"Kathleen Ann Goonan - The Bridge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goose Mother)

afraid, and wondered if I would now die. It hadn’t seemed to matter at all
when I stepped onto the bridge.

Now I wanted, quite terribly, to live.

I walked forward, with a brisk, strong step. And then I ran.

****
 On the other side of the bridge, fog-enveloped streetlights gently
silvered the night. M Street was lively with people. It was the dinner hour.
Restaurants and shops were lit against winter darkness.

I hurried along, wondering how long the event on the bridge had
taken, and wondering what had happened to me.

I did not see her.

And then—

I dashed across the street and into a doorway. It was her, in the
stairway, walking up a narrow flight of stairs.

“Julia!”

She turned slightly, saw me, and continued her climb.

“Julia, wait!”

She began to run, tripping up the stairs on those silly high heels. She
stumbled and I grabbed her hand and caught her. She turned her head and
looked at me.

There was no recognition in her eyes.

But my hand held her bare hand.

A jolt of pain and anguish flowed through me, then a barrage of
emotions. Guilt, I recognized. Regret, yes. But the astonishment and the
anger were as distinguishable from my own emotional makeup as if I were
looking at two different colors, or hearing a saxophone and a violin. I was
assaulted by images—terrible, chaotic, unmistakable.

I saw murder.

“Who are you?” She jerked her hand back and stood, smoothing her
skirt and picking up her hat, which had fallen.

I stared at her. “You don’t remember?” But it seemed quite certain.
She did not. “I am Mike Jones. A private investigator. You hired me to
recover your mother and your sister. You say that your father murdered