"Wen Spencer - Ukiah 3 - Bitter Waters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spencer Wen)

Ukiah eyed the confusion of people and vehicles. "Yeah, I should be fineтАФthis is Pittsburgh."
There was a tap on Ukiah's window, and he lowered it to find Pittsburgh policeman Ari Johnson
standing beside the Cherokee.
"Hey, Wolf Boy!" Ari grinned at him. "How's that kid of yours?"
"Kittanning?" How did Ari know about Kittanning? Considering the alien Hex created Kittanning
out of Ukiah's blood without benefit of a woman or the normal nine months of waiting, they kept the baby
a family secret.
"Ukiah. Kittanning. I get it. You named him after the town." Ari guessed correctly. "He's what?
Like three months old now? Hopefully it's been a quiet three months, not like when he was born."
Ukiah's memory clicked in: Ari had been at the shoot-out the day Ukiah recovered Kittanning;
the officer had provided them with diapers, clothing, and formula.
"Um, yeah, three months," Ukiah said.
"Is he sleeping through the night yet?" Ari asked.
Max scrubbed at his face. "Jeez, Ari, you sound like an old woman."
"Triplets do that to you," Ari said. "My life is all about babies and guns at the moment. You look
like shit, Bennett!"
"Eight hours on a plane will do that." Max tilted his head in puzzlement, and then squinted at Ari.
"You put them on to hiring us?" In "you," Max meant the cops, not Ari as a person.
"You've been out of town," Ari said. "We've had too many kids go missing lately."
"How many is too many?" Ukiah asked.
"Personally, one is too many, but the count is higher than that. This makes five."
"Within the last two weeks?" Max looked like he'd bitten into something sour.
"Yeah. It's been one every two days or so. Everyone's fairly jumpy."
"Shit." Max sighed, looking out his driver's window and seeing hidden danger in the night. They
had learned the hard way that kidnappings usually meant people with guns and the will to use them. In the
following moment of quiet, rain lightly tapped on the roof of the Cherokee. Max swore again, and turned
to Ukiah. "Well?"
"We do it."
"Okay. I'll deal with the family, kid. Gear up the best you can."
As a result of two layovers, some of their checked luggage had gone astray: specifically the bag
with their body armor and some of their more sophisticated electronics. Luckily their guns and basic
communications gear hadn't.
Ukiah slid up the window and opened his door to step out into the rain. "Fill me in, Ari."
"The missing boy is Kyle Yonan." Ari took out his notepad and glanced at it. "He's white,
approximately four-one, sixty pounds, brown on brown." Meaning the boy had brown hair and eyes.
"Last seen wearing a red shirt, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. He turned four in July."
So, they were looking for a child of limited abilities except for finding trouble.
Ari tucked away his notepad. "The kid has a history of winding up in odd places. Locked himself
in a car trunk once. Disappeared at Monroeville Mall and ended up in the mock-up of Santa's
workshop. Weird shit like that all the time. We're hoping that it will be something like that again and not
another grab and run."
"How long has he been missing?" Ukiah lifted the back hatch on the Cherokee.
"About ten hours. There's a small patch of yard in the back. Kyle was playing in it with an older
brother this morning. The brother came into the house for a drink, and Kyle vanished. The family looked
for three hours before they called us."
Us being the police.
"No ransom demand?" Ukiah asked.
"None of the missing kids had ransom demands." Ari went dead serious. "We're praying you can
find this one."
And with four kids missing already, the police had the parents call Bennett Detective Agency to