Shadowfires. By: Dean R. Koontz

The backsplash of dim light from the dashboard meters and gauges was

just bright enough to softly illuminate her face but not bright enough

to reveal the tension in her or the unhealthy grayness that fear had

brought to her complexion. She looked now as Ben always thought of her

when they were separated, breathtaking.

In different circumstances, with a different destination, the moment

would have been like something from a perfect dream or from one of those

great old movies. After all, what could be more thrilling or

exquisitely erotic than being with a gorgeous oman in a sleek sports

car, barreling through the night toward some romantic destination, where

they could forsake the snug contours of bucket seats for cool sheets,

the excitement of highspeed travel having primed them for fiercely

passionate lovemaking.

She said, “I’ve done nothing wrong, Benny.”

“I didn’t really think you had.”

“You implied…”

“I had to ask.”

“Do I look like a villain to you?”

“You look like an angel.”

“There’s no danger I’ll land in jail. The worst that can happen to me

is that I’ll wind up a victim.”

“Damned if I’ll let that happen.”

“You’re really very sweet,” she said. She glanced away from the road

and managed a thin smile. “Very sweeL The smile was confined to her

lips and did not chase the fear from the rest of her face, did not even

touch her troubled eyes. And no matter how sweet she thought he was,

she was still not prepared to share any of her secrets with him.

They reached Geneplan at eleven-thirty.

Dr. Eric Leben’ 5 corporate headquarters was a four story, glasswalled

building in an expensive business park off Jamboree Road in Newport

Beach, stylishly irregular in design with six sides that were not all of

equal length, and with a modernistic polished marble and glass porte

cochere. Ben usually despised such architecture, but he grudgingly had

to admit that the Geneplan headquarters had a certain appealing

boldness. The parking lot was divided into sections by long planters

0veiflowing with vine geraniums heavily laden with wine-red and white

blooms. The building was surrounded by an impressive amount of green

space as well, with artfully arranged palm trees. Even at this late

hour, the trees, grounds, and building were lit by cunningly placed

spotlights that imparted a sense of drama and importance to the place.

Rachael pulled her M&cedes around to the rear of the building, where a

short driveway sloped down to a large bronze-tinted door that evidently

rolled up to admit delivery trucks to an interior loading bay on the

basement level. She drove to the bottom and parked at the door, below

ground level, with concrete walls rising on both sides. She said, “If

anyone gets the idea I might come to Geneplan, and if they drive by

looking for my car, they won’t spot it down here.”

Getting out of the car, Ben noticed how much cooler and more pleasant

the night was in Newport Beach, closer to the sea, than it had been in

either Santa Ana or Villa Park. They were much too far from the oceana

couple of miles-to hear the waves or to smell the salt and seaweed, but

the Pacific air nevertheless had an effect.

A smaller, man-size door was set in the wall beside the larger entrance

and also opened into the basement level. It had two locks.

Living with Eric, Rachael had run errands to and from Geneplan when he

hadn’t the time himself and when, for whatever reason, he did not trust

a subordinate with the task, so she’d once possessed keys. But the day

she walked out on him, she put the keys on a small table in the foyer of

the Villa Park house. Tonight, she had found them exactly where she’d

left them a year ago, on the table beside a tall nineteenth-century

Japanese cloisonne’ vase, dust-filmed. Evidently Eric had instructed

the maid not to move the keys even an inch. He must have intended that

their undisturbed presence should be a subtle humiliation for Rachael

when she came crawling back to him. Happily, she had denied him that

sick satisfaction.

Clearly, Eric Leben had been a supremely arrogant bastard, and Ben was