"Kate Wilhelm - Dark Door" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

forced open the boards on several windows. He climbed in and opened the door,
then went back to the porch. Carefully, he poured gasoline where her body had
been, followed her invisible tracks through the house, one foot shod, one
bare, both bloody; no traces remained, but he knew. He covered the trail with
gasoline. Up the curving stairs, through the hallway, to the door where the
bloody prints had stopped, where the abyss still yawned. That was where Elinor
and Gary were, he knew. They had been taken into the abyss. He sprayed the
walls with gas, soaked the floor with it, then finished emptying the can as he
retraced his Own trail from that day, down the back stairs, to the porch. It
was done. A distant rumble of thunder shook the air. The things all around
him, pressing against him, vanished momentarily, then returned as the thunder
subsided. Now and then he found himself brushing his hand before his face, as
if to clear away

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cobwebs; his hand passed through emptiness, and they were still there,
pressing against him. The dizziness did not come this time, but his head was
aching mildly. He struck a match and tossed it to the gleaming wet gasoline
where she had lain. The porch erupted into flames that raced through the
building, following the trail he had made, through rooms and halls, up the
stairs. There was a whoosh of flame from the upper floor. He had not closed
the back door; belatedly he wondered if he should have knocked boards off in
the front to admit a cross draft. He stood watching the flames blaze up the
kitchen wall, and he knew he had done enough. Slowly he turned and walked to
the car, taking the something with him, oblivious of the death he had planned
for it. He got in and turned on the ignition; as before, it fled. He drove
away without looking back.
Over the six months he had more surgery on his shoulder, plastic surgery on
his face. A scar gleamed along his cheekbone. They could fix that, they told
him. Give it a few months first. He did not go back. He learned to use his
right arm all over again; the bank, lawyers, no one questioned the changed
signature. They all knew the trauma he had suffered, the difficult recovery he
was making. He took from Carson Danvers very little. Carson had been a master
chef, and the new person emerging equipped his kitchen with the best cookware
available and bought good spices and herbs, but he used them very little. John
Loesser had been obsessively neat; the new man liked neatness more than he had
realized, but not to such an extreme. Carson had been outgoing, friendly,
talkative. He had liked people, liked to entertain people, kid around with
them. The new man knew no one; there was no one he wanted to talk to, no
jokes, no stories worth repeating any more. He spent many hours in his
darkened apartment in Washington watching the lights on the river, watching
the patterns of light in the city, thinking nothing. He spent many hours
reliving his past, going over scenes again and again until he knew he had
recaptured every detail, then going on to other scenes. At first the pain was
nearly intolerable, but over time it lessened and he could even smile at the
memories. Their first date, how awkward he had been, how afraid he would
offend her, bore her, even frighten her. He had loved her from the very first,
and had declared his love much too soon, long before she was ready to consider
him seriously. He had been so dumb, tongue-tied with her, and adoring. The