"Kate Wilhelm - Day Of The Sharks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

only of Shar. For a time after she and Bill moved down here she pleaded with
him to come visit. He could fake a business trip. He could meet her in
Tallahassee, or Miami, or somewhere. Then no more begging, no more anything,
until the call from Bill. "If you're going to the Bahamas, hell, man, you've
got to come for the weekend, at least. You can fly on from Tampa on Monday."

"We should have gone straight on to Grand Bahama," Veronica mumbles, facing
the arrowlike road that seems to plunge into the blue water in the distance. A
low dense clump of green rises on the left. The greenery expands, becomes pine
trees, motionless in the still, late afternoon. "Turn again just after the
pines," Bill's instructions went on. There is only one way to turn, left. They
enter the subdivision under construction.

Unfinished houses are ugly, Gary thinks, obscenely ugly, naked, no illusions
about them, the land around the buildings cluttered with junk that will be
hidden away by the bulldozers, but there, always there. The landfill is
dazzling white: sand, shells, the detritus dredged from the bay to create
land, brought up long enough ago to have bleached to snow white.

"We should have gone straight on to Grand Bahama," Veronica says again,
louder, still not looking at him.

"I told you, I have this business with Bill. We'll leave first thing Monday
morning."

They wind through the subdivision, following instructions. A short causeway,
to the end of the street, on to the point. There is Bill's house, with a yard
fully landscaped, green and flowering. Gary's eyes narrow as he looks at it.
The house is almost hidden from the street, but what shows is expensive, and
the landscaping cost a fortune.

Bill said only three houses were finished, and that one is still vacant. The
buyers will move in on the first of the month. They have not passed the other
completed houses.

"I hardly even know them," Veronica says, not quite whining although a
petulant tone has entered her voice. Gary doesn't know what that is supposed
to mean. They were friends for more than five years. Gary wonders if she ever
suspected Shar, if Bill ever did. He is almost certain no one did, but still,
there is the possibility. Veronica knows there was someone. She always knows.

He parks in the driveway, but before they can get out of the car, they are
suddenly chilled by a last effort of the air conditioner. He feels goose bumps
rise; Veronica's skin takes on a bluish cast. Bill and Shar are coming out to
meet them.

She has a beautiful tan, the same dark gold all over her legs, her arms, her
face. Her hair is blonder than it was before; she might have been a little
thinner before, but otherwise she looks exactly the same. There is a sheen on
her skin, as if she has been polished. She is tall and strong, a Viking type,