Day one. He is making a fresh start.

From now on, everything will go his way because he will no longer

underestimate his enemy.

Before he kills the false father, he will put out the bastard’s eyes in

retribution for the wound that he himself suffered. He will require his

daughters to watch, for this will be an important lesson to them, proof

that false fathers cannot triumph in the long run and that their real

father is a man to be disobeyed only at the risk of severe punishment.

( , Shortly after dawn, Marty woke Charlotte and Emily. “Got to get

showered and hit the road, ladies. Lots to do this morning.”

Emily was fully awake in an instant. She scrambled out from under the

covers and stood on the bed in her daffodil-yellow pajamas, which

brought her almost to eye-level with him. She demanded a hug and a

good-morning kiss. “I had a super dream last night.”

“Let me guess. You dreamed you were old enough to date Tom Cruise,

drive a sports car, smoke cigars, get drunk, and puke your guts out.”

“Silly,” she said. “I dreamed, for breakfast, you went out to the

vending machines and got us Mountain Dew and candy bars.”

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