"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Remodeling" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

Remodeling by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Under her mystery pseudonym Kris Nelscott, Kristine Kathryn Rusch has been getting lots of good press rec
Her series featuring African-American P.I. Smokey Dalton debuted with A Dangerous Road, which won the
Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery and was nominated for an Edgar Award. The most recent series e
Thin Walls (St. Martin's/September 2002), received a starred review in PW. Ms. Rusch also has a new story
collection: The Retrieval Artist (Five Star).


Outside Ada's bedroom window, the car's engine roared. No muffler. Her neighbors hadn't had a muffler for forty-f
days now, not that she was counting.

Rick was.

Ada could sense him beside her, awake but pretending not to be, his entire body rigid as he listened to the
varoom-varoom next-door. The bed, which had seemed so comfortable moments before, was a trap, the covers heav
too hot, the pillow too soft.

Suddenly, there was silence. Merciful silence.

She could hear the click-click of the second hand on the old-fashioned alarm clock they used, and thenтАФ

Brakes squealed, followed by a final varoom as the car backed out of the driveway. Radio, heavy metal from the 1
turned on full. She could just make out Alice Cooper, or was it Kiss? The bass line always sounded the same.

Fifteen seconds between the first barrage of varooms and the second. Then the fading roar of the engine as it round
corner, gone for the next twelve hours.

She didn't move. She knew if she moved, Rick would launch into his tirade. Don't know why people don't respect
other. Don't they know they have neighbors?

The second hand continued clickingтАФthe sound too soft to be a tickтАФand she tried to calibrate her breathing to it,
keeping it even. Forty-five days of the muff ler. Then, before that, the eight-year-old's new drum set. Or had that been a
previous house?

They were all blurring together.

She didn't dare confess that. Twenty-one years of tirades, and nineteen new homes. First, apartments with paper-th
walls. She'd understood the tirade then. She hadn't liked the thump-thump-oh, honey, oh!s any more than Rick had. Or
fights coming from the other apartment. Or the constantly ringing phone from the apartment below.

The townhouse had been slightly better. Only a few shared walls there, and not important onesтАФlaundry room, clos
There, the problem had been the communal deck, the smell of charcoal wafting through the window.

Outside the bedroom window, a child shouted, then laughed. Another child answered, shrill. More laughter.

Rick's tension grew. Ada wasn't sure if she should continue to pretend to sleep or if she should get up and head for
shower. Because the next sound from below would be a loud conversation about all those things children cared about a
one else did, followed by the sigh of bus brakes and the wheeze of exhaust.

Ada threw the covers back. Rick jumped. He clearly hadn't realized she was awake. She smiled at him, hoping to fe