"Night Lost" - читать интересную книгу автора (Viehl Lynn)

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Chapter 1



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Pass through.

Curled up on the inn's narrow, lumpy bed, Nicola Jefferson slept, her closed eyelids moving slightly. A black Shoei motorcycle helmet with a smoke-colored full-face visor hung by a strap from one of the bed frame's tarnished brass knobs, appearing in the shadows like some decapitated alien head.

On a small table in the corner of the room, her laptop sat blank-screened, humming as it performed its daily scan for viruses. A scarred, pitted wooden baseball bat stood propped against the side of the mattress, a few inches from Nick's right hand.

When Nick slept, the bat was never out of her reach.

A very long time ago, when the world had been an easier place in which to live, Nick had stolen her stepfather's wood-burning tool and used it to etch her name into the bat shaft. She couldn't bear to give up the last connection she had to her past, those long summer evenings after dinner when Malcolm would give up his television programs to help her with her swing. After Nick leftEngland , she had sanded the shaft every night until the childish, looping letters melted into fine sandy dust.

A pity Nick couldn't do that to her memories.

Nick never enjoyed sleeping, or coveted it. Like other necessities, she skipped it as often as she dared. Sleep was a pit stop, one her body desperately needed, but it wasted too much of her time. Three or four hours a day were all she could spare for it.

Always see.

She had places to go, attention to dodge, and searches to run. She'd hacked into some regional police databases and snagged a couple of decent leads to check out. Every minute she wasn't on the road was one that might bring the knock on the door, the polite demand for her passport, and the cold steel of cuffs. If they took her computer, they'd hack in and find out who she was and what she'd been doing. They'd toss her in jail, and the hunt would be over.

She couldn't stop now. She was so close to finding the Golden Madonna. She could feel it.

Never remember.

Nick knew she was dreaming, but felt no fear. She could wake up at any moment she chose, no matter how deeply she slept or how frightening her dreams became. Even the worst of them couldn't compete with the real nightmares out there in the cold, unforgiving sunlight: cops, thugs, freaks, monsters, and that cold-blooded maniac who daily terrified thousands: the European taxi driver.

Not that Nick could really call this one she'd been having a nightmare. Not until the end.

The dream started the same way it always had: Nick, alone, walking through a forest toward something. What, she didn't know. Why, also a question mark. Whatever it was, though, it drew her like the scent ofChantilly cream wrapped in paper-thin, buttery pastry.

Nick made her way through the wood, detoured now and then by massive tree trunks, soft pine needles brushing against her bare arms and legs. Her footsteps disturbed the carpet of old leaves and new moss, causing countless tiny blue butterflies hiding there to take to the air and flutter away.

Setting sunbeams played a lousy game of hide-and-seek with Nick under the treetop-framed purple sky. She avoided a spiderweb the size of a dinner plate, and paused for a moment to admire its black-and-yellow-striped maker. The spinner raised two legs and curled them, beckoning her or waving to her, Nick wasn't sure which.

She liked nature. Walks in the woods were okay by her. Thanks to her stepdad, who had treated her like the son that he and her mother would never have, Nick didn't get girlie about bugs. And, weird as he was, the guy she knew she would meet on the way to whatever was depending on her. For what, she didn't know, but it felt nice to be that important to someone.

Pass through.

The pine and fir trees thinned, and then parted to show her the same meadow she'd seen a hundred times, but only in her dreams. She smiled and stepped out of the trees, happy to have reached it. It was a good place, this meadow, his place. Wildflowers, soft green grass, and birdsong enveloped her. Dandelion fluff drifted past her face, floating on a mild breeze, carrying the wishes of other dreamers. She caught a bit in her fingers, held it for a moment, and then released it.

Ma bien-aimщe.

Nick's heart skipped a beat as she looked up.There you are .