The Perfect Outsider. Лорет Энн Уайт

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СКАЧАТЬ Why did that name strike such a strident cord in him? “Did you tell me about him already, in the ravine?”

      “Samuel is the leader of a cult in Cold Plains,” June said, assessing him carefully as she spoke. Jesse got the sense she was watching for some kind of reaction to her words, something that would show he was lying. Anxiety curled through him.

      “He calls his followers Devotees,” she said. “And, as Molly pointed out, he personally tattoos a small D on the hip of each one of his true followers.” She paused. “None of this sounds familiar?”

      The trouble was, it did. But he couldn’t figure out why.

      “No,” he said.

      Her mouth flattened and something in her eyes changed. “Earlier you were muttering about Samuel and something urgent you had to do.”

      Jesse’s heart began to race. His mouth felt dry. He did recall that now. But he didn’t know what it meant. And he didn’t like what was happening here. He glanced at the pistol holstered on her hip, then his gaze went to the door. It struck him there were no windows in this room. Claustrophobia crawled around the edges of his mind.

      “I don’t remember saying those things.” He was lying now, and he knew it. He felt in his gut he had to, but didn’t understand why.

      “You pulled a gun on me,” he said.

      Her gaze was steady, cool. “You grabbed me.”

      He frowned. The action hurt his head. His hand went to his forehead.

      “Don’t touch.” She got to her feet, went over to a dresser that had framed photographs on top. She brought him a handheld mirror.

      “You can take a look.”

      He took the mirror from her, his hand brushing against her cool, slender fingers as he did. Jesse saw a wedding band on her left hand, and felt a sharp and sudden stab of remorse, guilt. Shame.

      He glanced at his own hand. No wedding band—not even a tan line. But he felt as if something should be there. A deep uneasiness bored down into him. Slowly, he looked into the small mirror.

      The face that looked back was familiar. His. But he could attach nothing more to it. She’d done a neat job of the stitches along his brow. A memory hit him. A woman, brunette, running through the dark forest. Rain. She had two young children in her arms. She was screaming hysterically.

       Bastard! No henchman is going to get my children!

      She had hit him with a branch across his brow.

      Gunfire. He could recall shooting. There were men—running through the forest. Then he was falling, falling. Pain in his leg.

      Then nothing. Swirling mist, blackness.

      Sweat broke out over his torso.

      Slowly he lowered the mirror.

      Those clear, summer-sky eyes were staring intently at him. She was waiting.

      But he said nothing. He was afraid he might have done something—he felt bad about it and he didn’t understand why.

      She sat on the chair next to the bed and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped in front of her. A quiet urgency buzzed about her.

      “If you remember anything, Jesse, you need to tell me—it could help the lives of a mother and her small children.”

      He looked away. Her black Lab was lying in a basket by the stove, watching him, too. The bed he was lying on was queen-size. There was a closet at the far end of the room. The walls of this room were uneven, and he realized suddenly that they were rock.

      “Where am I?”

      “A safe place. Look, Jesse, before anything else, I need you to try harder. A young mother in her thirties, brunette, went missing with her three-year-old twin girls in these woods two nights ago.” She paused, her intensity sharpening. “Her name is Lacy Matthews and she runs the coffee shop on Main Street in Cold Plains. Her twins are in the local day care. Lacy was a Devotee. Like you, she has a D tattooed on her hip. But she wanted to get out of the cult. I was supposed to meet her to bring her to this safe house, but she never showed up.”

      “You help people escape the cult?”

      Her eyes narrowed, and he thought he detected a sliver of fear.

      “Yes,” she said coolly. “This is a halfway house, a place from where escapees can access exit-counseling, and then go on to start new lives somewhere else.”

      “You do deprogramming?”

      “I’m trained to offer early-stage exit-counseling.”

      The words cult, Devotee, henchman circled around and around in Jesse’s brain, as if they were important to him. But he couldn’t slot them into any bigger picture.

      The image of the brunette screaming, fleeing from him, sliced across his brain again, sharp, like pieces of broken mirror.

      Jesse swallowed, met her gaze. Was he a bad guy—did he work for Samuel Grayson?

      “Did you see Lacy and her daughters, Jesse?”

      He cursed, suddenly agitated, angry. “I wish you’d stop asking me the same questions—I don’t remember a goddamn thing!”

      She watched him in silence for several beats, as if weighing his words for truth.

      “If you did see them,” she said very quietly, an anger now flickering deep in her eyes, “and if you told me where, I might be able save their lives, if they are even still alive.”

      His heart hammered and his head pounded. She was repeating herself, pressing him as if she didn’t believe him. “Maybe if you searched where you said you found my Beretta,” he said quietly.

      Her mouth flattened. “I never told you what kind of gun I found.”

      He said nothing.

      She lurched to her feet, hostility, determination in her movements.

      “Well, that’s exactly where I’m going to start searching, Jesse. And believe me, if you’ve hurt them, I’m going to make you pay. I’m going to make damn sure you go down for it.”

      He didn’t doubt her for a second.

      She stalked toward the door, her black Lab surging instantly to follow at her heels, his claws clicking on the polished stone floor. She opened the door. Outside was a passageway, warm light. One hand on the door handle, she turned to face him.

      “Someone will be armed with a shotgun and standing right outside. Try anything stupid and they’ll shoot you right through the door.”

      “I’m a prisoner?”

      “You’re tattooed with the D of a Devotee and you were carrying concealed, which implies you could be a cult enforcer. I don’t СКАЧАТЬ