The Husband by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: Mystery, Wives, Kidnapping, Fiction - Psychological Suspense, ebook, Fiction, Psychological, dean_koontz, Suspense, Dean R. (Dean Ray) - Prose & Criticism, Koontz, General
ISBN: 9780553804799
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2006-05-30T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 32

So stealthily had the killer returned that Mitch was unaware of his presence until he heard one of the car doors click open and swing wide with the faintest creak.

The man had approached from the front of the Chrysler. Risking exposure in the brief glow of the car's interior lights, he got in and pulled the door shut as softly as it could be closed.

If he had gotten behind the wheel, he must intend to leave the scene.

No. He wouldn't drive away with the trunk lid open. And surely he wouldn't leave the corpse.

Mitch waited in silence.

The gunman was silent, too.

Slowly the silence became a kind of pressure that Mitch could feel on his skin, on his eardrums, on his unblinking eyes, as if the car were descending into a watery abyss, an ever-increasing weight of ocean bearing down on it.

The gunman must be sitting in the dark, surveying the night, waiting to learn whether the throb of light had drawn attention, whether he had been seen. If his return inspired no response, what would he do next?

The desert remained breathless.

In these circumstances, the car would seem as sensitive to motion as a boat on water. If Mitch moved, the killer would be alerted to his presence.

A minute passed. Another.

Mitch pictured the smooth-faced gunman sitting up there in the car, in the gloom, at least thirty years old, maybe thirty-five, yet with such a remarkably soft smooth face, as if life had not touched him and never would.

He tried to imagine what the man with the smooth face was doing, planning. The mind behind that mask remained inaccessible to Mitch's imagination. He might have more profitably pondered what a desert lizard believed about God or rain or jimsonweed.

After a long stillness, the gunman shifted positions, and the movement proved to be a revelation. The unnerving intimacy of the sound indicated that the man wasn't behind the wheel of the Chrysler. He was in the backseat.

He must have been sitting forward, watchful, ever since getting into the car. When at last he leaned back, the upholstery made a sound like leather or vinyl does when stressed, and the seat springs quietly complained.

The backseat of the car formed the back wall of the trunk. He and Mitch were within a couple feet of each other.

They were almost as close to each other as they had been on the walk from the library to the car pavilion.

Lying in the trunk, Mitch thought about that walk.

The gunman made a low sound, either a stifled cough or a groan further muffled by the intervening wall of upholstery.

Perhaps he had been wounded, after all. His condition wasn't sufficiently serious to persuade him to pack up and leave, although it might be painful enough to discourage a lot of roaming.

Clearly, he settled in the car because he hoped that eventually, in desperation, his quarry would return to it. He figured Mitch would be circumspect in his approach, thoroughly scoping out the immediate surrounding territory, but would not expect death to be waiting for him in the shadows of the backseat.

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