Your Heart Belongs to Me. Dean Koontz

by the precise placement of six accent pillows on the sofa, Ryan determined that Rebecca valued neatness and order. The evidence suggested she was a solemn person with an austere heart.

      As Ryan stepped into the study, the disposable cell phone rang. No caller ID appeared on the screen.

      When he said hello, no one replied, but after he said hello a second time, a woman began softly to hum a tune. He did not recognize the song, but her crooning was sweet, melodic.

      “Who is this?” he asked.

      The soft voice became softer, faded, faint but still felicitous, and faded further until it receded into silence.

      With his free hand, he fingered the bandage on his neck, where a day previous the catheter had been inserted into his jugular.

      Although the singer had not sung a word, perhaps subconsciously Ryan recognized the voice—or imagined that he did— because into his mind unbidden came the emerald-green eyes and the smooth dark face of Ismay Clemm, the nurse from the cardiac-diagnostics lab at the hospital.

      After he had waited nearly a minute for the singer to find her voice again, he pressed end and returned the phone to a pants pocket.

      In memory, he heard what Ismay had said to him as he had dozed on and off, recovering from the sedative: You hear him, don’t you, child? Yes, you hear him. You must not listen, child.

      A deep misgiving overcame Ryan, and for a moment he almost fled the apartment. He did not belong there.

      Inhaling deeply, exhaling slowly, he strove to steady his nerves.

      He had come to Las Vegas to seek the truth of the threat against him, to determine if he had only nature to fear or, instead, a web of conspirators. His survival might depend on completing his inquiries.

      Rebecca’s study proved to be as blandly furnished and impersonal as the other rooms. The top of her desk was bare.

      About a hundred hardcover books filled a set of shelves. They were all nonfiction, concerned with self-improvement and investing.

      Closer consideration revealed that none of the books offered a serious program for either self-assessment or wise money management. They were about the mystical power of positive thinking, about wishing your way to success, about one arcane secret or another that guaranteed to revolutionize your finances and your life.

      In essence, they were get-rich-quick books. They promised great prosperity with little work.

      That Rebecca collected so many volumes of this nature suggested that she had drifted through the years on dreams of wealth. By now, at the age of fifty-six, disappointment and frustration might have left her bitter—and impatient.

      None of these volumes would suggest that you marry your daughter off to a wealthy man and poison him to gain control of his fortune. Any illiterate person could conceive such a plan, without need for the inspiration of a book.

      At once, Ryan regretted leaping to such an unkind conclusion. By suspecting Rebecca of such villainy, he was being unfair to Samantha.