The Husband - Dean Koontz

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it would break within Mitch. And though anxiety soured his stomach and clenched his teeth, he sensed that this coming change would not be a bad thing.

      At the garage, the dark windows and the sun-fired windows mocked him. The porch furniture and the patio furniture, arranged with the expectation of the enjoyment of lazy summer evenings, mocked him.

      The lush and sculpted landscaping, on which he had spent so many hours, mocked him as well. All the beauty born from his work seemed now to be superficial, and its superficiality made it ugly.

      He returned to the house and closed the back door. He did not bother locking it.

      The worst that could have invaded his home had already been here and had gone. What violations followed would be only embellishments on the original horror.

      He crossed the kitchen and entered a short hall that served two rooms, the first of which was a den. It contained a sofa, two chairs, and a large-screen television.

      These days, they rarely watched any programs. So-called reality TV dominated the airwaves, and legal dramas and police dramas, but all of it bored because none of it resembled reality as he had known it; and now he knew it even better.

      At the end of the hallway was the master bedroom. He withdrew clean underwear and socks from a bureau drawer.

      For now, as impossible as every mundane task seemed in these circumstances, he could do nothing other than what he had been told to do.

      The day had been warm; but a night in the middle of May was likely to be cool. At the closet, he slipped a fresh pair of jeans and a flannel shirt from hangers. He put them on the bed.

      He found himself standing at Holly’s small vanity, where she daily sat on a tufted stool to brush her hair, apply her makeup, put on her lipstick.

      Unconsciously, he had picked up her hand mirror. He looked into it, as if hoping, by some grace that would foretell the future, to see her fine and smiling face. His own countenance did not bear contemplation.

      He shaved, showered, and dressed for the ordeal ahead.

      He had no idea what they expected of him, how he could possibly raise two million dollars to ransom his wife, but he made no attempt to imagine any possible scenarios. A man on a high ledge is well advised not to spend much time studying the long drop.

      As he sat on the edge of the bed, just as he finished tying his shoes, the doorbell rang.

      The kidnapper had said he would call at six, not come calling. Besides, the bedside clock read 4:15.

      Leaving the door unanswered was not an option. He needed to be responsive regardless of how Holly’s captors chose to contact him.

      If the visitor had nothing to do with her abduction, Mitch was nevertheless obliged to answer the door in order to maintain an air of normalcy.

      His truck in the driveway proved that he was home. A neighbor, getting no response to the bell, might circle to the back of the house to knock at the kitchen door.

      The six-pane window in that door would provide a clear view of the kitchen floor strewn with broken dishes, the bloody hand prints on the cabinets and the refrigerator.

      He should have drawn shut the blinds.

      He left the bedroom, followed the hall, and crossed the living room before the visitor had time to ring the bell twice.

      The front door had no windows. He opened it and found Detective Taggart on the porch.

       9

      The praying-mantis stare of mirrored lenses skewered Mitch and pinned his voice in his throat.

      “I love these old neighborhoods,” Taggart said, surveying the front porch. “This was how southern California looked in its great years, before they cut down all the orange groves and built a wasteland of stucco tract houses.”

      Mitch found a voice that sounded almost like his own, though thinner: “You live around here, Lieutenant?”

      “No. I live in one of the wastelands. It’s more convenient. But I happened to be in your neighborhood.”

      Taggart was not a man who just happened to be anywhere. If he ever went sleepwalking, even then he would have a purpose, a plan, and a destination.

      “Something’s come up, Mr. Rafferty. And since I was nearby, it seemed as easy to stop in as to call. Can you spare a few minutes?”

      If Taggart was not one of the kidnappers, if his conversation with Mitch had been taped without his knowledge, allowing him across the threshold would be reckless. In this small house, the living room, a picture of tranquillity, and the kitchen, smeared with incriminating evidence, were only a few steps apart.

      “Sure,” Mitch said. “But my wife came home with a migraine. She’s lying down.”

      If the detective was one of them, if he knew that Holly was being held elsewhere, he did not betray his knowledge by any change in his expression.

      “Why don’t we sit here on the porch,” Mitch said.

      “You’ve got it fixed up real nice.”

      Mitch pulled the door shut behind him, and they settled into the white wicker chairs.

      Taggart had brought a nine-by-twelve white envelope. He put it on his lap, unopened.

      “We had a porch like this when I was a kid,” he said. “We used to watch traffic go by, just watch traffic.”

      He removed his sunglasses and tucked them in his shirt pocket. His gaze was as direct as a power drill.

      “Does Mrs. Rafferty use ergotamine?”

      “Use what?”

      “Ergotamine. For the migraines.”

      Mitch had no idea whether ergotamine was an actual medication or a word the detective had invented on the spot. “No. She toughs it out with aspirin.”

      “How often does she get one?”

      “Two or three times a year,” Mitch lied. Holly had never had a migraine. She rarely suffered headaches of any kind.

      A gray-and-black moth was settled on the porch post to the right of the front steps, a night-flyer sleeping in the shade until sunset.

      “I have ocular migraines,” Taggart said. “They’re entirely visual. I get the glimmering light and the temporary blind spot for like twenty minutes, but there’s no pain.”

      “If you’ve got to have a migraine, that sounds like the kind to have.”

      “A doctor probably wouldn’t prescribe ergotamine until she was having a migraine a month.”

      “It’s just twice a year. Three times,” Mitch said.

      He wished that he had resorted to a different lie. Taggart having personal knowledge of migraines was rotten luck.

      This small talk unnerved Mitch. To his own ear, he sounded wary, tense.

      Of course, Taggart had no doubt long ago grown accustomed to people being wary and tense with him, even innocent people, even his mother.

      Mitch had been avoiding the detective’s stare. With an effort, he made eye contact again.

      “We did find an AVID on the dog,” Taggart said.

      “A what?”

      “An American Veterinary Identification Device. That microchip ID I mentioned earlier.”

      “Oh. Right.”

      Before Mitch realized that his sense of guilt had sabotaged him again, his gaze had drifted away from Taggart to follow a passing car in the street.

      “They inject it into the

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