"Aaron Wolfe - Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Aaron)

When I finally reached the house, brushed snow from my coat, and
went into the sun porch, Connie was waiting for me. She said, "What was
wrong?"

"I don't know."

She tilted her head to one side. "You found something. I can tell."

"I think it was that animal."

"The one whose tracks you found?'*

"Yeah."

"Bothering the horses?"

"Yeah."

"Then you saw it?"

"No. But I found the tracks outside the stable window."

"Could you make anything of them this time?" she asked as she took my
coat and hung it on the rack by the door. The ice-crusted hem and collar
began to drip. Beads of bright water splashed on the floor.

"No," I said wearily. "I still couldn't make heads nor tails of them."

She took my scarf and shook the snow from it. "Did you follow them?"
she asked.

I sat down on a pine bench and unzipped my boots, pulled them off,
massaged my chilled toes. "Yeah, I followed them. For a few yards. Then
they just vanished."

She took the boots and stood them in the corner beside her own and
Toby's boots. "Well maybe it is a bird, like you said earlier."

"How do you figure?"

"A bird could have just taken off; he could have flown away, and that
would explain why the prints vanished."

I shook my head: no. "This wind would tear his wings off. I don't see
how a bird, any kind of bird at all, could be stalking about on a night like
this."

"Or any other animal."