"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Sweet Young Things" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

unsuspecting people, all of whom showed up on move-in day and duked it out
among themselves. Preston’s version was more sophisticated.
None of the stiffed renters had ever seen Preston or done more than speak to
Reggie on the phone. For all they knew, Reggie could have been Fala disguising her
voice. Fala’s first break came her third day in jail when the attorney she hired with
the hundred dollars she’d managed to scrounge from her ailing bank account found
the owner of the office building. Preston had been cautious; he’d rented the office
sight unseen, over the phone. But the owner, conscientious and a bit paranoid, had
dropped in unexpectedly that first week to make sure his new clients liked their
brand-new office space. He saw Reggie and Preston and the entire setup. Then a
few of the other applicants came forward, remembering that series of interviews. A
few of them even remembered Fala.
Still, she remained under suspicion, and every so often, the police would drag
her to the station for no apparent reason. The stiffed renters all sued her and she
found herself on the evening news, running from cameras, her purse raised high to
hide her face.
She couldn’t get work, she couldn’t get help, and she couldn’t leave town.
She had no money.
Her lawyer quit because she couldn’t pay him, and she got evicted. She slept
in her car for two weeks before she finally gave up and called her ex-husband.
He loaned her enough money to start her revenge.
Half a dozen calls had already come through the landline before Fala decided
to make her own. She was sitting in the back of the pawnshop, staring at another
unlit cigarette, as she listened to that day’s recording.
“Herbert, Steinman, and Wilkes. May I help you?”
To Fala’s relief, the woman’s voice sounded nothing like Reggie’s. Either
Reggie wasn’t a part of this scheme or she had moved upstairs, delegating the
receptionist role to someone else.
Most of the callers were elderly, inquiring about the flier. One caller sounded
like a real-estate agent: He was told to call back in a week.
That gave Fala a double confirmation of her timeline: the flier had said this
week, and the real-estate agent, whom Preston wouldn’t deal with, had to call back
next week. Preston expected to be done in just a few days.
It made sense. When Fala had found his fliers in Detroit, the phone number
had already been routed to a calling service. She’d traced him to Topeka and
managed to speak to someone on the phone, but no one occupied the office when
she arrived.
He’d always been one step ahead of her, and she was getting tired of it. Years
of research, fundraising, and planning; extra points for anticipating. It helped that
Preston had gone more or less legitimate.
It also helped that he liked patterns.
So did she.
****
Patterns had saved her the first time. The new lawyer, the one she hired with
her ex-husband’s money, said she’d get off the hook if she could prove Preston had
done this over and over again, always leaving some sweet young thing to hold the
bag.
Of course, the emphasis was on her proving it; no one else was going to do
the work, not even the new lawyer and the detectives employed by his fancy firm.
Her scam had been his biggest. Later, she learned it was his last hurrah. He’d