"Lisa Goldstein - Lilyanna" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldstein Lisa)

I got up and studied the photo again. No, I couldn’t believe it—no one who
looked like that could stoop to blackmail.
I set out all I had of Lilyanna: the photo, the pearl, the note, the napkin. For
the first time I noticed a stain at the corner of the napkin, a small spot of red. Was it
blood? No, of course not. It was much more likely to be food, or lipstick.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about the two of them, what they had done. Had
Selwyn grown tired of her demands for money and finally killed her? Or had she
killed him? Either would explain her urgency, and the fear I sometimes felt in her
presence. Her story was darker than I had supposed.
When I got to work the next day I put the photograph on my desk before I
did anything else. I couldn’t stop staring at it, drawn over and over again to that pale
face, those imperious eyes.
The sun came out in the afternoon, that strange California weather that refuses
to relinquish summer, even in October. It relaxed me for a moment, and when Amy
knocked at my office I looked up, glad of the distraction. I was not so relaxed,
though, to forget the picture, and I eased it under a magazine as she stepped inside.
“Are you busy?” she asked.
“No, no,” I said. “What is it?”
“A kid just asked me for The Lying Bitch and HerWardrobe,” she said.
I laughed. “What did you say?”
“Well, I took him to the C.S. Lewis section, but that wasn’t the book he
wanted. I think he was expecting something else.”
We talked for a while about the odd requests we had gotten (The Four
Horsemen of the Acropolis, Color MePurple), and I asked her how the dog was,
and we discussed library business. When she left I realized with a start that an hour
had passed, and that I had barely thought of Lilyanna. How could I have forgotten
her? I felt horrified, guilty. I felt like a knight who had been sent out on a quest by his
lady-love and who had strayed from the path, diverted by pleasures of the flesh or
good company.
But my fear was growing, fear of what I might find, and of Lilyanna, too. I
was out of my depth, had stumbled into a quarrel not my own. What if she had
murdered someone, what then?
I started to shiver. But I was sweating too; my palms were damp with it. What
had I gotten myself into? Who was Lilyanna to come into my life like this? She had
snared me with a photograph, beguiled me with trinkets—with the dead past, things
that never changed. She had seen how steadfast I would be, that I would never
change. Amy’s doors had never closed for me; they had never been opened.
I welcomed the anger; it drove out the terror I felt. Perhaps I wouldn’t go to
the Pearl that night. Why should I be the one to revenge her? I had my own life to
live, after all.
 One of the aides came through, shouting that the library would close in fifteen
minutes. The hell with it, I thought. I stood, my heart pounding, and went to the
children’s section. My fear rose again and I pushed it away, tried to ignore it.
I waited until Amy finished helping a kid with her homework; then I said,
“Would you like to go to dinner with me tonight?”
She looked surprised, and a bit wary. “All right,” she said.
The room grew colder. The children fell silent for once, as if they felt it too. A
blur of white moved in the corner and took on shape.
Amy was saying something, and I forced myself to pay attention. “Oh, wait.
Don’s going to be late tonight—I have to feed the kids.”