Devoted - Dean Koontz Page 0,104
I’m his guardian.”
Although Ben was happy that the dog took such obvious delight in this reunion, a sense of loss overcame him. In less than a day, a bond had developed between him and this amazing retriever. He didn’t want to be cut out of Kipp’s life, his story.
In the foyer, Rosa Leon went to her knees, and Kipp nuzzled her, and Ben said, “How on earth did you find him?”
“His special collar. It has a GPS.”
As Ben started to close the door against the insistent wind, a white Ford Explorer pulled to a stop behind the Lincoln MKX in which Rosa Leon evidently had arrived. The driver doused the headlights.
“He’s no ordinary dog, this one,” Ben said, closing the door and watching the Ford Explorer through the sidelight.
Rosa continued rubbing behind Kipp’s ears. “Oh, yes, he’s very well trained. Kipp is quite remarkable. He knows ever so many clever tricks.”
“He knows a lot more than tricks,” Ben said, watching a man get out of the Explorer. “This fella’s no circus dog. He’s something else altogether.”
Rising to her feet, frowning, the woman said, “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“I’m pretty sure you do,” Ben said, using his best smile to take the edge off the words. “You’re protecting him . . . his secret.”
The newcomer was approaching the house.
Ben was licensed to carry, but his pistol remained in the Range Rover. “Megan, we have another visitor. Can you come on down here?”
When he turned his head to confirm that she was descending from the landing, he noticed Woody at the top of the stairs.
Seeing the pistol in Megan’s hand, the woman rose to her feet. “What’s happening here, what is this?”
“We’re not the problem,” Ben assured her. “Maybe the guy coming up the front walk is. Step aside. Get behind Megan.”
As the man came onto the porch, Ben said, “Megan, do you know him?”
She looked at the visitor through the sidelight, and he nodded at her, and she said, “I’ve seen him around a few times. I think maybe he works for the city.”
“Stay ready,” Ben said, and he opened the door.
The guy had a business card. “I need to see Mrs. Bookman. It’s an urgent matter.”
According to the card, he was Dr. Carson Conroy, the medical examiner for Pinehaven County.
“See her about what?” Ben asked.
“Lee Shacket has escaped psychiatric confinement at the county hospital.”
Kipp pivoted from Rosa Leon and raced up the stairs to Woody.
From a distance came the rising scream of sirens.
Bella on the Wire
Santa Rosa, California. The family room of the Montell house.
Bella finally had to return The Magician’s Elephant to the bookshelf from which she’d removed it.
The story was so good, she didn’t want it to be spoiled by all the interruptions.
And there were a lot of interruptions.
Something was definitely happening out there.
History was being made tonight.
The Mysterium culture and history were not conveyed generation to generation in written texts. Their kind had no hands with which to write.
Their culture was vocal, if telepathic conversation qualified as vocal.
They passed their stories from generation to generation on the Wire, as if around a campfire.
Their history, such as they knew it, dated back only four generations. Or about fifty years.
Even as smart as they were and even though they considered the maintenance of their oral history to be a sacred duty, they knew that not everything in it was reliable.
When a story was passed from one friend to another, details inevitably changed in the retelling.
This wasn’t because anyone lied.
Anyway, dogs didn’t lie. They couldn’t.
They weren’t sure why they couldn’t, but they couldn’t.
Yet details changed in the retelling, because their memories were, like those of human beings, not perfectly reliable.
Their history, therefore, had a certain quality of myth.
Regarding their origins, every story attributed their genesis to human beings.
The first of their kind came, so the legend had it, from a genetics laboratory. Born from experiments in enhanced intelligence.
They said the Pentagon funded this research.
The military was hoping to create intelligent dogs to serve as spies and perform reconnaissance in urban warfare.
Legend identified several places in California where those experiments might have taken place.
Devoted Mysterians had visited every potential cradle of their civilization, but found no laboratories.
They found housing developments. A supermarket. A shabby mini-mall. An athletic club. A tract of marshland.
They found a retirement home. A cheesy strip club with pole dancers. A sports park with baseball and soccer fields.
Of course the facility might be secret, lying underground or otherwise disguised.
Nothing, however, could