Relentless. Dean Koontz

You looked at him, he Tasered us.”

      “An apology can’t do any harm.”

      “Yes, it can. An apology won’t placate him. It’ll encourage him. He’ll feed on any concession. Apologizing to such a man—it’s like baring your throat to a vampire.”

      Hard experience supported what she said, but it was experience that I had long repressed and on which I was loath to act.

      “All right,” I said. “So what do you think we should do?”

      “Locks and alarms didn’t stop him tonight. They won’t stop him tomorrow night. This place isn’t safe.”

      “I’ll have the alarm company upgrade the system.”

      She shook her head. “That’ll take days. And it won’t matter. He’s too clever for upgrades. We have to get to a safe place, where he can’t find us.”

      “We can’t run forever. I’ve got a book deadline.”

      “And, good golly,” she said, “we haven’t even begun to do our Christmas shopping.”

      “Well, I do have a deadline,” I said defensively.

      “I didn’t say run forever. Just buy time to do some research.”

      “What research?”

      “Shearman Waxx. Where does he come from? What’s his story, his past, his associations?”

      “He’s an enigma.”

      She picked up the can of beets in which I had previously shown an interest. “Take the label off this can, the contents are a mystery—but only until you open it.”

      “I can open a can,” I said, because we had an electric opener that required of me no mechanical skill.

      “And if Waxx is this freaking weird with us,” Penny said, “he has to have been totally bizarro with someone else, maybe with a lot of people, so at the very least we should be able to find someone to support our claim that he’s harassing us.”

      I acquiesced. “All right. We’ll get someplace safe, then we’ll go on the hunt.”

      “Still no cops?”

      “Not till we know more about Waxx. I don’t want a media circus.”

      “Cops can be discreet.”

      “They’d have to talk to Waxx. He won’t be discreet. Come on. I’ll help you pack.”

      “I’d rather you took Lassie out to poop. Fix breakfast for Milo. Deal with your morning e-mails. I’ll pack after I shower.”

      “I don’t know why that can of shaving cream detonated in the suitcase. It didn’t have anything to do with me.”

      “Nobody said that it did, sweetie. Not either time. I just pack faster than you do.”

      “Because I like to make the maximum use of space. You can take fewer suitcases if you don’t waste a cubic inch.”

      She kissed me on the nose and quoted Chesterton: “‘A man and a woman cannot live together without having against each other a kind of everlasting joke. Each has discovered that the other is not only a fool, but a great fool.’”

      We drew on each other’s strengths, but perhaps more important, we found our strength increased and our love enriched by being able to laugh at our own and at each other’s weaknesses.

      As Penny opened the pantry door, I suddenly knew