The Law of Nines. Terry Goodkind

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ to Regent Center before and she must have visited the gallery. That only made sense; wealthy women knew the gallery, after all—they just didn’t tend to take note of his work. Alex’s bio, with his photo, was posted beside his paintings. He signed his name in the longer form—Alexander—and that was also the way it was shown on his biography. She must have known his name from that.

      She looked up to study his face intently. “Why did you paint that?”

      Alex shrugged. “I like the woods.”

      Her eyes began to look a little more liquid, as if what she saw in that painting had some hallowed meaning to her. “No, I mean why did you paint that particular place in the woods?”

      “I don’t know. I just made it up from my imagination.”

      She looked like she wanted to say something, but she instead turned back to stare through the window, looking too taken for words.

      Alex was about to ask why that particular scene seemed to matter so much to her when his cell phone rang. He didn’t want to answer it, but the woman was staring through the window, absorbed in gazing at his painting, so he turned aside and opened the phone.

      “Hello?”

      “Alex, it’s me,” Bethany said.

      “Uh, hi,” he said quietly as he hunched over the phone.

      “Didn’t you get my text messages?”

      “I’m sorry, I haven’t read any of them today. I told you, you should just call if you have something to say.”

      “You’re so silly, Alex,” she said in a lilting voice that he found grating. “Who doesn’t use text? Don’t be so ancient. Everyone does it.”

      “I don’t. So, what is it?”

      “Well, if you would have read the messages that I took the time to send you, you’d know. I made plans to take you out tonight and get you good and drunk for your birthday.”

      She sounded miffed. Alex didn’t really care. Nor did he care to get drunk or do anything else to celebrate such a somber day. He was even more annoyed at her presumption.

      Bethany was beginning to assume that there was far more between them than was actually there. He’d taken her out a couple of times—enough to find out that they didn’t really have anything in common. The dates had been relatively short and unremarkable. He didn’t know what she saw in him, anyway. They just didn’t click. She liked expensive things and Alex wasn’t wealthy. She liked to party and Alex didn’t.

      And, his art bored her.

      “I’m sorry, Bethany, but let me read your messages and I’ll get back to you.”

      “Well—”

      He flipped the cover closed and turned back to the woman. She was watching him again in that way that he couldn’t quite figure out.

      “Sorry.” He briefly held up the phone in explanation before stuffing it back into his pocket.

      She glanced back over her shoulder to his painting. “Me too. My time is up,” she said as she turned away from the window to face him. “I have to go for now.”

      “Really? Well can I at least—”

      The phone rang again. He wished he had shut it off.

      The woman’s small smile returned, curving her lips in a way that was bewitching. She arched an eyebrow as she gestured to his pocket. “You’d better talk to her or she’ll be even more angry with you.”

      “I don’t really care.”

      But Alex knew that Bethany wasn’t going to give up, so he finally pulled the ringing phone from his pocket. He held a finger up toward the woman. “Give me just a moment, please?”

      The woman took one last look through the window and then turned back to him, considering. The way her expression turned serious made him pause in place.

      The phone stopped ringing as it went to message.

      “Be careful of mirrors,” she said at last into the quiet. “They can watch you through mirrors.”

      Goose bumps tingled up Alex’s arms.

      He almost dropped the phone when it rang again.

      “What?”

      She only stared at him with that bottomless gaze.

      “Please,” he said, “hold on for just a second?”

      She melted back into the shadows between the shops, as if to give him his privacy on the phone.

      He turned away and flipped open the phone. “What?”

      “Alex, don’t you ever—”

      “Look, I’m right in the middle of something important. I’ll call you back.”

      He flipped the phone closed without waiting for Bethany to agree and turned back to where the woman waited in the shadowy nook.

      She was gone. Simply…gone.

       3.

      ALEX CRANED HIS NECK, looking around at the well-dressed shoppers strolling the hushed hall. Most were women. He didn’t see the one he was looking for.

      How could she have vanished so quickly?

      He trotted to the archway, looking back toward the massive Regent Jewelry, but he didn’t see her there, either. It was not simply startling that she had left so quickly, it was maddening. He had wanted to get her name, at least.

      He hadn’t expected that he would so abruptly run out of time. He had missed his chance.

      But maybe not. She had said that she had to go “for now.”

      He wondered what she’d meant by that.

      He let out a long sigh. Probably nothing. She was probably only being polite. She’d probably wanted to be rid of him the same way he’d wanted to be rid of Bethany.

      Somehow, though, it didn’t seem like that was it. Something else was going on, he just didn’t know what.

      In the hallway filled with the whisper of footsteps and soft conversation sprinkled with light laughter it began to feel like he had just imagined the whole thing.

      That was a thought he truly didn’t want to have, especially not on this day of all days.

      The Regent Center suddenly felt very empty and very lonely. His mood, which had only started to lift, sank back down.

      He pressed his lips tightly together in agitation at Bethany and her mindless text messages and phone calls. They were never important, СКАЧАТЬ