Название: The Mural
Автор: Michael Mallory
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Зарубежные детективы
isbn: 9781434449375
isbn:
“I have to go again, Daddy.”
“Okay, punkin.” As he started to get up, Althea said, “You know, it wouldn’t hurt me, either. I’ll go back with her.” With a grandmotherly smile, she took Robynn’s willing hand and the two strode back to the restrooms.
The last thing Jack had anticipated was picking up an elderly, possibly unstable woman and including her in the travels. Jesus, was he in control of anything any more? Then again, she might definitely be a help with Robynn, and it really wasn’t that far to San Simeon from here. He could take her that far and then decide what to do.
While waiting for Althea and Robynn to return from the bathroom Jack absently looked over the kid’s placemat on which his daughter had been coloring so diligently. There were the usual animal drawings—puppies were a specialty of hers—and the cow pictures had been colored in mostly with green, which was her favorite color. Even more oddly, there was a crayon line that coursed diagonally across the paper, culminating in an arrow at the lower right corner. Jack studied this simple creation: the point of the arrow was surprisingly well drawn, small and fine, and looking more like the kind of mark a mechanical draftsman or architect would put alongside a measurement on a blueprint. How on earth did she manage that with the blunt end of a crayon? Perhaps she had genuine artistic talent. Since the clear implication of the arrow was that the sheet should be turned over, Jack obliged.
Then he froze.
A face stared back at him from the flipside of the menu. It was a woman’s face and nothing short of a crayon masterpiece: vibrant, alive, expressive, and disturbing. The waxen eyes, the brown color of which had somehow been created by overdrawing with primary colors, were riveted on his, refusing to move no matter how he changed the angle of his head or shifted around the paper. It was as though the face on the placemat was looking at him. There was a slight, sardonic smile on the face; a knowing smile.
It was unmistakably the face from the mural.
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