Final Hour
Following LAST LIGHT comes FINAL HOUR, the second of two standalone ebook original tales tying in to ASHLEY BELL, the highly anticipated new novel of dark suspense from #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz.Just by touching others, Makani Hisoka-O’Brien can see the darkest secrets they keep. The troubling talent has made the Southern California surfer wary of casual contact. But while impulsively saving a stranger from an accident, she experiences her most disturbing vision.With only a good friend to help her, and mere traces of information to guide her, Makani must track down two mysterious women—one of them innocent, one not.But Makani is stepping into the path of an adversary more dangerous than she can imagine: a brutal predator behind a pretty face, who won’t go down without drawing blood.
Читать Final Hour онлайн беплатно
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
First published in the USA in 2015 by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, A division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Copyright © Dean Koontz 2015
Cover design layout © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Dean Koontz asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2015 ISBN: 9780008163082
Version: 2015-10-21
Contents
Chapter 2: Wipeout Without Nose Guard
Chapter 3: Share a Kiss or Kick Some Butt?
Chapter 4: Where She Walks, the Earth Is Scorched
Chapter 5: The Necessary Computer Wiz
Chapter 6: Ursula and the Evil Twin
Chapter 7: She Walks in Beauty Like a Polyester Resin
Chapter 8: The Shooter and the Shot
Chapter 9: Your Only Reliable Resource in Times of Crisis
Chapter 10: A Pause in the Dayâs Occupations That Is Known as the Childrenâs Hour
1
Unwanted Knowledge
That September day, an offshore breeze polished the glassy breakers, which were sweet ten-footers pumping in powerful sets, and though Makani wanted to be surfing, a chance encounter with a wicked woman left her riding instead waves of dread and chaos.
Morning broke over scattered reefs of eastern clouds painted coral-rose by the early light. From the high hills graced with fine houses pinked and gilded by the sun to the harbor where thousands of sleek vessels were moored, Newport Beach seemed to assemble itself from sunlight, as if it were a Fata Morgana, too beautiful to be other than a mirage.
Some men said that Makani Hisoka-OâBrien was also too beautiful to be true, but she was real enough: at twenty-six already a local surfing legend, an entrepreneur whose car-customizing shop booked all the work that it could handle, a hot-rod aficionado who could build a stylish street-eating machine from the ground up, a woman with a secret that distanced her from those she loved and that for a long time had made the prospect of a lover too dangerous to contemplate.
The problem with being real was that reality kept intruding on a life that, to others, seemed like a dream. After walking her black Labrador, Bob, at first light, she and the dog went to her office at Wheels Within Wheels. Patience was the heart of hoping, and good Bob had a heroic capacity for hope, watching his mistress adoringly as she reviewed accounts payable, in expectation of a touch or treat, and then padding along at her side when she toured the sprawling shop to determine what progress had been made on the four current jobs. The primo was a sleek root-beer-red â49 Ford Tudor that had been given a 1.5-inch chop, a two-inch nose rake, a five-inch deck-lid extension, a custom grille, and enough tasteful sparkle to out-bling a Rose Parade float.
When her employees arrived, a couple of them had problems to share with her. They were good people, hard workers, gifted stylists and mechanics, but they were human and, as such, had their worries and dissatisfactions. In addition to being the boss, Makani had to listen and sympathize, offer considered opinions, provide thoughtful counseling, and have a ready purse. Financial crises arose, children fell into trouble, wives and husbands cheated, beloved parents died, and to one degree or another, her employeesâ problems were her own.
More than she realized, those who worked with her thought of her as unusually caring. Although there was a sense of family among those at Wheels Within Wheels, though Makani was seen as a generous person and emotionally available, everyone remained aware that she was physically reserved. Except with Bob, she wasnât a toucher and had a sense of personal space that she maintained by countless small strategies and evasions. The theory that she might be gay, physically available and fully comfortable only with women, came and receded and returned, but no one was ever convinced of that. Perhaps sheâd been badly hurt by a man too foolish to see what a treasure he had in her. Perhaps she had suffered a loss so terrible that she couldnât talk about it; and now she saw herself as a widow forever. New theories bloomed from time to time, and withered, and all were wrong.
