Read Online One Door From Heaven by Dean Koontz - Free Book Online Page A

car," he explained. "I'm behind the wheel."
        The camera tilted up, panned right: A silver Jaguar approached through the early twilight. The car stopped at the paramour's house, a tall man got out of the passenger's door, and the Jaguar drove away.
        Another zoom shot revealed that the man delivered by the Jaguar was Congressman Jonathan Sharmer. His handsome profile was ideal for stone monuments in a heroic age, though by his actions he had proved that he possessed neither the heart nor the soul to match his face.
        Arrogance issued from him as holy light might radiate from the apparition of a saint, and he stood facing the street, head raised as though he were admiring the palette of the twilight sky.
        "Because he keeps tabs on you, he's been on to me from the start, but he doesn't know that I know that he knows. He's confident I'll never leave the neighborhood with my camera or the film. Playing with me. He isn't aware of my associate in the attic."
        Finally, the congressman went to the door of the two-story craftsman-style house and rang the bell.
        A maximum-zoom shot captured the young brunette who answered the bell. In skintight shorts and a tube top stretched so extravagantly that it might kill bystanders if it snapped, she was temptation packaged for easy access.
        "Her name's Karla Rhymes," Noah reported. "When she worked as a dancer, she called herself Tiffany Tush."
        "Not a ballerina, I assume."
        "She performed at a club called Planet Pussycat."
        On the threshold, Karla and the politician embraced. Even in the fading light of dusk, and further obscured by the shade of the porch roof, their long kiss could not be mistaken for platonic affection.
        "She's on the payroll of your husband's charitable foundation."
        "The Circle of Friends."
        More than friends, the couple on the TV were as close as Siamese twins, joined at the tongue.
        "She gets eighty-six thousand a year," Noah said.
        The video had been silent. When the kiss ended, sound was added: Jonathan Sharmer and his charity-funded squeeze engaged in something less than sparkling romantic conversation.
        "Did this Farrel asshole really show up, Jonny?"
        "Don't look directly. The old Chevy across the street."
        "The scabby little pervert can't even afford a real car."
        "My guys will junk it. He better have a bus pass for backup."
        "I bet he's giving himself a hand job right now, watching us."
        "I love your nasty mouth."
        Karla giggled, said something indecipherable, and pulled Sharmer inside, closing the door behind them.
        Constance Tavenall-no doubt soon to cleanse herself of the name Sharmer-stared at the TV. She had married the congressman five years ago, before the first of his three successful political campaigns. By creating the Circle of Friends, he wove an image as a compassionate thinker with innovative approaches to social problems, while marriage to this woman lent him class, respectability. For a husband utterly lacking in character, such a spouse was the moral equivalent of arm candy, meant to dazzle the cognoscenti, not with her beauty, but with her sterling reputation, making it less likely that Sharmer would be the object of suspicion or the subject of close scrutiny.
        Considering that this had just now become incontestably clear to Constance, her composure was remarkable. The crudeness of what she heard lulled to fire a blush in her. If she harbored anger, she hid it well. Instead, a barely perceptible yet awful sadness manifested as a faint glister in her eyes.
        "A highly efficient directional microphone was synchronized with the camera," Noah explained. "We've added a soundtrack only where we've got conversation that'll ruin him."
        "A stripper. Such a cliche." Even in the thread of quiet sorrow that this tape spun around her, she found a thin filament