Dark Rivers of the Heart

banshee eucalyptuses whisper-walled complaints of eternity's indifference, and the rain drummed, drummed.
        Spencer realized that he was holding his breath. He exhaled.
        Peripherally, he was aware of Rocky staring at him curiously, then at the screen, then at him again.
        He picked up the mug and sipped some black coffee. His hand was shaking.
        Valerie had known that authorities of one kind or another were hunting her, and she had known that they were getting close-because she had vacated her bungalow only hours before they'd come for her. If she was innocent, why would she settle for the unstable and fear-filled life of a fugitive?
        Putting the mug aside and his fingers to the keyboard, he asked for a hard copy of the photo on the screen.
        The laser printer hummed. A single sheet of white paper slid out of the machine.
        Valerie. Smiling.
        In Santa Monica, no one had called for surrender before the assault on the bungalow had begun. When the attackers burst inside, there had been no warnin shouts of Police! Yet Spencer was certain that those men had been officers of one law-enforcement agency or another because of their uniformlike dress, night-vision goggles, weaponry, and military methodology.
        Valerie. Smiling.
        That soft-voiced woman with whom Spencer had talked last night at The Red Door had seemed gentle and honest, less capable of deceit than were most people. First thing, she had looked boldly at his scar and had asked about it, not with pity welling in her eyes, not with an edge of morbid curiosity in her voice, but in the same way that she might have asked where he'd bought the shirt he'd been wearing. Most people studied the scar surreptitiously and managed to speak of it, if at all, only when they realized that he was aware of their intense curiosity.
        Valerie's frankness had been refreshing. When he'd told her only that he'd been in an accident when he was a child, Valerie had sensed that he either didn't want or wasn't able to talk about it, and she had dropped the subject as if it mattered no more than his hairstyle.
        Thereafter, he never caught her gaze straying to the pallid brand on his face; more important, he never had the feeling that she was struggling not to look. She found other things about him more interesting than that pale welt from ear to chin.
        Valerie. In black and white.
        He could not believe that this woman was capable of committing a major crime, and certainly not one so heinous that a SWAT team would come after her in utmost silence, with submachine guns and every high-tech advantage.
        She might be traveling with someone dangerous.
        Spencer doubted that. He reviewed the few clues: one set of dinnerware, one drinking glass, one set of stainless steel flatware, an air mattress adequate for one but too small for two.
        Yet the possibility remained: She might not be alone, and the person with her might rate the extreme caution of the swat team.
        The photo, printed from the computer screen, was too dark to do her justice. Spencer directed the laser printer to produce another, just a shade lighter than the first.
        That printout was better, and he asked for five more copies.
        Until he held her likeness in his hands, Spencer had not been consciously aware that he was going to follow Valerie Keene wherever she had gone, find her, and help her. Regardless of what she might have done, even if she was guilty of a crime, regardless of the cost to himself, whether or not she could ever care for him, Spencer was going to stand with this woman against whatever darkness she faced.
        As he realized the deeper implications of the commitment that he was making a chill of wonder shivered him, for until that moment he had thought of himself as a thoroughly modern man who believed in no one and nothing, neither in God Almighty nor in himself.
        Softly, touched by awe and unable fully to understand his own motivations, he said, "I'll be damned."
        The dog sneezed.
        By THE TIME the Beatles were singing "I'll Cry Instead," Roy Miro detected a cooling in the dead woman's hand that began to seep into his own flesh.
        He let go of her and put on his gloves. He wiped her hands with one corner of the top sheet to smear any oils from his own skin that might have left the patterns of his fingertips.
        Filled with