The Returned. Jason Mott
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Название: The Returned
Автор: Jason Mott
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9781472010803
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Pastor Peters stared down at the letter and was, just as he had been upon first reading it, uncertain of everything in his life.
Jean Rideau
“You should be with a young woman,” she told Jean. “She would be able to keep up with you during all of this.” She settled onto the small, iron-framed bed, huffing. “You’re famous now. I’m just an old woman in the way.”
The young artist crossed the room and knelt beside her. He rested his head in her lap and kissed the inside of her hand, which only made her aware of the wrinkles and liver spots that had begun showing upon that hand in recent years. “It’s all because of you,” he said.
He had been a part of her life for over thirty years—since she was fumbling her way through college so long ago and had come across the work of an overlooked artist who died by running into traffic one balmy summer’s night in 1921 Paris—and now she had him, had not only his love, but his flesh, as well, completely. And that frightened her.
Outside, the street had finally quieted. The crowd had been scattered by the policemen.
“If I had only been this famous years past,” he said. “Perhaps my life would have been different.”
“Artists are only ever appreciated posthumously.” She smiled, stroking his hair. “Nobody ever expected one would return to redeem his accolades.”
She spent years studying his work, his life, never imagining that she would be here with him, like this, smelling the scent of him, feeling the wiry texture of a beard he desperately wanted but had always had poor luck growing. They sat up nights, talking about everything but his art. The press was doing enough of that. Jean Rideau: Return of the Artists, one of the more popular headlines had proclaimed.
He was the first of the artistic deluge, the article declared. “A genius sculptor returns! Not long before the masters are back with us!”
So he was famous now. Work he’d made nearly a hundred years ago, work that never sold for more than a few hundred francs, now went for millions. And then there were the fans.
But all Jean wanted was Marissa.
“You kept me alive,” he said, nuzzling his head into her lap like a cat. “You kept my work alive when no one else knew me.”
“I’m your steward, then,” she said. With her wrist, she pushed loose strands of her hair from her face—hair that was a bit more gray and a bit more thin each day. “Is that what I am?”
He looked up at her with calm, blue eyes—even in the grainy, black-and-white photos of him that she had studied for years, she had known they were this particular, beautiful blue. “I do not care about our ages,” he said. “I was only an average artist. I know now that my art was meant to lead me to you.”
Then he kissed her.
Five
IT HAD BEGUN small, as most large things do, with just one government-issue Crown Victoria containing only one government man and a pair of too-young soldiers and a cell phone. But all it had taken was that one phone call and a few days of things being moved around and now Bellamy was entrenched in the school but there were no students, no classes, nothing but the ever-growing numbers of cars and trucks and men and women from the Bureau who had been setting up shop here for the past several days.
The Bureau had developed a plan for Arcadia. The same isolation that had kept the town’s economy stifled for all the years of its existence was exactly what the Bureau was looking for. Sure, there were hotels and restaurants and facilities and resources in Whiteville that the Bureau could use for what they were planning, but there were also people. Close to fifteen thousand of them, not to mention the highway and all the various roads that they might have to secure sometime soon.
No. Arcadia was as close to a nonexistent town as they could want, with only a handful of people, none of whom were anyone of note. Just farmers and millworkers, mechanics and laborers and machinists and various other denizens of hardscrabble existences. “No one anybody would miss.”
At least, that was how the colonel had put it.
Colonel Willis. The thought of him made Bellamy’s stomach tighten. He knew little about the colonel, and that made him uneasy. In an age of information, never trust a person who can’t be found on Google. But that was something Bellamy only had time to ponder in the late hours of the night back at the hotel before he nodded off. The day-to-day business of his duties, the interviews in particular, took his full attention.
The schoolroom was small. It smelled of mildew, lead-based paint and time.
“First of all,” Bellamy said, leaning back in his chair, his notepad resting on his thigh, “is there anything unusual that either of you would like to talk about?”
“No,” Lucille said. “Nothing that I can think of.” Jacob nodded in agreement, most of his attention resting squarely on his lollipop. “But I figure,” Lucille continued, “you’ll be able to ask whatever questions you’re supposed to ask that’ll help me realize if there maybe was something strange going on. I imagine you’re quite the interrogator.”
“A bit of a harsh word choice, I think.”
“Maybe,” Lucille said. “I apologize.” She licked the pad of her thumb and wiped a candy smudge from Jacob’s face. She’d dressed him handsomely for his interview. New black dress pants. A bright new white, collared shirt. New shoes. Even new socks. And he was doing his part to keep everything clean, like the good boy that he was.
“I just like words, is all,” Lucille said. “And, sometimes, they can come across a bit harsh, even if all you’re trying to do is add some variety.” Lucille finished cleaning Jacob’s face, then turned her attention on herself. She straightened her long, silver hair. She checked her pale hands for dirt and found none. She adjusted her dress, shifting her weight in her seat so that she could nudge her hemline farther down—which is not to say that the hem of her cream-colored dress had been high, gracious, no, but only to say that any respectable woman, Lucille felt, made it a point, when in mixed company, to show that she was going through all manner of effort to conduct herself with modesty and propriety.
Propriety was yet another word not used nearly enough in conversation for Lucille.
“Propriety,” she muttered. Then she straightened the collar of her dress.
* * *
“One of the things that people have been reporting,” Bellamy said, “is trouble sleeping.” He took the notepad from his thigh and placed it on the desk. He hadn’t expected that a schoolteacher in such a small town would have such a large desk, but such things made sense when you thought about them long enough.
Bellamy sat forward and checked to be sure that the recorder was running. He scribbled in his notebook, waiting for Lucille to respond to his statement, СКАЧАТЬ