Christopher Rice The Snow Garden (epub)

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.“I’ll let you two handle this." The reedy voice belonged to the reporter, who left the doorway and pushed the door shut behind him.Randall rolled over onto one side away from Tim.“I told you not until I was ready,” Randall managed, breath weak.“Eric Eberman tried to kill us tonight.And you’re still not ready?” Tim stood up.“Is that what you told him? That Eric followed us down there and tried to burn us alive?”Tim’s answer was his silence.Randall rolled over onto his back.Tim stood at the window,, back to him.“Who else?” Tim asked.Mitchell Seaver, Randall thought, but there was no way in hell he was going to tell Tim now that Tim had brought him to a reporter’s apartment against his will.“You wanted to prove whether or not Eric was a murderer.Well, guess what—tonight he tried to murder the two of us.How much more proof do you need?”“Bullshit, Tim! If he didn’t know about the goddamn storage facility, how the hell could he have followed us there?”“He knows we have the bottle.He attacked you, threw you out of the house.Maybe he’s been following you since then.Seeing how close you are to the truth.”“What’s the truth? That he killed his wife because of a house?”“Pettier things have led to murder.”“Give me a break.She saw something.She knew something.”Tim struggled for a response and failed to find one.His face fell with a mixture of fatigue and disappointment.“Right.Your cult.I forgot.Give me a break.How much longer are you going to ignore the obvious just because no matter how much you try you can’t bring yourself to face the fact that Eric killed his wife?”“Because of a house!” Randall repeated, propping himself on both elbows.“Because she was going to divorce him.And it wasn’t going to be easy or pretty.She was hiring an attorney—she went to county records and found out about 231 Slope Street.And if she really started digging she might have found out that he was screwing one of his male students.How much more would she have needed to ruin him?” Tim poked a finger in his chest.“Tell me, Randall, are you really so in love with this son of a bitch that you can’t face the truth—or are you maybe a little bit moved at the lengths he would go to protect your little secret?”“Where’s the letter?”Tim was silent.Randall swung his legs to the floor.“Tim! Where’s the letter?”Tim turned to face the window again.“It’s over, Randall.”Randall tried to control his anger as he realized that Tim was giving him an order.“You gave it to Richard, didn’t you?” Again, Tim was silent.“I still have the bottle,” Randall barked.“Newsflash.Richard says it isn’t worth shit.We shuffled it back and forth across campus and at the end of the day there’s no way to prove it was ever even in Eric’s house.It’s not like we can just waltz into a police station and say, Voila! Here’s the murder weapon!”“So I have to do what you say?”“Basically.Yes.”“How dare you,” Randall whispered.“How dare you!” Tim shouted.“I’m walking around right now with the knowledge that a woman was murdered and I’ve got a pretty good explanation why! And you are asking me to keep playing these stupid cloak-and-dagger games.Well, I can’t anymore.Especially when they end the way they did tonight.I’ve given you what you wanted.You’ve got the best mouthpiece available to you waiting in the other room, and I gave him to you.”“And if I don’t tell him anything? What? He’s going to run a story about the letter you and I stole from a burned-out storage locker?”“No.He’s going to call the lawyer who found a letter from a dead woman on his doorstep.”Anger gave way to a feeling of pure helplessness, and Randall felt his mouth open before he could find any more words to protest.“After all we tried to do, this is it?”“She didn’t know.And she didn’t see you two.Isn’t that enough?”“It’s not enough.” The threat of tears quavered in Randall’s voice, and Tim recoiled slightly at the sound, confused disgust replacing anger on his face.“I’ve spent weeks trying to find out why that woman is dead.And I would spend months if I had to.And now all I’m going to be is the guy he was sleeping with the night she died.”“Maybe that’s all you are.”Tim left the room.Randall couldn’t get up.What shred of redemption he had hoped to gain from this investigation had just slipped out of his grasp, and as a result, he was back to being what everyone saw when they looked at Randall Stone.Eric’s practiced whore, Jesse’s skilled liar, and Kathryn’s fallen friend.Briefly, he had enjoyed a new identity created in the eyes of others, but all of them had seen through their own creations.As far as he had tried to run from it, Randall Stone had been returned to the young man he’d was when he first arrived at Atherton: an orphan, whose new freedom came with a simple price.Randall rose from the bed and moved to the doorway.In the living room, Richard swiveled his chair away from his desk, piled with papers surrounding a circa 1983 word processor, to eye him.Tim looked up from the beer he held in his lap, hope and fear meeting on his face.He had told Eric he was perfectly aware of the damage he was capable of doing, and the rage of that proclamation had flooded him with adrenaline.But when the words had left his mouth, he had believed that the damage he could inflict could bring about some truth amid the tangle of lies that had brought him to Atherton University.Now, all he was capable of doing was casting renewed suspicion on Lisa’s death in hope that someone more powerful than he would follow the trail to 231 Slope Street.“Are you going to record this?” he asked.Home at last at 231 Slope Street, Eric was about to hang up his coat when he heard Pamela’s laughter, It went through his nerves like a raw, electric wire.Down the front hallway, the kitchen spilled light across the hardwood floor he and Michael had so lovingly refinished that summer.He went to the kitchen doorway.When she saw him, Pamela, her face already glowing with whatever was in the glass she was drinking from, lit up with pleasant surprise.Across from her, Michael smiled, his expression a bitter parody of Pamela’s.His robe was sliding off his back, his hair was slightly tousled, and his eyes did not possess the same alcohol sheen as Pamela’s.“He lives!” Michael announced.“Play with us!” Pamela urged; she had gotten his arm and was pulling him down into a chair.“What.are you playing?” he managed.“She’s lovely,” Michael said under his breath, too low for Pamela to catch.“You’re not allowed to make fun of me!” Pamela said, her back to them as she uncapped the bottle of Tanqueray on the counter.Beneath her playfulness, a spark of fear electrified her every motion.What had Michael done to unnerve her?He turned to Michael.“When did she.”“An hour ago.” Michael’s eyes were on Pamela.“Did you two have a date tonight?” he asked her.“Did we?” Pamela sank down into her chair, staring at Eric over the top of her glass.“I guess this is it,” Eric answered.When his eyes met Michael’s, he saw that he was smoldering with a rage that in a man with less ego might have been just simple pain.Eric was unable to look away until Pamela broke the silence.“Believe me.I’m not one for drinking games.But this is the simplest one I know.No flipping quarters or anything like that.”“Well, that’s no fun, is it,.Michael trailed off, groping for what to call her.“Pamela!” She finished for him.“How many times do I have to tell you, Michael?” She laughed and shook her head.“You’re just mad because Eric’s already told me all about you, but he hasn’t told you a thing about me.”Sarcasm and irony were not in Pamela's nature, and Eric eyed her for signs of them.“It’s called I Never [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Linki