"Steven Gould - Jumper 02 - Reflex" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gould Stephen Jay)

that came closer to breaking her carefully maintained reserve than anything that had happened since
Davy's disappearance. She turned her head to the wall and squeezed her eyes shut, breathing
carefully. The moment passed and she was still in control, but her eyes burned.
 "Yes. I started to ask it once, already, but you fainted when I showed you his picture."

Sojee looked away for a second and, for a moment, her tongue thrusts stopped as her mouth
tightened. "Yeah. I was surprised, that's for sure." She sank deeper into the chair. "I thought he was a
hallucination. I must've been breakin' pretty hard when I saw him. He kept vanishing and reappearing
on me." She pointed at her coat, draped over the luggage stand by the door. "He took me to get that
coat. One minute I was shivering in the snow and the next thing I know, I'm standing in Macy's, only
it's not the Macy's out at Pentagon City, but the one in New York, and he's asking me which coat I
like. The clerks didn't want to come anywhere near me, but he was like a cat on a rat and wouldn't
take no for an answer. When I found this one, I never took it off again. He paid for it with hundred
dollar bills and we walked away, but then I found myself back on the street, in D.C. I know
something happened but it was all so weird, I don't know what was real and what wasn't." She
reached out toward the coat. "Except for that, I guess. I keep it on too much, even when it's hot,
because I'm sure it's going to dissolve sometime soon. Disappear into thin air like my Angel."

"Your angel?"

"Well, what else should I call him?"

Millie took the picture out again. "His name is Davy. He's my husband." It took her a moment to
add, "And he's missing." The room was out of focus but when she cleaned her glasses, it didn't help.
She blew her nose and that helped a bit. "When did you get your coat?"

"January third. It was that arctic air mass came down and froze all the Florida orange trees. In
D.C. it got to three below zero. Are you going to vanish, too?"

Damn. That was two months ago.

"What makes you think that?" Millie remembered her jump from West Texas to Oklahoma and
her stomach lurched. It's possible, I suppose.

"Well, an angel would be married to an angel, right?" She eyed Millie's blue raincoat. "Or maybe
you're the Blue Lady."

"The Blue Lady?" Millie shook her head and let it go. "Is that the last time you saw Davy? When
he bought you your coat?"

"He checked on me a month ago. He asked how I was doing and gave me some money."

"But not last week?"

Sojee shook her head.

The corners of Millie's mouth turned down sharply, surprising her. Keep it together, girl! You
can cry later.

She took a deep breath and expelled it through tight lips. Like Lamaze breathing, she thought,