Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz

At fifty-two, he gave the impression—without appearing to try—that he was far wiser than his years, easily commanding respect and trust. There was something of the psychologist and something of the priest in him—qualities everyone in his position needed but few possessed. He was that rare person who enjoyed having power but did not abuse it, who exercised authority with good judgment and compassion, and he’d been chief of police for fourteen years without a hint of scandal, ineptitude, or inefficiency in his department.
    Thus I came through lampless alleys lit by a moon riding higher in the sky than it had been earlier, came past fences and footpaths, past gardens and garbage cans, came mentally murmuring the words with which I hoped to tell a convincing story, came in two minutes instead of the ten that Manuel had suggested, came to the parking lot behind the municipal building and saw Chief Stevenson in a conspiratorial moment that stripped away all the fine qualities I’d projected onto him. Revealed now was a man who, regardless of his noble face, did not deserve to be honored by coins or by monuments or even by having his photograph hung in the station house next to those of the mayor, the governor, and the President of the United States.
    Stevenson stood at the far end of the municipal building, near the back entrance to the police station, in a cascade of bluish light from a hooded security lamp above the door. The man with whom he conferred stood a few feet away, only half revealed in blue shadows.
    I crossed the parking lot, heading toward them. They didn’t see me coming because they were deeply engrossed in conversation. Furthermore, I was mostly screened from them as I passed among the street-department trucks and squad cars and water-department trucks and personal vehicles, while also staying as much as possible out of the direct light from the three tall pole lamps.
    Just before I would have stepped into the open, Stevenson’s visitor moved closer to the chief, shedding the shadows, and I halted in shock. I saw his shaved head, his hard face. Red-plaid flannel shirt, blue jeans, work shoes.
    At this distance, I wasn’t able to see his pearl earring.
    I was flanked by two large vehicles, and I quickly retreated a few steps to shelter more completely in the oily darkness between them. One of the engines was still hot; it pinged and ticked as it cooled.
    Although I could hear the voices of the two men, I could not make out their words. An onshore breeze still romanced the trees and quarreled against all the works of man, and this ceaseless whisper and hiss screened the conversation from me.
    I realized that the vehicle to my right, the one with the hot engine, was the white Ford van in which the bald man had driven away from Mercy Hospital earlier in the night. With my father’s mortal remains.
    I wondered if the keys might be in the ignition. I pressed my face to the window in the driver’s door, but I couldn’t see much of the interior.
    If I could steal the van, I would most likely have possession of crucial proof that my story was true. Even if my father’s body had been taken elsewhere and was no longer in this van, forensic evidence might remain—not least, some of the hitchhiker’s blood.
    I had no idea how to hot-wire an engine.
    Hell, I didn’t know how to
drive.
    And even if I discovered that I possessed a natural talent for the operation of motor vehicles that was the equivalent of Mozart’s brilliance at musical composition, I wouldn’t be able to drive twenty miles south along the coast or thirty miles north to another police jurisdiction. Not in the glare of oncoming headlights. Not without my precious sunglasses, which lay broken far away in the hills to the east.
    Besides, if I opened the van door, the cab lights would wink on. The two men would notice.
    They would come for me.
    They would kill me.
    The back door of the police station opened. Manuel Ramirez stepped