In the Heart of the Fire (Nameless: Season One, #1)

by Dean Koontz

He knows—a better word is believes—that his amnesia is a medical matter beyond his control, but he senses that it’s also somehow a choice he has made.

He currently calls himself Ben Shepherd. A magazine left on the bus by a previous passenger featured an article about a police dog—a German shepherd—that lost one leg in a violent encounter but persevered through rehab and didn’t retire. The dog’s name is Ben.

for he has no fingerprints. They were removed with the application of a series of lightly applied acids and CO2 laser treatments.

Flying across the faces of the buildings, the shadows resemble dragons, as if Texas has gone Tolkien.

Seraphina, ten years old,

Sheriff Russell Soakes,

If he could have drugged the family, put Jenny and Max in their beds, replaced Seraphina with an unconscious Wendy, and engineered a leak in their gas furnace—leading to an explosion and fierce fire—little but charred bones and teeth would have remained. The county operates a coroner system rather than a medical-examiner system, so there is no forensic pathologist to worry about. The coroner, Cecil Blocker, owns one of the town’s two funeral homes and is beholden to the sheriff for a number of reasons; he would identify Wendy’s remains as Seraphina’s on Russell’s say-so and think nothing of it.

WTF?!

His yearning for Seraphina brings him past the Demeter property a few times a day. But on this occasion, he is drawn to the place by a text message received on his personal smartphone. It is sent by Deputy Harry Carlisle and says cryptically, SOMETHING’S GOING DOWN AT 600 SMOKETREE ROAD, which is the Demeter address.

Seraphina is 10 years old btw

Russell Soakes, thirty-nine, is the sheriff of Worstead County, which has no other law-enforcement agency. His daddy, Harlan, is in his forty-third year as chairman of the county board of supervisors. Uncle Curtis is a respected judge, and Uncle Ned is the district attorney. In all but name, this is Soakes County.

Criminals are as absurd as they are evil.

Then one morning, when Lana’s at school, Wylie wakes up hungover and finds Deputy Soakes sitting in his bedroom, watching him, eyes like a predator’s assessing prey. “Sorry to intrude,” Soakes says, “but I need to have your attention while you’re sober.” He offers Wylie a deal: If he will provide what Soakes wants, he can keep driving drunk, and Soakes will protect him. Otherwise, the next time Wylie’s caught, Soakes will arrest him, Wylie will draw a gun, and Soakes will have to kill him in self-defense.

Roger Louis Hurkos and Alex Josephine Hurkos of Jackson, Mississippi. Soakes is stunned. Roger and Alex Hurkos are the parents of Wendy Hurkos, the most recent girl in the playpen. They are dead in their buried Range Rover, and their daughter lies in another grave.

His clairvoyance is time travel achieved without leaving the present. The curtains of the past part, and he sees what has been; the mists of the future clear, and he sees an event yet to occur.

According to one of yesterday’s messages from Ace of Diamonds, computer-enhanced photos taken by a private-sector satellite show suspicious topographic irregularities at the northern end of the property. Nameless is expected to excavate one of these six sites.

She doesn’t have the authority to open Room 22 for Russell. But the manager is Richie Legardo, with whom Soakes went to high school, and he’s eager to be of assistance, which he damn well better be, considering that the Soakes political machine controls the issuance of business licenses and can also use health department inspections as a weapon. Richie unlocks the room for the sheriff and leaves him to his investigation.