"Yvonne Navarro - One Among Millions" - читать интересную книгу автора (Navarro Yvonne)

One Among Millions
Yvonne Navarro
Sondra knew exactly when the vampire started stalking her and the babies.
She called the police and they came out to the house, two dutiful small-town,
small-minded men with beer bellies and the smell of grease and old cigarettes on their
clothes. The twins, their cherubic blue-eyed faces achingly beautiful beneath wispy,
platinum curls, cooed and giggled from the playpen in their room, oblivious to the
terror on their mother's face and the tense conversation a room away.
"Listen," Sondra said, "I've seen it following usтАФ"
"It?" The older of the two cops wore a name tag that said McShaw and sent his
partner a meaningful look. He jotted something quickly on the form attached to his
clipboard.
"Him, I mean." Her face was calm but inside she slapped herself for the verbal
slip. Fear was a nasty, constant companion and could cause all kinds of mistakes,
make a person tell the truth when that was the last thing in the world she wanted to
do. She couldn't afford the truth here, not when the price was Mallory and Meleena's
safety. "I've seen him."
"Okay." The other lawman was younger but headed the way of his chunky
partner; too many donuts and sitting on his ass in the patrol car, wheeling around
town and thinking he looked so smart in his blue uniform and spit-shined shoes, the
carefully oiled .38 snug in its leather holster. Galena was far enough from Chicago to
leave the murders and brutality to the city folk; little occupied these men during the
day besides petty theft and speeding teenagers, maybe a few alcohol and drug
situations. His revolver had probably never been fired at anything but a paper target;
what did this man know of blood and terror? "So you saw someone following you in
Fox Valley Mall," he repeated. "And you say he walked behind you and your
children nearly all the way to your car."
"Yes."
"Then disappeared when you turned to confront him in the presence of another
couple."
Sondra finally saw his nameplate, slightly askew on his shirt pocket. "Exactly,
Officer Walters." She sat back.
McShaw grimaced. "Fox Valley is a big place, Ms Underwood." He peered at her
over the rim of his glasses, brown eyes full of scepticism. "Isn't it conceivable that
this man's car could have been parked close to yours? That it was nothing but a
coincidence?"
"I'm telling you he was following us," Sondra said, too loudly.
The twins made a noise from the other room and she glanced anxiously towards
the doorway, then lowered her voice. "HeтАж"
 Her voice trailed away and she rubbed at her neck absently. These two placid
copsтАж how could she explain the panic she'd felt when the man with the familiar
razored teeth fastened his gaze on hers in front of the Toys "R" Us store? She was
only window-shopping with the babies, of course тАФ she had no money for anything
other than the essentials тАФ but Sondra had forgotten all about the silly mechanical
dog that yapped happily from behind the plate glass. The wide, brightly lit corridors
and garish lights of the mall had done an odd sort of spin-and-fade, until nothing
remained in the world but her, and himтАж and the twins, of course. Their little arms
waving in the air as they began to cry for him, as mesmerized as her by his dark
presence amid the shine and hustle.
"He what?" prompted McShaw. Pen poised above his clipboard, another three