Dark Rivers of the Heart

maybe even find the woman through him."
        Whirrrrr The screen flashed, and Roy flinched. The column of numbers was replaced by three words: THE MAGIC NUMBER.
        The phone disconnected. The red indicator light on line one blinked off.
        "That's all right," Roy said. "We can still trace it through the phone company's automated records."
        The display screen went blank again.
        "What's happening?" Johnson asked.
        Two new words appeared: BANG DEAD.
        Roy said, "You sonofabitch, bastard, scar-faced geek!"
        Alfonse Johnson backed off a step, obviously surprised by such fury in a man who had always been good-natured and even-tempered.
        Roy pulled the chair out from the desk and sat down. As he put his hands to the keyboard, BANG DEAD blinked off the screen.
        A field of soft blue confronted him.
        Cursing, Roy tried to call up a basic menu.
        Blue. Serene blue.
        His fingers flew over the keys.
        Serene. Unchanging. Blue.
        The hard disk was blank. Even the operating system, which was surely still intact, was frozen and dysfunctional.
        Grant had cleaned up after himself, and then he had mocked them with the BANG DEAD announcement.
        Breathe deeply. Slowly and deeply. Inhale the pale-peach vapor of tranquility. Exhale the bile-green mist of anger and tension. In with the good, out with the bad.
        When Spencer and Rocky had arrived in Vegas near midnight, the towering ramparts of blinking-rippling-swirling-pulsing neon along the famous Strip had made the night nearly as bright as a sunny day. Even at that hour, traffic clogged Las Vegas Boulevard South. Swarms of people had filled the sidewalks, their faces strange and sometimes demonic in the reflected phantasmagoria of neon; they churned from casino to casino and then back again, like insects seeking something that only insects could want or understand.
        The frenetic energy of the scene had disturbed Rocky. Even viewing it from the safety of the Explorer, with the windows tightly closed, the dog had begun to shiver before they had gone far. Then he'd whimpered and turned his head anxiously left and right, as if certain that a vicious attack was imminent, but unable to discern from which direction to expect danger. Perhaps, with a sixth sense, the mutt had perceived the fevered need of the most compulsive gamblers, the predatory greed of con men and prostitutes, and the desperation of the big losers in the crowd.
        They had driven out of the turmoil and had stayed overnight in a motel on Maryland Parkway, two long blocks from the Strip. Without a casino or cocktail lounge, the place was quiet.
        Exhausted, Spencer had found that sleep came easily even on the too-soft bed. He dreamed of a red door, which he opened repeatedly, ten times, twenty, a hundred. Sometimes he found only darkness on the other side, a blackness that smelled of blood and that wrenched a sudden tblinder from his heart. Sometimes Valerie Keene was there, but when he reached for her, she receded, and the door slammed shut.
        Friday morning, after shaving and showering, Spencer filled one bowl with dog food, another with water, put them on the floor by the bed, and went to the door. "They have a coffee shop. I'll have breakfast, and we'll check out when I get back."
        The dog didn't want to be left alone. He whined pleadingly.
        "You're safe here," Spencer said.
        Guardedly, he opened the door, expecting Rocky to rush outside.
        Instead of making a break for freedom, the dog sat on his butt, huddled pathetically, and hung his head.
        Spencer stepped outside onto the covered promenade. He looked back into the room.
        Rocky hadn't moved. His head hung low. He was shivering.
        Sighing, Spencer reentered the room and closed the door. "Okay, have your breakfast, then come with me while I have mine."
        Rocky rolled his eyes to watch from under his furry brows as his master settled in the armchair. He went to his food bowl, glanced at Spencer, then looked back uneasily at the door.
        "I'm not going anywhere," Spencer assured him.
        Instead of wolfing down his food as usual, Rocky ate with a delicacy and at a pace not characteristically canine. As if he believed that this would be his last meal, he savored it.
        When the mutt was finally finished, Spencer rinsed the bowls, dried them,