"Nixon, Joan Lowery - The Specter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nixon Joan Lowery)

Mrs. Marsh, who has followed him, moves between the beds and reaches out for the curtain. But Julie cries out, "No! Don't do that! I want Dina to be here. If she's here, Sikes won't come back."
"Who is Sikes?" the doctor asks. He puts up a hand to stop the nurse.
"He killed my father," Julie says.
The doctor is silent for a moment, studying her. "You know about the accident?"
His glance moves to me, and I shrug. "I didn't tell her. She told me."
"I was supposed to be killed, too," Julie says without emotion, as though she is talking about someone who doesn't exist.
Dr. Paull ignores this, and I wonder why. Maybe he thinks Julie is out of her head. Shouldn't he ask her about it?
"We've checked you carefully," he says. "Fortunately, we think you've had nothing more than a concussion, but now that you're conscious, we'll be able to make some more tests."
That's a dumb way to talk to a little kid. I have my mouth open to translate, but he goes on.
"Does your head hurt?"
"Yes."
He sits on the edge of her bed. He is close enough to me so that I can smell his woodsy shaving lotion and see a little wrinkle flicker between his eyebrows as he talks. He pushes back the sleeve of Julie's hospital gown and studies the bruises on her arm.
I study them, too. Anyone can see they aren't from the accident. They are old, browning bruises, and I wonder how she got them. I want to ask, but decide I had better keep my mouth shut. Dr. Paull shines a light into Julie's eyes and makes a satisfied hum-humming noise.
Finally he takes a slow breath. "We don't know your first name," he tells her.
"Julie."
"How old are you, Julie?"
"Nine."
"And where do you live? Can you give us an address?"
"No," she says. "We just lived in San Antonio a week. It was an apartment house. It's next to the freeway."
"How about a former address? Where did you live before?"
"Lots of places. We used to live in a mobile home. We moved a lot." She is staring at him, and his wrinkle flickers like a bad light bulb.
"It would help us if we could find your relatives. Can you give us some names and addresses?"
"I haven't got any relatives," she tells him.
Dr. Paull smooths down her sleeve and gently pats her hand. Maybe Mrs. Cardenas is right about him.
"We don't know much about you, Julie," he says. "Can you talk to us about what happened?"
She doesn't move. I don't see her even blink.
"You and your parents were traveling in a car, Julie. You were in the backseat, apparently. We're guessing, from the police report, that there was some malfunction in the car, that your father in some way lost control of the car."
"Sikes killed my father."
How can she say this in such a calm way? I shiver again.
"Julie," Dr. Paull says quietly, "your father was killed in the accident. Your mother was killed, too. Can you tell us her name?"
"Nancy." Tears begin to roll from her eyes as she continues to gaze into his face.
I hug my knees with a sense of relief. Tears I can understand. But there is so much I don't understand, including myself. I wish I could leave this place, with its smells of laundry-soaped sheets and alcohol rubs. Even leave my body, moving out and away, through the walls, through the air like so much vanishing mist, and never come back.
Dr. Paull takes a clipboard from the nurse and scratches at the paper with an old pocket pen. "We're going to give you medication to help take away your headache, Julie," he says. He stands and pats her hand again before gently placing it on the bed.
Mrs. Marsh makes quick movements with a hypo and a bottle; rolls Julie onto her side, pulling back the bedcovers; and zaps a needle into her hip. I wince, but Julie doesn't seem to notice what is happening.
She slowly closes her eyes. Her shoulders relax, and she sinks a little deeper into the bed. Mrs. Marsh slams the protective rail back into place.
The doctor turns and looks at me. He leafs through some papers, finally looks up, and says, "Dina Harrington." That's all.
I had almost begun to like this man when I saw him pat Julie's hand. But now I'm angry at him. I didn't used to get so angry at people. Dr. Lynn Manning, the resident psychiatrist, tells me I'm really angry at myself. I try to remember this. It's not Dr. Paull's fault that I'm here. But it is partly his fault that I don't like to be here.
"Shouldn't something go with the Dina Harrington?" I ask him. "Like, 'How are you feeling?' or 'Any more problems with nausea?' "
"According to what I read on the chart, you're progressing satisfactorily."
"Not me. The chart." I try to sound matter-of-fact, but it's hard to keep the anger out of my voice. "The chart is progressing satisfactorily, but I'm going to die. Didn't the chart tell you that?"
Mrs. Marsh sniffs and looks upward, as though to say, "She's being a problem." The hair in her mole quivers, and I have to wrench my gaze away from it.
Dr. Paull nods and says, "Having a negative attitude won't help you."
"Nothing is going to help me," I answer. "I'd be stupid not to face the facts."
"Dina, I'm not your doctor," he says. "I'm not going to go into that with you. What I'd like to do is find out if Julie Kaines gave you any information about her family or herself."
I glance over at Julie. She's asleep and breathing smoothly, her straggly blond hair tangled around her thin face. "She talked about this person Sikes. She thought he was in the room."
"Aside from that nightmare," he says.
"Why do you think it was just a nightmare?" I ask him. "I heard the whisper, too. It might have been Julie. It might have been someone else. It felt as though someone was in the room. It was dark in here, and I was scared."
The wrinkle between his eyebrows is at it again. "You didn't see anyone?"
"It could be I didn't see anyone because it was dark and because it took a while to turn on the light. If someone was here, he'd have had time to get out of the room."
"You think someone was in the room?"