"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - A Time for Every Purpose" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

to those nice expensive homes. He would scream at her and bang her
against the washing machine, over and over, until the blood ran down its
white side. Then he would drag her over to the dryer and shove her inside,
close the door, and plug the machine with as many dimes as he had,
leaving it to run until Kathy McGill would arrive a half-hour later to
discover the body.
The only thing Shaunessy could do, he figured, was stop the
conversation. His fourteen-year-old body wasn't strong enough to stop a
twenty-two-year-old man from beating a woman to death. And he had to
stop Rothke, otherwise the man would go on to commit twenty-four other
murders. The Time Force had discovered long ago that if the first murder
was prevented, the others usually were too.
Shaunessy bounced the superball, watching its colors spin as it traveled
from his hand to the sidewalk. At two minutes to six, the digital watch on
his left arm beeped. He sat up and leaned against the painted yellow brick
near the door, scanning the sidewalk and waiting.
It took a minute before he realized that Rothke was standing at the
crosswalk. This Ray Rothke had neatly trimmed black hair and was
clean-shaven. He wore a pair of brown shorts and tennis shoes. His tanned
legs were muscular, and his bare chest was covered with scars. He
clutched a blue duffel bag in his right hand.
Then the light changed and Shaunessy spotted the abnormality.
Rothke's movements were sharp, jerky, too tense. He looked like a man
who was wound so tight that a snip of the string would send him whirling
out of control.
 Rothke bounded up the two steps leading into the laundromat, leaving
behind him the faint scent of sweat and aftershave. This was the closest
Shaunessy had ever been to Rothke; when they finally brought him in,
after the Beverly Martin murder, the chief wouldn't let Shaunessy in the
same building.
Shaunessy clutched the superball so tightly that the bones in his hand
hurt. Goddamn bastard. If his body had more strength, he would go in
there and kill Rothke right now, put an end to it before it even began. But
he had to follow the rules of the Time Force. Killing Rothke would divert
the timestream onto the wrong path. Preventing Connie Grayson's death
would have no negative effect whatsoever.
He hunched forward, listening as Rothke banged washer doors. Finally,
Shaunessy heard a click and the sound of water running into a machine.
He glanced through the open door. A fan was blowing hot air into the
street. Rothke sat on a folding chair, his feet propped on one of the
washers. He was thumbing through the newspaper someone had left on a
table.
"You okay?"
Shaunessy's heart exploded in his chest. He backed up against the wall
and found himself staring at a young woman resting a laundry basket
against her hip. Almost instantly he had another erection, and he crossed
his hands in front of his lap. How had he survived fourteen?
"I didn't mean to scare you." She smiled. Her teeth were perfectly
straight and white. Softness eased her face into the photograph that
Shaunessy had stared at for hours.