"Tanya Huff - Victoria Nelson - 02 - Blood Trail" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

bone. The body, lifted off its feet by the impact, spasmed for a frenzied moment and then lay still.

Bleating in terror at the sudden blood scent, the sheep panicked, racing to the far end of the field and
pressing in a huddled noisy mass against the fence. Fortunately, the direction they'd taken had moved
them upwind, not down. When nothing further happened, they began to calm and a few of the older
ewes moved themselves and their lambs out of the crowding and began to settle once again.

It was doubtful that the three animals who leapt the fence a short time later even noticed the sheep. Huge
paws seeming to barely touch ground, they raced to the body. One of them, russet hackles high, started
back along the slain animal's trail but a growl from the bigger of the two remaining called it back.

Three pointed muzzles lifted and the howl that lifted with them panicked the sheep yet again. As the
sound rose and fell, its primal cadences wiped out any remaining resemblance the three howling might
have had to dogs.



Vicki hated August. It was the month in which Toronto proved what a world class city it had become;
when the heat and humidity hung on to the car exhaust and the air in the concrete and glass canyon at
Yonge and Bloor took on a yellowish-brown hue that left a bitter taste in the back of the throat; when
every loose screw in the city decided to take a walk on the wild side and tempers were baked short. The
police, in their navy blue pants and hats and heavy boots, hated August for both personal and
professional reasons. Vicki had moved quickly out of uniform, and out of the force entirely a year ago,
but she still hated August. In fact, as August was now forever linked with her leaving a job she'd loved,
this least congenial of months had been blackened beyond redemption.

As she unlocked the door to her apartment, she tried not to smell herself. She'd spent the day, the last
three days, working as an order picker in a small coffee processing factory up on Railside Drive. In the
last month the company had been plagued with a number of equipment failures that the owners had
finally come to realize were sabotage. Desperate - a small specialty company couldn't afford the
downtime if they hoped to complete with the multinationals - the owners had hired Vicki to find out
what was going on.

'And Vicki Nelson, private investigator, comes through again." She closed the door behind her and
thankfully peeled off her damp T-shirt. She'd been able to pinpoint who was jamming the processing
machines on her first day but even knowing that, it took her two further days to discover how and to
gather enough evidence to bring charges. Tomorrow she'd go in, lay the report on Mr. Glassman's desk
and never go near the place again.

Tonight, she wanted a shower, something to eat that didn't smell like coffee, and a long vapid evening
spent sucking at the boob tube.

She kicked the filthy T-shirt into a corner as she peeled off her jeans. The only up side about the entire

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experience was that smelling as she did, she'd gotten a seat on the subway coming home and no one had
tried to crowd her.