Odd Thomas Series Books 1-5. Dean Koontz

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       CHAPTER 49

      SOUVENIRS. TROPHIES. OBJECTS TO SPUR THE imagination and thrill the heart on lonely nights.

      As though it had burned my hands, I dropped the container back in the freezer. I shot to my feet and kicked the drawer shut.

      I must have turned away from the refrigerator, must have crossed the kitchen, but I was not aware of going to the sink until I found myself there. Leaning against the counter, bent forward, I struggled to repress the urge to surrender Mrs. Sanchez’s cookies.

      Throughout my life, I have seen terrible things. Some have been worse than the contents of the Rubbermaid container. Experience has not immunized me to horror, however, and human cruelty still has the power to devastate me, to loosen the locking pins in my knees.

      Although I wanted to wash my hands and then splash cold water in my face, I preferred not to touch Robertson’s faucets. I shrank from the thought of using his soap.

      Nine more containers waited in the freezer. Someone else would have to open them. I had no curiosity about the rest of the grotesque collection.

      In the file folder that bore his name, Robertson had included nothing but the calendar page for August 15, suggesting that his own career as a murderer would begin on this date. Yet evidence in the freezer suggested that his file should already be thick.

      Sweat sheathed me, hot on my face, cold along my spine. I might as well not have showered at the hospital.

      I consulted my wristwatch—10:02.

      The bowling alley didn’t open for business until one o’clock. The first showing of the hot-ticket dog movie was also scheduled for one o’clock.

      If my prophetic dream was about to be fulfilled, evidence suggested that I might have no more than three hours to find Robertson’s collaborator and stop him.

      I unclipped the cell phone from my belt. Flipped it open. Pulled out the antenna. Pressed the power button. Watched the maker’s logo appear and listened to the electronic signature music.

      Chief Porter might not yet have regained consciousness. Even if he surfaced, his thoughts would be muddled by the lingering effects of anesthetic, by morphine or its equivalent, and by pain. He would have neither the strength nor presence of mind to give instructions to his subordinates.

      To one extent or another, I knew all the officers on the PMPD. None had been made aware of my paranormal gift, however, and none had ever been as good a friend to me as was Chief Porter.

      If I brought the police to this house, revealed to them the contents of the freezer, and urged them to apply all their resources to learning the name of Robertson’s kill buddy, they would need hours to wrap their minds around the situation. Because they did not share my sixth sense and would not easily be persuaded that it was real, they wouldn’t share my urgency.

      They would detain me here while they investigated the situation. In their eyes, I would be as suspect as Robertson, for I had entered his house illegally. Who was to say that I hadn’t harvested these body parts myself and hadn’t planted the ten Rubbermaid containers in his freezer to incriminate him?

      If ever they found Bob Robertson’s body, and if the chief—God forbid—succumbed to postoperative complications, I would surely be arrested and charged with murder.

      I switched off the phone.

      Without a name to focus my psychic magnetism, without anyone to turn to for assistance, I had hit a wall, and the impact rattled my teeth.

      Something crashed to the floor in another room: not just the thump of a closing door this time, not merely a soft rapping, but a hard thud and the sound of breakage.

      Driven by frustration so intense that it allowed no caution, I headed for the swinging door, trying to clip the phone to my belt. I dropped it, left it for later, and shoved through the swinging door, into the living room.

      A lamp had been knocked to the floor. The ceramic base had shattered.

      When I tore open the front door and saw no one on the stoop or on the lawn, I slammed it shut. Hard. The boom shook the house, and making noise greatly pleased me after so much pussyfooting. My anger felt good.

      I rushed through the archway, into the narrow hall, seeking the perpetrator. Bedroom, closet, study, closet, bathroom. No one.

      Crows on the roof hadn’t knocked over the lamp. Nor a draft. Nor an earthquake.

      When I returned to the kitchen to pick up my phone and get out of the house, Robertson was waiting there for me.