"Van Lustbader, Eric - Dark Homecoming(eng)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

We? "Maria, what's the matter?" His throat seemed to fill up with alarm. "What's happened?"
Croaker heard a muffled sound. She was sobbing. "Maria, are you in El Portal? Are you at Sonia's?" He realized he was shouting.
"Please." It was a kind of moan. "Now."
Croaker was already running toward his T-bird.
Croaker made the ninety-minute trip from Palm Beach to the upper reaches of Miami in sixty-five minutes. He was lucky, in that what obviously had been a torrential downpour here had petered out to a fine drizzle.
He whipped down I-95 at such speed that he missed the Ninety-fifth Street exit. Cursing under his breath, he got off at Seventy-ninth Street, went east to NE Second Avenue and turned left through the northern end of Little Haiti. Just past Jacky Jackson's Relax Barber Shop he crossed over the Little River Canal into the peaceful, pretty enclave of El Portal. By that time the rain had stopped altogether and sparks of bright late afternoon sunlight were piercing swiftly scudding clouds. He drove down streets lined with small, neat one-family houses of stucco or brick face over cement block, painted the soothing tones of the Caribbean. Banyans vied with citrus trees for curbside space, and here and there, vivid sprays of bougainvillea and tree hibiscus seemed newly scrubbed in dazzling sunlight.
Bennie's black Humvee was easy to spot, and Croaker pulled in beside it. For almost anyone else outside Hollywood the Hummer would have been a kind of absurd overkill. Not for Bennie. The U.S. Army vehicle was armor plated with bullet-proof glass and special door locks that could not be jimmied. In his line of work it was something of a necessity.
When Croaker got out of his T-bird, he saw someone sitting in the Hummer's front passenger's seat. The windows were rolled down and he walked over. Maria was sitting stiff-backed in the seat. She must have heard the scrape of his shoe soles against the cement of the sidewalk because her head jerked around. Her eyes were wide and staring.
Croaker stopped beside the open window. "Maria. I'm here."
For an eerie instant, she did not move or even blink. "I called Bennie. He's here, too." She spoke as if she were oblivious to the fact that she was sitting in his vehicle.
He put his hands on the window frame. "Maria. Digame. What's happened? Is Sonia all right?"
She gave no reply.
"Lewis."
At the sound of Bennie's voice, Croaker looked up. He saw Bennie coming around the side of a white house with pale blue trim. He recognized it from Sonia's description: it was her house. Bennie slapped his palms together, getting rid of dirt and leaf debris. In a pale linen suit, he looked overdressed for rooting around on the ground. There was a peculiar look on his face as he came up to where Croaker stood. Somehow that look sent a chill down Croaker's spine.
"Listen to me," Bennie said quietly. "Turn around and get out of here. She shouldn't have called you."
"This is bullshit, Bennie. What's going on?"
"Go home," Bennie said. "I don't want you involved."
"I'm already involved," Croaker said. "You saw to that yourself when you introduced me to Sonia. Pearl in the oyster, remember?"
"Yo recuerdo, Lewis," Bennie's gaze searched his face.
"Digame. What's this all about?"
"Nothing good." Bennie gestured and they moved away from Maria and the Humvee. "At approximately three this afternoon Maria gets a call from Sonia's assistant at Lord Constantine Fine Imports. This woman is kinda, you know, freaked. Someone from FPL calls the office saying they need access to Sonia's house and she leaves the office just past twelve-thirty. By, like, three she's missed an appointment, hasn't phoned in as promised. The assistant tries numerous times to call here but can't get through."
Bennie's gaze flicked past Croaker to check on Maria, sitting still as a statue in the Hummer. He looked back to Croaker. "That's when she calls FPL. Get this. They have no record of a problem, calling the office, or dispatching a crew. That's when the assistant phones Maria."
With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Croaker said, "You check the power?"
Bennie nodded. "I just came from there." He jerked his head. "Someone cut the lines into the house. One clip; very clean. Professional job."
"You see anything else? Footprints, any other kinds of impressions? The ground looks kind of marshy from the downpour."
"I didn't notice."
Croaker lifted his chin toward the Hummer. "You got any electrician's tape in there?"
Bennie looked at him for a moment, then went loping back to the Hummer. He checked on Maria while he rummaged under the driver's seat. In a moment, he was back with a roll of black tape.
They took a quick reconnoiter around the house. Croaker could see no sign of footprints, but at one point he got down on one knee to show Bennie what appeared to be a run of parallel lines bruising the wet and glistening grass.
"These mean anything to you?"
Bennie shook his head.
They came upon the cut line. "I don't feature sticking my head into a dark oven without knowing whose hand is on the pilot light," Croaker said. Using the polycarbonate part of his biomechanical hand to ground the live ends, he spliced the line with electrician's tape.
When he rose, he took a deep breath. "I think we'd better try to get inside. Front door?"
"It's locked, but that's no problem." Bennie dangled a set of keys on a chain from one finger. "Maria brought the spare set Sonia gave her."
"Okay then." Croaker turned toward the front of the house. "Let's go."
Bennie's hand on his arm stopped him in his tracks.
Bennie's eyes were dark and very sad. "Lewis, we may be heading into a crime scene. I can't, I won't ask this of you."
"You won't have to. We're friends. There's nothing more to say."
"One thing, only." Shadows from the lowering sun shrouded Bennie, making him seem part of the coming darkness. "Remember when I told you I sensed something out there waiting?"
Croaker nodded. "But if this is it," he said, "I recall you saying it was waiting for us."
Bennie gave a sharp jerk of his head. "Bueno."
Together, they went swiftly across the lawn, past the fountain held aloft by stone seahorses, up the steps and onto the porch. In front of the door, Croaker said, "You get that thirty-eight replaced yet?"
Bennie drew a Smith & Wesson from a shoulder holster and dropped the keys into Croaker's palm.
With a constriction in his throat, Croaker opened the door. Immediately, Bennie pushed past him into the gloom of the small house. He could hear Bennie's soft footfalls hurrying across the Mexican tiles of the foyer. Croaker went in after him and switched on the lights. The bright tropical colors of the living room seemed to leap at them. The room was neat and clean and inviting. Nothing out of place here.
Croaker paused at the edge of the dining alcove, staring down at what the flashlight beam illuminated. "Bennie, look at this. See the last residue of water shining? Someone had to stand here for this much rainwater to accumulate. Either Sonia or someone else."
Bennie was breathing softly but energetically, like a powerful engine at idle.
They turned on the lights as they went methodically through the house. They checked the only closed door in the hall on the way into the bedroom, found linens and towels neatly stacked by color and pattern. Next came a bathroom, the guest bedroom. Then they went into Sonia's bedroom. Bennie stepped into the master bathroom, quickly emerged, shaking his head. "Nada."
Croaker swung around, took a hard second look at the bedspread. At first glance it appeared as if it had been neatly made. But then as he noticed the repeat on the pattern he could see that it was rucked in one direction. It was like an arrow pointing to the phone on its night table. Looking at the bedspread again it seemed to him as if someone lying on it had reached for the phone, wriggling their body in the process-or else been dragged across it.
Croaker walked around the foot of the bed to the far side.
Bennie peered over his shoulder. "What're you looking for?"