Dean Koontz's Frankenstein 4-Book Bundle by Dean Koontz Page B

knew him best.”
    â€œHe never stole confiscated drugs out of the evidence lockup.”
    â€œThe past is past,” Michael advised.
    Braking to a stop at a red traffic light, she said, “A man’s reputation shouldn’t have to be destroyed forever by lies. There ought to be a hope of justice, redemption.”
    Michael chose respectful silence.
    â€œDad and Mom weren’t shot to death by some drug dealer who felt Dad was poaching on his territory. That’s all bullshit.”
    She hadn’t spoken aloud of these things in a long time. To do so was painful.
    â€œDad had discovered something that powerful people preferred to keep secret. He shared it with Mom, which is why she was shot, too. I know he was troubled about something he had seen. I just don’t know what it was.”
    â€œCarson, we looked at the evidence in his case a hundred times,” Michael reminded her, “and we agreed it’s too airtight to be real. No file of evidence is ever braided that tight unless it’s concocted. In my book, it’s proof of a frame. But that’s the problem, too.”
    He was right. The evidence had been crafted not only with the intent of convicting her father postmortem, but to leave no clue as to the identity of those who had crafted it. She had long sought the one loose thread that would unravel it, but no such thread could be found.
    As the traffic light turned green, Carson said, “We’re not far from my place. I’m sure Vicky’s got everything under control, but I feel like I ought to check on Arnie, if that’s okay.”
    â€œSure. I could use some of Vicky’s bad coffee.”

CHAPTER 28
    IN THE MASTER BEDROOM of the Helios estate, all was not well.
    What Victor wanted from sex exceeded mere pleasure. Furthermore, he did not merely
want
to be satisfied but fully
expected
to be. His expectation was in fact a demand.
    According to Victor’s philosophy, the world had no dimension but the material. The only rational response to the forces of nature and of human civilization was to attempt to dominate them rather than be humbled by them.
    There were serfs and there were masters. He himself would never wear a slave’s collar.
    If there was no spiritual side to life, then there could be no such thing as love except in the minds of fools; for love is a state of spirit, not of flesh. In his view, tenderness had no place in a sexual relationship.
    At its best, sex was a chance for the dominant person to express control of the submissive partner. The fierceness of the dominance and the completeness of the submission led to satisfaction of greater intensity than love could have provided even if love had existed.
    Erika Four, like the three before her and like the other brides that he had made for himself, was not a partner in the traditional sense of marriage. To Victor, she was an accoutrement that allowed him to function more effectively in social situations, a defense against the annoyance of women who saw in him the prospect of wealth by marriage, and an instrument of pleasure.
    Because pleasure and power were synonymous to him, the intensity of his satisfaction was directly proportional to the cruelty with which he used her. He was often
very
satisfied.
    Like all of his modern creations, in a crisis she could block the perception of pain at will. During sex, he did not permit her to do so. Her submission would be more satisfyingly complete and genuine if she were made to suffer.
    If he struck her particularly hard, the evidence would be gone in hours, for like all his people, she healed rapidly. Bleeding lasted less than a minute. Cuts healed without scars in a few hours. Bruises sustained in the night would have faded by dawn.
    Most of his people were psychologically engineered to be utterly incapable of humiliation, for shame in all its shades grew from an acceptance of the belief that Moral Law lay at the heart of creation. In the war