"Roberts, Nora - Divine Evil(1)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberts Nora)

"I wanted to go in and check on the setup at the gallery. "
"ThereТs time for that, too. IТll be here at nine to make sure youТre up and
dressed."
"I hate interviews," Clare mumbled.
"Tough." Angie took her by the shoulders and kissed both her cheeks. "Now go get
some rest. You really do look tired.Ф
Clare perched an elbow on her knee. "ArenТt you going to lay out my clothes for
me?" she asked as Angie walked to the elevator.
"It may come to that."
Alone, Clare sat brooding for a few minutes. She did detest interviews, all the
pompous and personal questions. The process of being studied, measured, and
dissected. As with most things she disliked but couldnТt avoid, she pushed it
out of her mind.
She was tired, too tired to concentrate well enough to fire up her torch again.
In any case, nothing sheТd begun in the past few weeks had turned out well. But
she was much too restless to nap or to stretch out on the floor and devour some
daytime television.
On impulse she rose and went to a large trunk that served as seat, table, and
catchall. Digging in, she riffled through an old prom dress, her graduation cap,
her wedding veil, which aroused a trio of reactionsЧsurprise, amusement, and
regretЧa pair of tennis shoes sheТd thought were lost for good, and at last, a
photo album.
She was lonely, Clare admitted as she took it with her to the window seat
overlooking Canal Street. For her family. If they were all too far away to
touch, at least she could reach them through old pictures.
The first snapshot made her smile. It was a muddy black-and-white Polaroid of
herself and her twin brother, Blair, as infants. Blair and Clare, she thought
with a sigh. How often had she and her twin groaned over their parentsФ decision
to name cute? The shot was fuzzily out of focus, her fatherТs handiwork. HeТd
never taken a clear picture in his life.
"IТm mechanically declined," heТd always said. "Put anything with a button or a
gear in my hands, and IТll mess it up. But give me a handful of seeds and some
dirt, and IТll grow you the biggest flowers in the county."
And it was true, Clare thought. Her mother was a natural tinkerer, fixing
toasters and unstopping sinks, while Jack Kimball had wielded hoe and spade and
clippers to turn their yard on the corner of Oak Leaf and Mountain View lanes in
Emmitsboro, Maryland, into a showplace.
There was proof here, in a picture her mother had taken. It was perfectly
centered and in focus. The infant Kimball twins reclined on a blanket on
close-cropped green grass. Behind them was a lush bank of spring blooms. Nodding
columbine, bleeding hearts, lilies of the valley, impatiens, all orderly planted
without being structured, all richly blossoming.
Here was a picture of her mother. With a jolt, Clare realized she was looking at
a woman younger than herself. Rosemary KimballТs hair was a dark honey blond,
worn poofed and lacquered in the style of the early sixties. She was smiling, on
the verge of a laugh as she held a baby on either hip.
How pretty she was, Clare thought. Despite the bowling ball of a hairdo and the
overdone makeup of the times, Rosemary Kimball had beenЧand was stillЧa lovely
woman. Blond hair, blue eyes, a petite, curvy figure and delicate features.
There was ClareТs father, dressed in shorts with garden dirt on his knobby