"Alice Hoffman - Turtle Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Alice)

standing as tall as a man. That afternoon, Julian took him home.

The vet sedated Arrow and helped lift him into the backseat of the
patrol car, and when the dog awoke, trapped in Julian's kennel, he went
crazy.

Julian had to wear heavy leather gloves just to set his dish of food
inside the kennel gate. It took six weeks before Julian could trust
Arrow not to attack when his back was turned, and even now the dog
can't be off his lead around people. There are times when he startles
for no apparent reason other than the sound of the wind or a shift in
air pressure. That may be why he took naturally to his specialized
training. He sees not what is there but what isn't, and that's what
makes him the best air dog in the state, with a sense of smell so fine
he can gauge the slightest difference in the air around him. There
isn't a park ranger or state trooper who hasn't heard about Arrow.

They call him the dog from hell, and some rangers insist he be muzzled
while tracking.

The officers at the Verity police station don't like Arrow, and they
don't like his owner much, either. Julian knows what they say about
him down at the station house: that he can't find anything right with
human beings or anything wrong with dogs, that he encourages the
merlins who nest in the sweet bays and bald cypresses on his property
to frighten visitors away, that he's never once sat down for so much as
a cup of coffee with any of his fellow officers. Well, if people want
to complain, let them; let them get down on all fours and shimmy
through the sea grape and poisonwood and see how they like sand up
their noses and fire ants stinging their feet. Let them just try to
make their way through the strangler figs and the saw grass. Chances
are, not one of them would ever find a baby sleeping in the reeds.

Bethany Lee, who had never heard of Verity before she drove into town,
left New York last October. She didn't think about what she was doing,
so she didn't begin to panic until she was in southern New Jersey. The
full moon had washed the turnpike with silver light, and then, quite
suddenly, a drenching rain began to fall. In the trunk of Bethany's
Saab there was a suitcase, and inside the suitcase she had twenty
thousand dollars in cash and three neck1ace I two strands of diamonds
and a string of gold and sapphires.

Bethany's hands shook as she tried to keep the car steady; each time a
truck passed her, a tidal wave of rain slapped against the Saab. Her
baby, Rachel, who was then seven months old, was asleep in her car
seat, warmly dressed in pink pajamas with feet, unaware that the rain
was so hard windshield wipers could do nothing to improve visibility.

Six hours earlier, Bethany had set off to take Rachel to the park, but
on this day she drove right on past. Rachel had let out a cry of