Free Dark Rivers of the Heart by Dean Koontz Page A

smear any oils from his own skin that might have left the patterns of his fingertips.
    Filled with conflicting emotions—grief at the death of a good woman, joy at her release from a world of pain and disappointment—he went downstairs to the kitchen. He wanted to be in a position to hear the automatic garage door when Penelope’s husband came home.
    A few spots of blood had congealed on the tile floor. Roy used paper towels and a spray bottle of Fantastik, which he found in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, to clean away the mess.
    After he wiped up the dirty prints of his galoshes as well, he noticed that the stainless steel sink wasn’t as well kept as it could have been, and he scrubbed until it was spotless.
    The window in the microwave was smeared. It sparkled when he was done with it.
    By the time the Beatles were halfway through “I’ll Be Back” and Roy had wiped down the front of the Sub-Zero refrigerator, the garage door rumbled upward. He threw the used paper towels into the trash compactor, put away the Fantastik, and retrieved the Beretta that he had left on the counter after delivering Penelope from her suffering.
    The kitchen and garage were separated only by a small laundry room. He turned to that closed door.
    The rumble of the car engine echoed off the garage walls as Sam Bettonfield drove inside. The engine cut off. The big door clattered and creaked as it rolled down behind the car.
    Home from the accountant wars at last. Weary of working late, crunching numbers. Weary of paying high office rents in Century City, trying to stay afloat in a system that valued money more than people.
    In the garage, a car door slammed.
    Burned out from the stress of life in a city that was riddled with injustice and at war with itself, Sam would be looking forward to a drink, a kiss from Penelope, a late dinner, perhaps an hour of television. Those simple pleasures and eight hours of restful sleep constituted the poor man’s only respite from his greedy and demanding clients—and his sleep was likely to be tormented by bad dreams.
    Roy had something better to offer. Blessed escape.
    The sound of a key in the lock between the garage and the house, the
clack
of the deadbolt, a door opening: Sam entered the laundry.
    Roy raised the Beretta as the inner door opened.
    Wearing a raincoat, carrying a briefcase, Sam stepped into the kitchen. He was a balding man with quick dark eyes. He looked startled but sounded at ease. “You must have the wrong house.”
    Eyes misting with tears, Roy said, “I know what you’re going through,” and he squeezed off three quick shots.
    Sam was not a large man, perhaps fifty pounds heavier than his wife. Nevertheless, getting him upstairs to the bedroom, wrestling him out of his raincoat, pulling off his shoes, and hoisting him into bed was not easy. When the task had been accomplished, Roy felt good about himself because he knew that he had done the right thing by placing Sam and Penelope together and in dignified circumstances.
    He pulled the bedclothes over Sam’s chest. The top sheet was trimmed with cut-work lace to match the pillow shams, so the dead couple appeared to be dressed in fancy surplices of the sort that angels might wear.
    The Beatles had stopped singing a while ago. Outside, the soft and somber sound of the rain was as cold as the city that received it—as relentless as the passage of time and the fading of all light.
    Though he had done a caring thing, and though there was joy in the end of these people’s suffering, Roy was sad. It was a strangely sweet sadness, and the tears that it wrung from him were cleansing.
    Eventually he went downstairs to clean up the few drops of Sam’s blood that spotted the kitchen floor. He found the vacuum cleaner in the big closet under the stairs, and he swept away the dirt that he had tracked on the carpet when he’d first come into the house.
    In Penelope’s purse, he searched for the business card that he had given her.