Shadowfires. By: Dean R. Koontz

principles.”

“Good.” Werfell’s patrician face and manner were not conducive to

debate. “Then you’ll wait until she wakes naturally.”

Frustrated, still trying to think why Werfell looked familiar, Peake

said, “But we think she can tell us where to find someone whom we

desperately must find.”

“Well, I’m sure she’ll cooperate when she’s awake and alert.”

“And when will that be, Doctor?”

“Oh, I imagine.. . another four hours, maybe longer.”

“What? Why that long?”

“The night physician gave her a very mild sedative, which didn’t suit

her, and when he refused to give her anything stronger, she took one of

her own.

“One of her own?”

“We didn’t realize until later that she had drugs in her purse, a few

Benzedrine tablets wrapped in one small packet of foil-” “Bennies,

uppers?”

“Yes. And a few tranquilizers in another packet, and a couple of

sedatives. Hers was much stronger than the one we gave her, so she’s

pretty deep under at the moment.

We’ve confiscated her remaining drugs, of course.”

Peake said, “I’ll wait in her room.”

“No,” Werfell said.

“Then I’ll wait just outside her room.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Then I’ll wait right here.”

“You’ll be in the way here,” Werfell said. “You’ll wait in the

visitors’ lounge, and we’ll call you when Miss Kiel is awake.”

“I’ll wait here,” Peake insisted, scrunching his baby face into the

sternest, toughest, most hard-boiled look he could manage.

“The visitors’ lounge,” Werfell said ominously. “And if you do not

proceed there immediately, I’ll have hospital security men escort you.

Peake hesitated, wishing to God he could be more aggressive. “All

right, but you damn well better call me the minute she wakes up.”

Furious, he turned from Werfell and stalked down the hall in search of

the visitors’ lounge, too embarrassed to ask where it was. When he

glanced back at Werfell, who was now in deep conversation with another

physician, he realized the doctor was a dead ringer for Dashiell

Hammett, the formidable Pinkerton detective and mystery novelist, which

was why he had looked familiar to a dedicated reader like Peake. No

wonder Werfell had such a tremendous air of authority. Dashiell

Hammett, for God’s sake. Peake felt a little better about having

deferred to him.

They slept another two hours, woke within moments of each other, and

made love again in the motel bed. For Rachael, it was even better this

time than it had been before, slower, sweeter, with an even more

graceful and fulfilling rhythm. She was sinewy, supple, taut, and she

took enormous and intense pleasure in her superb physical condition,

drew satisfaction from each flexing and gentle thrusting and soft lazy

grinding of her body, not merely the usual pleasure of male and female

organs mating, but the more subtle thrill of muscle and tendon and bone

functioning with the perfect oiled smoothness that, like nothing else,

made her feel young, healthy, alive.

With her special gift for fully experiencing the moment, she let her

hands roam over Benny’s body, marveling over his leanness, testing the

rock-hard muscles of his shoulders and arms, kneading the bunched

muscles of his back, glorying in the silken smoothness of his skin, the

rocking motion of his hips against hers, pelvis to pelvis, the hot touch

of his hands, the branding heat of his lips upon her cheeks, her mouth,

her throat, her breasts.

Until this interlude with Benny, Rachael had not made love in almost

fifteen months. And never in her life had she made love like this,

never this good, this tender or exciting, never this satisfying. She

felt as if she had been half dead heretofore and this was the hour of

her resurrection.

Finally spent, they lay in each other’s arms for a while, silent, at

peace, but the soft afterglow of lovemaking slowly gave way to a curious

disquiet. At first she was not certain what disturbed her, but soon she

recognized it as that rare and peculiar feeling that someone had just

walked over her grave, an irrational but convincingly instinctive

sensation that brought a vague chill to her bare flesh and a colder

shiver to her spine.

She looked at Benny’s gentle smile, studied every much-loved line of his

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