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

The worst of it was, Ada had taught him this. In the early days of her business, she had shown him how to access cr
files, how to use social security numbers to make certain a client was as solvent as they claimed to be, how to snoop int
people's lives.

When they'd taken the house on Oak, Rick had said no one would force them to move again. Ada had thought he w
going to change, to suck it up and live with the noises that had bothered him.

She hadn't expected him to strike back.

Ada put her head in her hands. She couldn't ignore this anymore. She knew what she had to do.

She hadn't really thought that all those sudden moves, all that uprooting, always following Rick's whims, had merely
practice for this moment. But maybe she had been waiting for it—the chance to escape, to start fresh. Maybe she had k
it was going to come all along—that at some point, her relationship with Rick would force her to lose everything she onc
cared for.

The problem was, she had lost everything a long time ago. She had only realized it now.

For the first time in years, she took action on her own initiative. She used the Internet to close all of her joint credit-
accounts. She had the bills sent to Rick. Her hands were shaking, but she didn't stop.

It took only a few clicks of the mouse to delete her name from all of the billing records for the home phone and the o
utilities. She canceled her cell phone, effective the next morning, and she closed all the store's utility accounts. She drafte
e-mail letter to her current clients, recommending a rival interior decoration service, and set her e-mail program to mail t
letter in the morning.

Changing that much of her life took less than an hour.

Then she called Gavin Markham, a client of hers who was also one of the best attorneys in town. She set an appoin
with him for later in the afternoon, without explaining why she wanted to see him.

Finally, she made three copies of the 1996 disk. She put all three in her purse and stood.

Not much to take with her. Nothing really. Just the bank account information, her purse, and the laptop itself.

After she'd gathered her things, she closed and locked the door to her shop, refusing to let herself say goodbye. She
hadn't really felt at home here, just as she hadn't felt at home in the orange kitchen or in the last five houses. When had s
detached so thoroughly that she started skating through life, seeing nothing, having no dreams?

She wasn't sure she wanted to answer that question.

After she left the store, she moved as quickly as she could. First she went to her personal bank, and moved all but fi
dollars from the joint savings account into the joint checking account. Ten thousand, six hundred and eighty-five dollars,
waiting to be used.

Then she took all but a hundred dollars from the joint account where Rick had been storing Urbanick's money. She
the hundred dollars so that no one would notify Rick that the account had been closed. She had the bank give her the re
a money order, thousands of dollars taken from a family who had done nothing more than live their lives, without intendi
bother a soul.