Стальные небеса. Ирина Котова

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СКАЧАТЬ to the people tending bar, and because Rick couldn’t think of anything else to do, he stopped the next waitress and asked if she knew a Tina Dornier. She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

      “It’s all I can do to remember the drink orders.” She glanced at his empty hands. “You want one?”

      He didn’t. It was only after she was gone that he remembered he was supposed to order Maggie a diet soda.

      He scanned the crowd, struggling against dismay. What in hell had he been thinking? He dealt with grizzlies, not humans engaged in modern courtship rituals. Maggie had been right—there were a lot of good-looking guys here, any number of whom could have given Tom Cruise a run for his money. The last thing people at a place like this would pay attention to was a quiet woman talking to a man nobody knew.

      Was there something else he could do to find out the name of that stranger Tina had been talking to the last time anyone had seen her?

      Or, at least, admitted to having seen her.

      That thought made him flinch.

      As it turned out, the people came to him. The women, anyway, many of them younger than Tina. Several offered to buy him a drink. Not one remembered his sister, let alone the stranger.

      Desperate, he grabbed a small table that was just opening up. He draped Maggie’s jacket over the back of the second chair, then stopped another passing waitress and ordered a beer and diet soda.

      She was back sooner than he’d expected.

      “Tina?” she said in answer to his query. She set the soda on the table. “Sure, I know her.”

      She handed Rick the beer, deftly pocketed the twenty he handed her, then brightened when he refused any change. Thus encouraged, she set down her tray and slid into the empty seat across from him.

      “Tina’s two years ahead of me, but she helps me and a couple of friends with art history papers sometimes. Real nice. And she’s your sister?” She eyed him assessingly.

      Rick found himself blushing. “She was in here a couple weeks ago. Talking to some stranger, according to her roommate.”

      The girl frowned. “I remember Tina being here. Good Times isn’t, like, exactly the sort of place she hung out. Know what I mean? But a guy…?”

      She scanned the crowd as if hoping for inspiration. “I sorta remember seeing her with someone, because Tina wasn’t really interested in guys. You know? I remember he was good-looking, but there’s, like, lots of good-looking guys here.”

      “Her roommate said he looked like Tom Cruise,” Rick offered helpfully.

      “Tom Cruise?” She frowned, considering, then shrugged. “I don’t know. We don’t get many guys that old in here, you know?”

      Rick managed not to laugh.

      Karin stood. “I’d better get going or my boss’ll dock my pay or something. You got a number I can call if I think of anything?”

      “Not yet. I haven’t had time to get a hotel room. But here’s my business card.”

      “What about your cell phone?”

      “I don’t have a cell phone.”

      She stared at him as if he’d suddenly grown two heads.

      It was a look Rick had seen before. His friends thought he was a Neanderthal, but he’d never understood the modern passion for instant communication. Besides, cell phones weren’t all that useful in Montana’s backcountry—too many places where you couldn’t get a signal. “Can I leave a message for you here?” was all he said. “To let you know where you can reach me if you remember anything?”

      “Sure. There’s always someone here who can take a message if I’m not working. My name’s Karin. With an ‘i.’”

      “Thanks, Karin.” He smiled. “I’ll remember the ‘i.’”

      A couple of minutes later, Maggie slid into the chair Karin had vacated. She snatched up the soda and took a couple big gulps.

      “Thanks! Trying to carry on a conversation in this place is hard work.”

      Like Karin, she had to lean halfway across the table and shout to make herself heard over the noise. You could plot a bank robbery here and the folks at the next table wouldn’t hear a word you’d said.

      “Find out anything?”

      She shook her head. The movement made a stray curl on her forehead bounce. “How about you?”

      Rick repressed an urge to brush the curl into place.

      “Nothing. One person who knows Tina and remembers seeing her here, but that’s it.”

      He had to fight not to shove his chair back and put as much distance between him and Maggie as he could.

      He hadn’t thought twice about getting close enough to Karin so they could talk, but, then, she hadn’t made his pulse rate soar just by looking at her.

      “It would be easier if I had a better description of the man she was talking to,” he said.

      “Yeah. I tried that ‘Tom Cruise look-alike’ line on one of the bartenders.”

      “And…?”

      “He laughed at me.”

      Rick stared at her, unsmiling. She stared right back, quietly assessing.

      “I’m running out of options here,” he grimly admitted, more to himself than to her.

      She considered that, then shook her head. “Not quite. Let’s go talk to Grace, again.”

      Maggie stood abruptly, reaching for her jacket. “Come on. We might get lucky and catch her at home.”

      “I didn’t get the impression Grace was all that serious about her studies.”

      There wasn’t any humor in the look Maggie gave him.

      “I didn’t say anything about interrupting her studying.”

      Rick followed Maggie as she worked her way through the crowd. He was going on two days without sleep, and the noise of Good Times had given him a headache, but he didn’t even consider finding a hotel. Not yet. There wasn’t much hope they would get anything useful out of Grace—even if they found her home, which he doubted. She was probably so stoned by now that she didn’t even remember who Tina was—but he couldn’t think of anything else to do, and he had to do something.

      They were almost to the door when Maggie stopped in her tracks.

      Rick placed his hand at the small of her back in an instinctive, almost protective gesture. He could feel the tension in her body even through the thickness of her jacket.

      Standing just inside the entrance, watching them, was Fenton chief of police, David Bursey.

      Maggie СКАЧАТЬ