Free One Door Away from Heaven by Dean Koontz Page B

the scarlet light of the retiring sun, Leilani’s face shone as much with enchantment as with a patina of perspiration. In spite of her genius IQ, her street smarts, and her well-polished wise-ass attitude, the girl retained some of the gullibility of a child. “But how’d you do what the cops couldn’t?”
    As Micky struck a match to light the three candles in the center of the table, Aunt Gen said, “Trained detectives can’t compete with a wronged woman if she’s determined, spunky, and has a hard edge.”
    “Spunky though you are,” Micky said as the second candle cloned the flame on her match, “I suspect you’re thinking about Ashley Judd or Sharon Stone, or maybe Pam Grier.”
    Leaning across the dinette table, whispering dramatically to Leilani, Geneva said, “I located the bastard in New Orleans.”
    “You’ve never been to New Orleans,” Micky affectionately reminded her.
    Frowning, Geneva said, “Maybe it was Las Vegas.”
    Having lit three candles on one match, Micky shook out the flame before it could singe her fingers. “This isn’t real memory, Aunt Gen. It’s movie memory again.”
    “Is it?” Geneva still leaned forward. The slow unsynchronized throbbing of the candle flames cast an undulant glow across her face, brightening her eyes but failing to dispel the shadow of confusion in which she sat. “But, sweetie, I remember so clearly…the wonderful satisfaction of shooting him.”
    “You don’t own a gun, Aunt Gen.”
    “That’s right. I don’t own a gun.” Geneva’s sudden smile was more radiant than the candlelight. “Now that I think about it, the man who was shot in New Orleans—he was Alec Baldwin.”
    “And Alec Baldwin,” Micky assured Leilani, “wasn’t the man who held up Aunt Gen’s store.”
    “Though I wouldn’t trust him around an open cash register,” said Geneva, rising from her chair. “Alec Baldwin is a more believable villain than hero.”
    Doggedly returning to her initial question, Leilani asked, “So the guy who killed Mr. D—was he caught?”
    “No,” Micky said. “Cops haven’t had one lead in eighteen years.”
    “That reeks.”
    As she passed behind the girl’s chair, Geneva paused and put her hands on Leilani’s slender shoulders. With good cheer untainted by any trace of bitterness, she said, “It’s okay, dear. If the man who shot my Vernon isn’t already roasting in Hell, he will be soon.”
    “I’m not sure I believe Hell exists,” the girl replied with the gravity of one who has given the matter considerable thought during the lonely hours of the night.
    “Well, of course it does, sweetheart. What would the world be like without toilets?”
    Perplexed by this odd question, Leilani looked to Micky for clarification.
    Micky shrugged.
    “An afterlife without Hell,” Aunt Gen explained, “would be as polluted and unendurable as a world without toilets.” She kissed the top of the girl’s head. “And now I myself am off to have a nice sit-down with Nature.”
    As Geneva left the kitchen, disappeared into the short dark hallway, and closed the bathroom door behind her, Leilani and Micky stared at each other across the dinette table. For languid seconds in the time-distorting August heat, they were as silent as the trinity of flames bright upon the smokeless wicks between them.
    Finally, Micky said, “If you want to establish yourself as an eccentric around this place, you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
    “The competition is pretty stiff,” Leilani acknowledged.
    “So your stepfather’s a murderer.”
    “It could be worse, I guess,” the girl said with a calculated jauntiness. “He could be a bad dresser. A weaselly enough attorney can find a justification for virtually any murder, but there’s no excuse for a tacky wardrobe.”
    “Does he dress well?”
    “He has a certain style. At least one isn’t mortified to be seen in his company.”
    “Even though he kills old ladies and boys in