Free Velocity by Dean Koontz

had not realized that he had doomed Lanny.
    If he had known, perhaps he would have made a different choice. Choosing the death of a friend would be harder than dropping the dime on a nameless stranger. Even if the stranger was a mother of two.
    He didn’t want to think about that.
    Toward the end of the backyard stood the stump of a diseased oak that had been cut down long ago. Four feet across, two feet high.
    On the east side of the stump was a hole worn by weather and rot. In the hole had been tucked a One Zip plastic bag. The bag contained a spare house key.
    After retrieving the key, Billy circled cautiously to the front of the house. He returned to the concealment of the plum tree.
    No one had turned off any lights. No face could be seen at any window; and none of the curtains moved suspiciously.
    A part of him wanted to phone 911, get help here fast, and spill the story. He suspected that would be a reckless move.
    He didn’t understand the rules of this bizarre game and could not know how the killer defined
winning.
Perhaps the freak would find it amusing to frame an innocent bartender for both murders.
    Billy had survived being a suspect once. The experience reshaped him. Profoundly.
    He would resist being reshaped again. He had lost too much of himself the first time.
    He left the cover of the plum tree. He quietly climbed the front-porch steps and went directly to the door.
    The key worked. The hardware didn’t rattle, the hinges didn’t squeak, and the door opened silently.

chapter 11
    THIS VICTORIAN HOUSE HAD A VICTORIAN foyer with a dark wood floor. A wood-paneled hall led toward the back of the house, and a staircase offered the upstairs.
    On one wall had been taped an eight-by-ten sheet of paper on which had been drawn a hand. It looked like Mickey Mouse’s hand: a plump thumb, three fingers, and a wrist roll suggestive of a glove.
    Two fingers were folded back against the palm. The thumb and forefinger formed a cocked gun that pointed to the stairs.
    Billy got the message, all right, but he chose to ignore it for the time being.
    He left the front door open in case he needed to make a quick exit.
    Holding the revolver with the muzzle pointed at the ceiling, he stepped through an archway to the left of the foyer. The living room looked as it had when Mrs. Olsen had been alive, ten years ago. Lanny didn’t use it much.
    The same was true of the dining room. Lanny ate most of his meals in the kitchen or in the den while watching TV.
    In the hallway, taped to the wall, another cartoon hand pointed toward the foyer and the stairs, opposite from the direction in which he was proceeding.
    Although the TV was dark in the den, flames fluttered in the gas-log fireplace, and in a bed of faux ashes, false embers glowed as if real.
    On the kitchen table stood a bottle of Bacardi, a double-liter plastic jug of Coca-Cola, and an ice bucket. On a plate beside the Coke gleamed a small knife with a serrated blade and a lime from which a few slices had been carved.
    Beside the plate stood a tall, sweating glass half full of a dark concoction. In the glass floated a slice of lime and a few thin slivers of melting ice.
    After stealing the killer’s first note from Billy’s kitchen and destroying it with the second to save his job and his hope of a pension, Lanny had tried to drown his guilt with a series of rum and Cokes.
    If the jug of Coca-Cola and the bottle of Bacardi had been full when he sat down to the task, he had made considerable progress toward a state of drunkenness sufficient to shroud memory and numb the conscience until morning.
    The pantry door was closed. Although Billy doubted that the freak lurked in there among the canned goods, he wouldn’t feel comfortable turning his back on it until he investigated.
    With his right arm tucked close to his side and the revolver aimed in front of him, he turned the knob fast and pulled the door with his left hand. No one waited in the pantry.
    From a kitchen drawer,