"Kim Wilkins - The Autumn Castle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilkins Kim)

She followed his voice to the main bedroom, where he was smoothing the covers over.

"I washed the sheets," he said.

"Bad painting day?"

He stood up and sighed. "Awful. Didn't feel like I was painting at all, just putting marks on the canvas."

She reached down to help him with the corner of the duvet, pulled a muscle in her back and winced.

"Christine?" he said, approaching her.

"Bad-back day too," she said, lowering herself onto the bed. "Maybe I'll just stay here."

"Can I get you anything?"

"Sit down a minute."

He sat next to her; she held up her thumb. "Can you see that spot?"

He peered closely. "Yeah. What is it? An insect bite?"

"I don't know. It itches really badly." She sighed and lay back on the bed. Jude leaned over her and
kissed her forehead.

"Jude, I think I'm going crazy."

He smoothed her hair. "No, you're not. You're just adjusting to a new city."

"It's not new for me." She held up her thumb again. "When I was seven, out at Zehlendorf, I pricked this
thumbтАФright where that red spot isтАФand became blood sisters with the girl next door."

He smiled. "That's a long incubation period for an infection." His teeth were slightly crooked. That was
something she loved about him. A lot of her friends back home were getting their teeth bleached and
capped, giving them all the sterile, homogeneous look of movie stars.

She gently punched his arm. "Don't make fun."

"I'd never make fun."

"The thing is, Jude, I can't stop thinking about her. It's like an obsession. It's like my mind keeps throwing
her name back at meтАж her face."

"Maybe you should try to find her."

Christine shook her head. "She was kidnapped. It was one of the reasons my parents left Berlin. She was
taken right from her bed, from her house." And there was some connection with a crowтАж

"Did they ever find her?"