"Lavene, Joyce & Jim - Mask of the Stranger" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lavene Joyce)

She stood to the side of the window, concentrating on looking between the mini blinds. If she were careful, he wouldn't know that she watched him. It gave her a feeling of power, playing that game with him.

He was there, of course. She knew he would be. She almost congratulated herself on the knowledge. She looked down at him standing there, watching her window, and she wanted to scream.

Sometimes, she just wanted to go down the stairs and into the street. Demand to know what he wanted from her. Face him, for once. Bring his face into the light.

But she couldn't. She didn't dare. When she thought she couldn't stand anymore, when anything seemed better than enduring another night with him out there, she took the pills the doctors had given her and fell into a dreamless sleep until morning.

He looked up. Right into her face.

She stumbled backwards from the window, tripping over the footstool behind her. She felt sure that he had seen her. Half-falling into the big chair that faced the door, she pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

What had she done? she asked, rocking herself, crying. What had she done to him?


["#TOC"] Chapter One


The alarm went off in the bedroom, startling her awake. Sunlight poured in from the windows behind her. She'd spent another night in the chair. A fine act of torture when she tried to stand on legs that had been asleep for hours. She arched her aching back and tried to focus her blurred eyes.

If she kept going, the stalker wouldn't have to kill her, she condemned, shuffling to the bedroom. She would have done the job for him.

In the daylight, things always seemed better. She could come close to laughing at her fears. She'd caught sight of him a few times in the daylight but he preferred the darkness to get close to her. Like an errant lover.

By day, he was just a shade behind her. An insistent gaze that was gone when she looked up. A feeling of someone being too near her in the supermarket, even when she was alone in an aisle.

Kelsey dragged her aching body into the shower, yawning. Trying to wake up. With her nights filled with terror, it was all she could do to make it to work each day. Fortunately, she didn't have rigid hours. Although the lab director frowned on late afternoon arrivals, he was flexible with anything before ten.

She knew she was lucky to have the position at Barton. The pay was good, the benefits excellent and they thought her work was important. What more could she ask?

She sighed. She had believed all of that until she'd spent her first sleepless night.

She had no personal life. There was only her work. And the fear that ate at her in the night had begun to overshadow even that.

Kelsey pulled on her loose fitting jeans and a soft white sweater. In the bright light of the bathroom mirror, she pulled her hair back from her face, securing it with a headband.

She began to apply a light make-up base, stopping slowly as her fingers moved over her skin. Carefully, she touched the scar that ran from her temple to her chin. A delicate red tracery along her cheekbone. It was so fine, yet so distinct, that it could have been drawn there by a master hand.

For just an instant, she didn't recognize that face. It was a stranger staring back at her; pale skin, gold flecked dark eyes and a cloud of short, dark hair.

Her hair had been long once. She couldn't remember when, but she kept expecting to feel the swish of it against her neck.

A braid. She narrowed her eyes on the reflection in the mirror, imagining what it might have been like. She allowed her hand to wander down her shoulder, trying to remember having a long, dark rope of hair.

She closed her eyes and there were hands that set it free, sliding through its thickness. Hands that touched her.

But that was all. She searched desperately in the recesses of her mind but it was all gone.

Too fast, she groaned, resting her forehead against the cool glass. It always happened when she wasn't prepared for it.