Mr. Murder. By: Dean R. Koontz

just by dropping the bags.

Paige entered the kitchen behind him. She was carrying one suitcase and

the Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun.

“Don’t open the outer door,” Marty told her as he went through the small

connecting door between the kitchen and the dark garage.

He didn’t want the two-bay door open while they loaded the car because

then it would become a point of vulnerability. As far as he knew, The

Other might have crept back when the cops had left, might be outside at

that very minute.

Following him into the garage, Paige switched on the overhead

fluorescent panels. The long bulbs flickered but didn’t immediately

catch because the starters were bad. Shadows leaped and spun along the

walls, between the cars, in the open rafters.

Torturing his injured neck, Marty involuntarily turned his head sharply

toward each leaping phantom. None of them had a face at all, let alone

a face identical to his.

The fluorescent came on all the way. The hard white light, cold and

flat as a winter-morning sun, brought the shadow dancers to a sudden

halt.

He is within a few feet of the Buick, holding tightly to his kids’

hands, so close to getting away with them. His Charlotte. His Emily.

His future, his destiny, so close, so infuriatingly close.

But Vic won’t let go. The guy is a leech. Follows them all the way

from the house, as if oblivious of the rain, continuously babbling,

asking questions, a nosy bastard.

So close to the car. The engine running, headlights on. Emily in one

hand, Charlotte in the other, and they love him, they really love him.

They were hugging and kissing him back there in the foyer, so happy to

see him, his little girls. They know their daddy, their real daddy.

If he can just get into the car, close the doors, and drive away,

they’re his forever.

Maybe he can kill Vic, the nosy bastard. Then it would be so easy to

escape. But he’s not sure he can pull it off.

“You told me not to give the kids to anyone if Paige wasn’t with them,”

Vic says. “Not anyone. You remember what you said?”

He stares at Vic, not thinking about an answer as much as about wasting

the son of a bitch. But he’s hungry again, shaky and weak in the knees,

starting to crave the candy bars on the front seat, sugar,

carbohydrates, more energy for the repairs he’s still undergoing.

“Marty? You remember what you said?”

He has no gun, either, which wouldn’t ordinarily be a problem.

He’s been well-trained to kill with his hands. He might even have

enough strength to do so, in spite of his condition and the fact that

Vic appears to be tough enough to put up a fight.

“I thought it was strange,” Vic says, “but you told me, you said not

even to give them to you unless Paige was with you.”

The problem is that the bastard does have a gun. And he’s suspicious.

Second by second, all hope of escape is crumbling, washing away in the

rain. The girls are still holding his hand. He’s got a firm grip on

them, yes, but they’re about to start slipping away, and he doesn’t know

what to do. He gapes at Vic, mind spinning, as stuck for something to

say as he was stuck for something to write when he sat in his office

earlier in the day and tried to begin a new book.

Move, move, confront, challenge, grapple, and prevail.

Abruptly he realizes that to confront this problem and prevail, he needs

to act like a friend, the way friends treat each other and talk with

each other in the movies. That will allay all suspicion.

A river of movie memories rushes through his mind, and he flows with

them. “Vic, good heavens, Vic, did I . . . did I say that?” He

imagines he is Jimmy Stewart because everyone likes and trusts Jimmy

Stewart. “I don’t know what I meant, must been outta my head with

worry. Gosh, it’s just that . . . just that I’ve been so darned crazy

scared with all this stuff that’s been happening, this crazy stuff.”