Dark Rivers of the Heart

wrong."
        "What wrong would that be?"
        "Well, of course, it's wrong for a son to betray his father."
        "Ah. And in addition to being able to avenge that betrayal, may I have the woman?" Steven asked.
        Roy thought of those lovely eyes, so direct and challenging. He had coveted them for fourteen months. He would be willing to relinquish his claim, however, in return for the opportunity to witness what a creative genius of Steven Ackblom's stature could achieve when permitted to work in the medium of living flesh.
        In anticipation of visitors, they now spoke in whispers: "Yes, that seems only fair," Roy said. "But I want to watch."
        "You understand that what I'll do to her will be… extreme."
        "The timid never know transcendence."
        "That's very true," Steven agreed.
        " 'They were all so beautiful in their pain, and all like angels when they died,"
        " Roy quoted.
        "And you want to see that brief, perfect beauty," Ackblom said.
        "Yes.
        From the far end of the building came the scrape and clack of a lock bolt. A hesitation. 'Then the faint creak of door hinges.
        Darius braked at the stop sign. He was traveling east, and he lived two and a half blocks north of where he had stopped, but he didn't put on the turn signal. Facing the microbus from across the intersection were four television news vans with elaborate microwave dishes on the roofs.
        Two were parked to the left, two to the right, bathed in the sodium-yellow lightfall from the streetlamps. One was from KNBC, the local affiliate of the national network, and another was marked KTLA, which was Channel 5, the independent station with the highest news ratings in the Los Angeles market. Harris couldn't make out the call letters on the other vans, but the stations in Los Angeles figured they would be from the ABC and CBS affiliates. Behind them were a few cars, and in addition to the people in all those vehicles, half a dozen others were milling around, talking.
        Darius's voice was colored by both heavy sarcasm and anger: "Must be a breaking story."
        "Not quite yet," Harris said grimly. "Best to drive straight through, right by them, and not so fast that they pay any attention to us."
        Instead of turning left, toward home, Darius did as his brother asked.
        Passing the media, Harris leaned forward, as if fiddling with the radio, averting his face from the windows. "They've been tipped off, asked to stay a few blocks away until it goes down. Somebody wants to ensure there'll be plenty of film of me being taken out of the house in handcuffs.
        If they go as far as using a SWAT team, then just before the bastards break down the door, these TV vans will get the word to come on up."
        Behind Harris, from the middle of three rows of seats, Ondine leaned forward. "Daddy, you mean they're all here to film you?"
        "I'd bet on it, honey."
        "The bastards," she famed.
        "Just newsmen doing their job."
        Willa, more emotionally fragile than her sister, began to cry again.
        "Ondine's right," Bonnie agreed. "Stinking bastards."
        From the very back of the Microbus, Martin said, "Man, this is wild.
        Uncle Harris, they're going after you like you were Michael Jackson or someone."
        "Okay, we're past them," Darius said, so Harris could sit up straight again.
        Bonnie said, "The police must think we're home, 'cause of the way the security system handles the lights when no one's there."
        "It's programmed with a dozen scenarios," Darius explained. "It cycles through a different one every night no one's there, switching off lamps in one room, on in another, switching radios and tvs on and off, imitating realistic patterns of activity. Supposed to convince burglars. Never expected I'd be happy about it convincing cops."
        Bonnie asked, "What now?"
        "Let's just drive for a while." Harris put his hands in front of the heater vents, in the jets of hot air. He couldn't get warm. "Just drive while I think about this."
        Already they had spent fifteen minutes cruising through Bet Air while he'd told them about the man who had approached him during his walk, the second stranger in the theater men's room, and the redhead in the green coat. Even before seeing the -news vans, they had all regarded the woman's warning as seriously as the events of the