Chapters (78)
- Cover Page
- TITLE PAGE
- DEDICATION
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Mary
- CHAPTER ONE
- CHAPTER TWO
- CHAPTER THREE
- CHAPTER FOUR
- CHAPTER FIVE
- Joyce
- CHAPTER SIX
- CHAPTER SEVEN
- CHAPTER EIGHT
- CHAPTER NINE
- CHAPTER TEN
- CHAPTER ELEVEN
- CHAPTER TWELVE
- CHAPTER THIRTEEN
- Russ
- CHAPTER FOURTEEN
- CHAPTER FIFTEEN
- CHAPTER SIXTEEN
- CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
- Jaxson
- CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
- CHAPTER NINETEEN
- CHAPTER TWENTY
- HSK
- CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
- CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
- CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
- CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
- HSK
- CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
- CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
- CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
- CHAPTER THIRTY
- Lyndsay
- CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
- CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
- CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
- Grace
- CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
- CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
- HSK
- CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
- CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
- CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
- CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
- Wilkes
- CHAPTER FORTY
- CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
- CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
- CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
- CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
- CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
- CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
- CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
- CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
- Dubois
- CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
- CHAPTER FIFTY
- Dubois
- Wilkes
- CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
- CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- ALSO BY DEAN KOONTZ
- PREVIEWS
- DIME STORE MAGIC
- INDUSTRIAL MAGIC
- HAUNTED
- BROKEN
- NO HUMANS INVOLVED
- COPYRIGHT
Again, that hesitation, lips parted, debating the urge to say more. Again, he stopped himself. Again, he restarted.
“Hungry?”
“What?”
“You hungry? We could get breakfast. Catch an earlier flight.”
Figures. Here I am, waiting for a great personal revelation, and he’s just trying to figure out whether it’s too early to suggest breakfast.
“Well, I’m up,” I said. “But you’re the one whose sleep was disturbed, so if you’d rather catch another couple of hours—”
“Didn’t disturb me.”
“Okay, then. We might as well get going. As for breakfast—” I checked the bedside clock. Four-ten. “Our chances of finding a place serving food at this time are pretty slim.”
“It’s Vegas.”
“Right. Breakfast it is then.”
I shifted up in bed, but he still made no move to stand until I tapped his leg. As he turned, I saw a pair of fresh scratches clawed across his back.
I touched them with my fingertips. “Did I do that?”
“Hardly mortal.”
“Geez, I’m—”
“Don’t say it.”
We put on our disguises, but didn’t play them up to full effect. It was four-thirty in the morning, and neither of us was in the mood to take on the guise of a character who made our skin crawl.
By four-forty-five, we were seated in the corner of a diner, as far as we could get from the other patrons, most of whom were nursing coffees in silence, recovering from a long night of drink or disappointment.
As I rearranged the containers on the table, Jack thumbed through the menu. Under the harsh florescent lights, he no longer looked sexy. Just tired. Very tired, the creases over his nose turned into furrows, shadows under his eyes, skin pale against the beard shadow, the black threaded with gray.
“At least now we know who we’re looking for,” I said quietly.
A slow nod.
“But it doesn’t really help, does it?” I laid down my menu, and traced my finger over the cartoon pig on the front. “All we have is a name, and it’s not even a name; it’s an alias.”
“Evelyn knows his name.”
“His real name?”
“Yeah. Evelyn knows everyone’s name.” A pause. “Well, most everyone.”
“But not yours.”
“Not for lack of trying.”
The obvious segue here was to talk about Evelyn and her relationship with Wilkes. Back when we’d been compiling the list, Wilkes had been the first name to Jack’s lips. But Evelyn had dismissed him in a heartbeat.
His wasn’t the only name she’d dismissed, and we hadn’t discounted any of them. Given Evelyn’s reaction to Baron, her fast and strong opinions on our suspects hadn’t seemed out of character. And yet…