"Edghill,.Rosemary.-.SS.Collection.-.Murder.By.Magic.v1.0.txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Edghill Rosemary)

"Are you sick?" I asked sharply. Or on drugs.
Even her lips were white. "You don't see in black and white."
I lingered in the doorway, caught on the cusp of wanting to go and wanting to stay. "What are you talking about?"
"You see in color. Too much color."
I dropped the basket and made it to her before she collapsed. I hooked the chair with a foot, yanked it over, put her into it. She was all bones and loose limbs. She muttered an expletive under her breath, then bent forward. Splayed fingers were locked into light brown hair.
"What are you on?" I asked.
She shook her head against her knees. "No drugs."
I stood over her. "This happen to you often?"
She muttered another expletive.
"Look, if you feel sick, I can get the wastebasket."
"No." She shuddered once, words muffled. "No, it doesn't take me that way."
Alarms went off in my head. "What doesn't 'take' you what way?"
She heaved a sigh, sat up, pulled fallen hair out of her face. Her color was somewhat improved, but a fine sheen of sweat filmed her face.
I'd been married; I couldn't help it. "Hot flash?"
She grimaced. "I wish. No . . . no, it's justЧsomething that happens." She closed her eyes a moment, then looked up at me. "Would you do me a favor and help me to my apartment? I'm always a little shaky afterwards."
"Is this a medical problem?"
Her hands trembled on the chair arms as she pushed herself to her feet. "Not medical, no."
I hooked a hand under her arm, steadying her. "Come on, then. We'll take it slow."
She nodded. It looked for all the world like a rag doll's head flopping back and forth.
I took her to her apartment, pushed open the door, and was greeted by three highly suspicious dogs. I wondered uneasily if 1 was about to lose my ankles, but she said something to them quietly and they stopped barking. The trio stood there at rigid attention, watching closely as I got her to an easy chair.
"Thank you," she said. "Would you . . . would you mind getting me some iced tea? There's some in the fridge already made."
The dogs let me go to the kitchen, but only under close supervision. I hunted up a glass, found the pitcher of tea in the refrigerator, poured it full. The liquid was cloudy, and lemon slices floated in it. 1 sniffed suspiciously.
"It's sweet tea," she called from the other room. "No drugs, I promise."
I walked back into the front room with the glass. "You psychic or something?"
She glanced at the dogs, who clustered around my legs, and reached out for the tea. "You're a detective. Detect."
A chill touched me at the base of my spine. "We worked with one or two in the department. I never believed there was any merit to them. Their claims. Their visions. I never solved a single case using them."
She drank tea, both trembling hands wrapped around the glass. The sugar left a glistening rim along her top lip. "It's a wild talent," she explained. "It comes and goes in people. Very few can summon a vision at a given time, so it's not surprising cops don't believe what they say if they can't perform on command." She looked at the dogs. "We're not a circus act."
"Research," I said dubiously. "Paranormal?"
She drank more tea, then smoothed the dampness from her lip with three steadying fingers. "Mrs. Landry asked me to read her cats. That's how we met."
Read her cats. If she heard my doubt, she gave no sign. "Two of them were with her husband when he died. He was at home, you know. Mrs. Landry was out grocery shopping. She always worried that he was in pain when he died, that he was terribly afraid because he was alone." Shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. "I did what I could."
I kept my tone as neutral as possible. "You read her cats."
"It was very sudden, his death. There was a moment of painЧhe died of an aneurysmЧbut it passed. He was gone very quickly. He didn't have time to be afraid."
"The cats told you this?"
"No." She set the drained glass down on the table next to the easy chair. "No. They showed me." She saw the look in my eyes. "The same way your dog showed you, when he was dying. On your way home from school."
I opened my mouth to reply but found myself unable.
"You don't see in black and white," she said. "You see in color. Or did. Very vivid color, in a much broader spectrum than anyone else. They are the colors of the mind. But you've shut them down. I think you must have done it that day, because it was too painful to see from behind your dog's eyes. Or else you said something, and your father told you it was just your imagination. Parents often do that when they don't understand what the child is saying."
I murmured, "My wife says I don't have any imagination." Then I caught myself. "Ex-wife."
"Most of us don't get married. Or don't stay married." Her tone was dry.
"Us? You're counting me in with you?"
"Of course." She leaned back against the chair, slumping into it. "Thank you. The sugar helped. But I need to rest now."
"You read me back there? In the laundry room?"
"No. I can't read humans. Not clearly. But there were edges . . . pieces." The bones stood out beneath the whitening skin of her face. "I'm sorry. I have to rest now."
One of the dogs growled. Very softly. Almost apologetically.
I didn't have to "read" him to know what he meant. I took myself out of the apartment and back to my own, where I opened the bottle of single malt I kept for special occasions. The first and only time I'd availed myself of it was when the divorce papers arrived in the mail.
Outside, I sat in the fraying chaise lounge and drank Scotch, remembering a dog, and a car, and the unremitting pain that ceased only when my father ended the dog's life. But before that, in the final moment, I had felt the unflagging trust in the canine heart: the human will save me.
I swore. Downed Scotch. Fell asleepЧor passed outЧas the moon rose to replace the sun.
My neighbor opened the interior door just as I knocked on her screen door, and stared at me through the fine mesh. She wore nice slacks, silk blouse, a well-cut blazer. Hair was neatly brushed and shining, hanging loose to her shoulders. Makeup told the story.
"You're going out," I said inanely.
One hand resettled the purse strap over her shoulder. "I have an appointment."
"Reading more cats?"