Your Heart Belongs to Me

from being a user who now lives with a dead girl’s heart and with her life on my conscience. Why would I be given so many chances when I was so clearly not a guy who would take them or even recognize them? And then one day not long ago, I knew. Reading this third book of yours, I knew. It was you, Sam. I was given all those chances because of you.”
    “Ryan—”
    “You promised no comment. See, here’s how it is. You’re a fine person, more than fine, you’re grace personified. And what you’re doing with your life is important. It’s necessary that you’re happy, because in your happiness, you’re going to show so many other people the way, through your books. Be happy, Sam. Find someone. Marry. Have kids. What an incredible mother you will be. Have kids, Sam, embrace life, and write your brilliant books. Because if there’s any hope for me, when my time comes, it’s not because I gave everything away, and it’s not because I live here among monks, not one myself and never can be. No, if there’s any ultimate redemption, it will be because I passed through your life without scarring you, and did not diminish who you are. No comment, now, not a one.”
    They had reached her car, and she did not know that she could drive or that she could talk. But she knew what he wanted of her, what he needed. So she found within herself the depth of courage to make no comment on what he had said, and instead to smile at him and find something to say that might end this on a lighter note.
    “You never did tell me…what was the William Holden film that you kept waking to and thinking had a message for you?”
    By his smile and then his soft laugh, she knew that she had found a right question.
    “God must have a sense of humor, Sam. And for sure He became so exasperated with me that He tried to hammer me over the head with a sign only less obvious than a burning bush. It’s not what the movie is about that matters. It’s the title that might have made me think—if I’d taken the clue and bothered to research it.” He paused for effect. “ Satan Never Sleeps. ”
    She found a laugh in that, though of the kind that bruises.
    He held her for a moment, and she held him, and she kissed his cheek, and he kissed her brow.
    Driving away, she looked once in the mirror and saw him standing in the lane, watching her leave, and she could not look back again.
    Along the county road, when she found a widening of the shoulder where she could park, she stopped the car.
    An unfenced meadow sloped up toward a trio of oaks. She climbed the meadow to the trees and sat with her back against the largest of them, hidden from traffic on the road below.
    For a long time, she wept, not so much for him and not at all for herself, but for the condition of all things and for the way the world could be but is not.
    In time, she found herself thinking about nothing more than the birds and their songs, the sound of the breeze in the high branches of the oaks, and the shafts of sunlight, clear and pure, that fell through the trees and found the grass and caressed it.
    She rose then and returned to the car. She needed to go home. She had a new book to write. And a life to find.
     

 
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    DEAN KOONTZ is the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers. He lives with his wife, Gerda, and the enduring spirit of their golden retriever, Trixie, in southern California.
     

    Correspondence for the author should be addressed to:
    Dean Koontz
    P.O. Box 9529
    Newport Beach, California 92658
     

 
    ALSO BY DEAN KOONTZ

    Odd Hours • The Darkest Evening of the Year • The Good Guy
    Brother Odd • The Husband • Forever Odd • Velocity
    Life Expectancy • The Taking • Odd Thomas • The Face
    By the Light of the Moon • One Door Away From Heaven
    From the Corner of His Eye • False Memory • Seize the Night
    Fear Nothing • Mr. Murder • Dragon Tears • Hideaway
    Cold Fire • The Bad Place • Midnight • Lightning
    Watchers • Strangers • Twilight Eyes • Darkfall
    Phantoms • Whispers • The Mask • The Vision
    The Face of Fear • Night Chills • Shattered
    The Voice of the Night • The Servants of Twilight
    The House of Thunder • The Key to Midnight
    The Eyes of Darkness • Shadowfires • Winter Moon
    The Door to December • Dark Rivers of the Heart • Icebound
    Strange Highways • Intensity • Sole Survivor
    Ticktock • The Funhouse • Demon Seed
    DEAN KOONTZ’S FRANKENSTEIN
    Book One: Prodigal