The Vision by Dean Koontz Page B

to be at peace with ourselves, in ourselves,” he said.
    “You don’t fight anymore. You’re at peace with yourself.”
    “I’m only halfway there,” he said. “And you’ve got things to face, too.”
    Defiantly, although she knew the answer, she said, “Like what?”
    “You’ve got to face up to what happened twenty-four years ago, remember what you’ve refused to remember . . . every detail of the beating you took . . . everything about what that man did to you when you were six years old. Until you come to terms with that, you’ll continue to have the nightmares. You’ll never know real peace of mind until those memories are confronted and exorcised.”
    She tossed her head, throwing her long hair over her shoulders. “I don’t have to face what happened then to be a good parent now.”
    “I think you do,” he said.
    “But Max, there are so many kids without homes, without hope or a future. Right now we could give two of them—”
    He squeezed her hand. “You’re playing Atlas again. Mary, I understand you. There’s more love in you than in anyone I’ve ever known. You want to share it; that’s the meaning of you. And I promise you’ll have the opportunity. But adoption is a big step. We’ll take it only when we’re ready.”
    She couldn’t get angry. She smiled and said, “I’ll wear you down. I promise.”
    He sighed. “You probably will.”
    * * *
    Mary didn’t like to drive fast. When she was nine years old her father died in an accident. She’d been in the car when it happened. To her, the automobile was a treacherous machine.
    As a passenger, she endured high speeds only when Max was at the wheel. With him in command, she was able to relax and even to feel exhilarated as the scenery whipped past her window. Max was her guardian. He watched over her and protected her. It was inconceivable that anything bad could happen to her when she was with him.
    He took great pleasure in handling the Mercedes at speeds that tested his skills and his ability to avoid police detection. He enjoyed the car as much as he did his gun collection; and when he drove, he was as single-minded as when he made love. On a long, uncrowded straight stretch of freeway, with all his attention riveted on the car beneath him and on the blurred pavement that succumbed to him, he rarely had patience for conversation. He looked like a bird of prey, flint-eyed, silent, hunched over the steering wheel.
    When he drove like that, Mary could see the recklessness, the taste for excitement and violence that had gotten him into dozens of fights. Oddly, she wasn’t frightened by that aspect of him; instead, she found him more attractive than ever.
    They rocketed toward Los Angeles at ninety miles an hour.
    * * *
    The eighteen-room English Tudor house in Bel Air looked cool and elegant in the shade of thirty-foot trees. The two-acre estate had cost her virtually every dollar that she had earned from her first two bestsellers, but she had never regretted the cost.
    When they parked in the circular drive, Emmet Churchill came out to greet them. He had gray hair and a neat mustache. He was sixty years old, but his face was unlined. A life in service had been remarkably agreeable to both Emmet and his wife. “Good trip, Mr. Bergen?”
    “Fine,” Max said. “Had it up to one-twenty for a few miles, and Mary didn’t scream once.”
    “I would have,” Emmet said.
    Mary had expected to find another Mercedes in the driveway. “Isn’t Alan home?”
    “He stopped by for fresh clothes,” Emmet said. “But he was anxious to be off on vacation.”
    She was disappointed. She’d hoped for another chance to convince him that he and Max
could
get along if they tried. “How’s Anna?” she asked Emmet.
    “Couldn’t be better. When you called this morning to say that you’d be home, she started planning dinner right away. She’s in the kitchen now.”
    “As soon as Max freshens up, he’ll be going to Beverly Hills to