"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Coolhunting" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

homeless person in the pre-dawn darkness, and she knew if any of the residents
of the Old Westside neighborhood peered out of their windows, they would
wonder who was breaking curfew and why.
The walk to the house took three times longer than the shuttle ride.
She stopped outside, astonished at how something that had loomed so large in
her memory could look so small now.
The house had been built in 1910. It had two stories, a wide front
porch, and a garage that had once been a barn tucked around the back. The
large oak tree that covered the front lawn was half dead now. She and her
brothers used to play around it.
 KD had watched from the porch.
Lana hadn't even been born yet.
Steffie sighed, ran a hand through her messy hair, and walked up the
path. It was cracked and smaller than she remembered. Her feet barely fit on
the stones that her father had so carefully laid during the summer of her
thirteenth year.
The memories were coming back.
She hated that.
She had thought she was beyond them.
She paused in front of the glassed in front door and raised a hand. But
she didn't knock. No one should have to knock on the door to their childhood
home. She brought her hand down, bypassed the primitive security system, and
let herself in.
The house smelled of banana bread, lemon furniture polish and her
father's cigars. The cigar scent was faint -- almost a memory -- , as if he
hadn't lit up in a long time. A small shudder ran down her back. How many
times had she come home from school to these smells? Sometimes the baked goods
overlaying the polish were cookies, sometimes it was cake, but the house
always smelled of baking. Her mother worked at home, and she always took a
break by making something sweet.
It was a wonder she wasn't fat. She didn't know about her brothers. She
hadn't seen them since she left home, and of course, hadn't heard from them.
KD couldn't get fat.
The grandfather clock that had sat in Wyton households since the
mid-19th century bonged the half hour. The sound was familiar and unfamiliar.
Steffie jumped.
The household was asleep. She could feel it in the stillness, almost as
if a part of her could hear the uneven breathing from a floor away.
The main staircase with its newel posts and its wooden banisters (now
worth such a fortune that her parents actually should update their security
system) wound toward the upstairs bedrooms. She wondered if hers was still as
she remembered it, or if her parents had turned it into a guest room.
She gazed up the steps into the darkness. KD was up there. If Steffie
had any courage, she would wake KD, have a short visit, and then leave.
If she had any courage.
But she had none. She wanted to put off seeing KD as long as possible.
She avoided the staircase, and crossed beside the built-in bookshelves.
The living room's layout hadn't changed in fifteen years. She sank onto the
couch, fluffed a pillow and leaned back.
Let them be surprised in the morning.