Heart of Briar. Laura Anne Gilman
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Название: Heart of Briar
Автор: Laura Anne Gilman
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Сказки
isbn: 9781472018106
isbn:
Stjerne, 10pm, l’coffeehouse
She didn’t know any Stjerne. She hadn’t known he’d known any Stjerne, either. Not that that meant anything. It was an odd name—Norwegian, maybe?
“Steh-gerne,” she said out loud, and shook her head. She didn’t remember Tyler mentioning anyone like that, either.
Still, working remotely the way they both did in the tech field, they met a lot of people from around the world; maybe it was a coworker who was in town, and they’d met up for a late-night coffee when he’d gone off-shift? That would be the kind of thing he wouldn’t mention until after the fact. “Oh, met this guy, Stjerne, works for an outfit in Holland. Drinks beer for breakfast...” Yes. That made sense. And maybe...
What had happened, when he’d had coffee with this guy? What if this Stjerne was a serial killer? Had other people gone missing recently? Had the cops been alerted? Would they even notice, or care?
Even in her worried state, that was too much for Jan. “If there was a serial anything in town, the cops would have paid more attention when you called about someone going missing—and every local newsfeed would be screaming, and the university would have held a press conference, or something. Get a grip. Losing your boyfriend is no reason to become an idiot.”
Switching tabs, she went into his email program, scanning for anything from someone named Stjerne. A contact point, she needed a contact point. Who was Stjerne?
There. A dozen or so of them, all recent, the past week or so. Probably a coworker then, arranging a meeting while he was in town...she clicked on one at random, calling it onto the screen.
I want to feel your hands on my skin, gripping me, pulling me, holding me like you’ll never let me go. Your mouth on me, moving lower, until my legs open, helpless, as you lap at me, tongue and fingers making me writhe and moan, calling your name to stop, never stop, Tyler, oh Tyler, until I fall over the edge...and then come back to return the favor for you, my mouth red and wet against the darkness of your skin, taking the length of your....
Jan closed the email with a hasty jab of her finger, and closed her eyes. No. She hadn’t just seen that. It was a mistake, or someone had forwarded porn—she had nothing against porn, as a general rule, although it didn’t do much for her. That was it. He’d forwarded it to himself, maybe, or...
His name had been mentioned. Specifically, and with lurid detail.
That punched-in-the-gut feeling came again, harder this time, and Jan thought she was going to throw up. She fought it and stared at the laptop’s screen, the photo of the two of them, laughing like nothing in the world could ever be wrong. Her mouth worked, and she was finally able to voice her reaction.
“You son of a bitch.”
Chapter 2
Jan left the keys to the apartment on the desk, right next to the still-open laptop. When Tyler the son-of-a-bitch finally wandered back from whatever had kept him three days with his online porn-partner, he’d be smart enough to figure it out.
Or not. Right then, she didn’t give a damn. Rage and betrayal made her body shake, and once in the elevator she reached for her inhaler out of habit, although the pain in her chest was nothing like an asthma attack.
“Son of a bitch,” she said again. “You slimy, sneaky, no-good, two-timing son of a bitch.”
The man in the elevator with her gave her a sympathetic look but didn’t say anything, and Jan clamped her own jaw shut, determined not to let that son of a bitch get one more outburst from her.
When she left the building, the bright blue sky and crisp autumn wind felt like a betrayal. It should be darker, rain clouds scudding across the sky, thunder booming and wind swirling, people scurrying for cover, not strolling along as if they didn’t have a single trauma in their lives.
She stood on the street and thought about going to his office, demanding someone tell her something. The thought of the fuss that would make, probably getting her escorted off campus, certainly making it harder for Tyler to get his job back, if—when—he came back.... She thought briefly about going into one of the bars that lined downtown, catering to students and professionals, and tying a few on, but booze had never been her thing.
No. The only thing to do was go back home.
The bus came eventually, and she got on, paying her fare and finding a seat toward the back, where fewer people sat. The last thing she wanted right now was some wannabe Romeo in her space. Or any human being, actually. She wasn’t sure she could be civil to anyone, just then
Sitting down, she shoved the fare card into the side pocket of her pack, and her fingers touched the keys she’d put there, the cool smooth texture of the Hello Kitty key chain. She’d left the keys, but the key chain was hers, damn it.
Tyler hadn’t just run off with some cyberslut; he’d left his job, too. That still didn’t make any sense to her. It wasn’t as though he had piles of cash hanging around, that he could quit like that. Or did he? What did she really know about him, anyway?
Jan pressed her hand against her stomach, trying to calm the knot there. There was a feeling as if she wanted to throw up, even though she knew there wasn’t anything in her stomach. Nerves and anger. She had never been very good with either. Conflict wasn’t her thing.
“Let it go. He’s not your problem,” she told herself, her voice an unexpected, oddly unfamiliar noise, hard and mean. “Tyler Wash is no longer ever again your problem.”
“Problem is, you’re his only chance.”
“What?” She twisted in her seat, knocking the pack to the ground. The person who had spoken sat down next to her, way too far into her personal space, then reached down and picked up the pack, handing it to her. She took it, numbly, barely even noting what she was doing.
“He has been taken. And you are his only chance to return.”
Those words, like the security guy’s, didn’t make sense at first. Unlike earlier, they didn’t resolve into anything that did make sense.
The man—his dark blue hoodie up, but not quite enough to hide some kind of deformity around his nose, shaggy dark hair obscuring his eyes—made a strangled, frustrated sort of noise. “Listen to me. You must listen, and hear. Your leman needs your help.”
“My...what?” She just sat there and stared at the speaker, her earlier anger washed away by the certainty that she should not be talking to this man, and an equal certainty that, if she tried to move, her feet wouldn’t support her.
He growled once, as though annoyed with her denseness. “Your lover. He has been taken.”
The words were in English, and they still made no sense. She shook her head and shifted in her seat, as though that would be enough to make this crazy person go away. She’d been told, ever since she moved into the city, that crazies would come right up to you, but she’d never had it happen to her before. It wasn’t as if this was New York, or Chicago.... Of all the days, though, it seemed inevitable that it would happen today.
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