"Wade-Intruders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wade Susan)

SUSAN WADE

INTRUDERS

The man was in her house again when she came home, standing still and shadowed
on the landing at the top of the stairs. Julia Ogilvy glimpsed the tall figure
through the window over the stairs as she went up the walk. Her key was in her
hand, poised for the lock, but she stopped ten steps away from the porch when
she saw him. Just as she had every other time, she stared at the window,
watching the unmoving, clearly human shape of him there on her stairs, waiting
for him to move, or for the light to change. Waiting for some random happening
that would reveal him as real and solid, or as nothing more than an odd pattern
of light that collected on her landing.

Dusk was approaching, though not yet arrived. It was spring, and the air outside
was warm and moist and tasted green. Julia stood there and let the light fade,
her key in her hand, as she watched the tall, thin figure inside her house. The
light shifted and changed around him; his figure grew more shadowed. But it was
still clearly there, still a man. Julia knew as soon as she dropped her gaze, as
soon as she unlocked her front door and dashed up the stairs, the thread of his
existence would snap. He was never there when she got to the landing.

This was the first time she had seen him in over a month, since before her
three-week vacation. Once or twice she had seen him by the sliding glass doors
that opened onto the balcony from her bedroom. One time he had been standing
downstairs, waiting for her, staring out at her through the window next to the
breakfast nook. But almost always he waited for her on the stairs. She wondered
about that as she stood on the walk, about his preference for the landing about
his stillness. He never moved at all, not even a shift of his stance or a twitch
of his hands as they dangled awkwardly from his long arms. The huge pecan tree
in her front yard cast moving shadows over him, patterned like bars by its long
thin leaves. But the man never moved. He simply disappeared every time she went
inside.

It had grown dark as Julia stood on the walk, occasionally scraping a shriveled
pecan catkin off the walk with her shoe; now and then easing her leather
briefcase from one hand to the other. But she never took her eyes from his tall
figure.

He was gone when she went in, as he always was. Julia slipped off her shoes and
padded upstairs to stand on the landing. If he had been there in his accustomed
spot, they would have been face to face. She had an instant of longing for that,
to be able to reach her left hand to the light switch on the wall and press the
rheostat flat with her palm. She wanted to hear the guttural click as the light
came on, soft and dim, not strong enough to drive away the shadows. Only enough
for her to see his face, to look at the fabric of his long dark coat and the
shape of the big hands he kept so loose and motionless at his sides.