Read Online Intensity by Dean Koontz - Free Book Online Page A

done before, and she went straight toward the open door.
        She no longer held the knife high but held it low, at her side. If he heard her coming, he would turn, and then she could swing the knife up in an arc, under the girl that he held in his arms, and into his belly. That was better than trying to plunge it into his back, where the point might be deflected by a shoulder blade or rib, or might skid off his spine. Go for the softest part of him. She'd be face-to-face with him that way. Looking straight into his eyes. Would that make her hesitate? He had it coming. The bastard. She thought of Sarah on the floor of the shower stall, huddled naked in the cold drizzle. She could do it. She could do it.
        Into the doorway, across the threshold, onto the porch, she was not only ready to kill but prepared to die in the attempt to get him. Yet as swift as she had been, she hadn't been swift enough, because he was not just that moment going down the porch steps, as she had hoped, but was already nearing the motor home. The burden of Laura hadn't slowed him at all. He was inhumanly quick.
        She landed on only one stair tread from the front porch to the walkway, and the rubber soles of her shoes slapped the flagstones loud enough to carry even over the moaning of the wind. The moon was gone, and half the stars as well, displaced by towering palisades of clouds, but if the killer heard her and turned, he would be able to see her clearly.
        Evidently, he didn't hear, for he didn't glance back, and Chyna angled off the walkway, onto the quieter grass, determinedly going after him.
        Two doors were open on the motor home: one at the driver's side of the cockpit, the other on that same flank of the vehicle but two thirds of the way toward the back. The killer chose the rear door.
        With Laura in his arms, he was forced to turn sideways, pulling her tightly to him as he squeezed through the open door and crabbed up the two interior steps, but he was as agile as he was strong. He disappeared into the vehicle before Chyna could reach him.
        She considered going inside after him. But all the windows were curtained, so she didn't know if he had turned left or right. And if he had put Laura down immediately upon entering, he would now be better able to defend himself against an attack. That was his turf, beyond the door, and she wasn't sufficiently reckless with vengeance to want to confront him there.
        She pressed her back to the wall of the motor home, beside the open door, waiting for him. If he came outside again, she'd go at him even as his foot was reaching for the ground. The element of surprise was still working for her, maybe better than ever-because the killer was close to a clean getaway and feeling so good about himself that he might be careless.
        Maybe he wouldn't come outside again, but at least he would have to reach out to pull the door shut. Standing on the step, leaning to grab at the handle, he would not be well balanced, and she would have the knife deep into him before he had a chance to jerk back.
        Movement inside. A thump.
        She tensed.
        He didn't appear.
        Silence again.
        The scent of blood was suddenly heavy out of the northwest, as though a slaughterhouse lay upwind of her. Then it passed, and she realized that she hadn't actually smelled blood but had flashed back on the smell of the sodden sheets in the Templetons' master suite.
        The aluminum wall of the motor home was cold against her spine, and she shivered because it seemed that some of the coldness of the man inside was seeping through to her.
        Waiting, she began to lose her nerve. Resurgent fear tempered her rage, shifting the balance from vengeance to survival. But she could still do it. She could do it. She struggled to hold on to her crazy-hot anger.
        Then the killer came out of the motor home, but he didn't use the exit beside her. He