"Laymon, Richard - InTheDark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laymon Richard)

_If you don't want to do it in front of him, you'll have to go all the way downstairs with him, usher him out, then come back up here by yourself._
_Or wait till tomorrow._
She couldn't wait, just couldn't.
"Maybe I'll pick up something for myself," she muttered, then sidestepped out of the aisle. She found herself facing shelf after shelf loaded with hardbound novels. She crouched down. Wolfe was lower still -- level with her knees.
"Are you going for Wouk?" Brace asked.
"Wolfe."
"_Bonfire_ boy, or . . .?"
"Thomas."
She spotted two copies of _Look Homeward, Angel_, followed by an empty space, after which was a single copy of _The Web and the Rock_, another open space, then two copies or _You Can't Go Home Again_.
Jane pulled out a copy of _Look Homeward, Angel_. Elbows on knees, she opened the book and flipped through it.
"That's just about my favorite book of all time," Brace said.
"It is?" She looked up at him.
Her heart thudded hard.
_What the hell._
"Did you leave a note on my chair tonight?"
"Huh?"
"Master of Games?"
Frowning, he shook his head. The confused way he looked, Jane might've been speaking jibberish.
"The what?" he asked.
"Are you the one who left the note?"
"What note?"
"I mean, it's all right. I'm just curious, okay? It's not very often I get mysterious notes with money in them."
"I don't know anything about any note."
"You don't, huh?"
"What sort of note?"
"'Come and play with me? For further instructions, look homeward, angel?' _That_ sort of note. With a fifty-dollar bill in it?"
He looked mystified. "It wasn't from me. If I _had_ a fifty-dollar bill, I wouldn't be giving it away." A smile suddenly lit his face. "Well, maybe to _you_. If you needed it very badly. Maybe."
If this is Mog, Jane thought, he's got an odd way of lying.
"Okay," she said. "Maybe it wasn't you."
"Anything in the book there?" he asked.
She returned her attention to the novel, riffled through its pages, and made sure that nothing was hidden in the dust jacket. As she slid it back into its place on the shelf, Brace said, "I think that's another copy . . ."
"I know." She dragged the second copy forward. Even before lifting it from the shelf, she spotted a strip of white paper protruding from its top like a bookmark.
"There y'go," Brace said, sounding pleased.
Jane opened the book. Tucked into its gutter was an envelope.
The envelope looked identical to the one she'd found downstairs on her chair. Even her handwritten name looked the same.
She plucked it out and shut the book.
"Woops," Brace said.
"What?"
"Maybe it was there to mark a passage."
"You _sure_ you don't have anything to do with this?"
"Honest. Just trying to help."
"Did you notice the page number?"
"No. Sorry."
"Neither did I. Well, maybe it won't matter." She returned the book to its shelf and stood up.
The envelope was sealed.
"Want me to leave?" Brace asked.
"No, that's all right, I already told you everything about the other one." She looked at him. "You're _sure_ you don't have anything to do with this?"
"Pretty sure."
"Only pretty sure?"
"Almost a hundred per cent sure."