Read Online The Vision by Dean Koontz - Free Book Online

do some shopping,” Mary told Emmet. “You’ll want to get our luggage out of the Mercedes before he leaves.”
    “Right away.”
    She started toward the front door. “And would you get my car out of the garage? I’ve got a four-thirty appointment with Dr. Cauvel. I want—”
    The man coming at her, relentless, power in the blow, a knife deep in her stomach, blade twisting, flesh tearing, blood erupting, pain erupting, blackness flowing, flowing
 . . .
    * * *
    She regained consciousness as Max put her down on the bed in the second-floor master suite. She clung to him. She couldn’t stop shaking.
    “Are you all right?”
    “Hold me,” she said.
    He did. “Easy. Easy now.”
    She could feel the strong, unhurried beat of his heart. After a while she said, “I’m thirsty.”
    “Is that all? Aren’t you hurt? Should I call a doctor?”
    “Just get me some water.”
    “You passed out.”
    “I’m fine now.”
    When he came back from the bathroom with the water, he helped her sit up. He held the glass, tilted it as she drank, nursed her as if she were a sick child. When she was finished, he said, “What happened?”
    Leaning against the headboard, she said, “Another vision that I didn’t ask for. Only . . . it’s different from anything that’s come before.”
    She must have gone pale, for he said, “Calm down. It’s over.”
    He looked good. Marvelous. So big and reliable.
    She did calm down somewhat, merely because he told her she should.
    “I didn’t just
see
the damned thing, Max. I
felt
it. A knife. I felt a knife going into me, ripping me apart . . . ”
    She put one hand on her belly. There was no wound. No bruise. The flesh wasn’t even tender.
    “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You saw yourself being stabbed to death?”
    “No.”
    “What
did
you see?”
    She got up, waved him away as he moved to support her. She went to the window and looked out at the forty-foot pool behind the main house, at the lush grounds and at the Churchills’ little house at the far end of the property. Ordinarily she would have been calmed further by this evidence of prosperity; but now it had no effect on her. “I saw another woman. Not me. But I felt her pain as if it were mine.”
    “That’s never happened before.”
    “It did this time.”
    “Have you ever heard of another clairvoyant having the same experience? Hurkos? Croiset? Dykshoorn?”
    “No.” She turned from the window. “What’s it mean? What’s going to happen to me?”
    “Nothing will happen to you.” Convinced that she wasn’t ill, he began the gentle interrogation that could guide her through a vision in progress or through the memory of a vision that had passed. “Has this thing you just saw happened yet?”
    “No.”
    “This woman who will be stabbed . . . was she one of those you saw in the nightmare last evening?”
    “No. A new one.”
    “Did you see her face clearly?”
    “I did. But only briefly.”
    Mary sat in a wingback chair by the window. Her hands, against the brown crushed-velvet upholstery, were pale, almost translucent. She felt lighter than air, as if her existence were tenuous, as if she were fading away.
    “What did this woman look like?” Max asked.
    “Pretty.”
    He paced before her. “Color of hair?”
    “Brunette.”
    “Eyes?”
    “Green or blue.”
    “Young?”
    “Yes. About my age.”
    “Did you sense her name?”
    “No. But I think I’ve seen her before.”
    “You thought the same of one of them last night.”
    She nodded.
    “What gives you the idea you know her?”
    “I can’t say. It’s just an impression.”
    “Was the scene of this crime the same as in last night’s vision?”
    “No. This woman will be murdered . . . in a beauty parlor.”
    “At a hairdresser’s?”
    “Yes. The beautician is a man.”
    “What will happen to him?”
    “He’ll be killed, too.”
    “Any other victims?”
    “A third. Another woman.”
    She had sensed a great deal in