The Trade. Shirley Palmer
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Название: The Trade
Автор: Shirley Palmer
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Триллеры
Серия: MIRA
isbn: 9781474024341
isbn:
“I really don’t understand what’s going on here, Matt.” Halliburton had not picked up on the moment. “What were you doing in Encinal in the first place? Isn’t that where a girl’s body was found couple of days ago?”
“What body?” Ginn asked.
“You don’t know about that? A girl was found dead by the side of the road,” Halliburton said. “Do you think this girl, these kids, could be tied up somehow with that?”
“I don’t know. Could be.” Matt looked at Ginn. “During the fire, I had to come home along the beach. Just past the Edwards old house, I found a baby, maybe a couple of hours old. When I got her here, she was dead. The girl they found might be her mother.”
“Oh, Matt! Oh, my God!”
“You didn’t tell me about that when you came to get stitched up,” Phil said.
Shrugging in dismissal, Matt showed Ginn the Band-Aid covering the wound on his wrist. “I must have cut it breaking a window at Jimmy’s. Phil put a couple of stitches in. Anyway, a couple of sheriff’s detectives came to see me about the baby and they told me a girl’s body had been found, covered in wild-flowers, so I went to have a look at the place for myself. I saw these kids but when I called out, they ran, so I followed them. Five girls and a boy. One of the girls spoke a few words of English, really a few words, I could barely understand her. It was very strange, they seemed to be completely dominated by the boy.”
“If they’re that scared, you’d think they’d put distance between themselves and the place where a body was found, not hang around like that,” Phil said.
“That’s what I thought.” Matt got to his feet. “First I’m going to get some clothes together for them and then I’m going to try to bring them back with me. Their clothes were barely covering them, and it’s cold out there now.” He nodded toward the girl. “I had to wrap that one in Barney’s blanket.”
“You’re planning to keep five, six kids here?” Halliburton looked around the combined kitchen, dining room, living room. “Besides the little detail that it’s illegal, this whole place is smaller than my foyer.”
“I’ll think of something. Phil, can you stay here with Ginn for about an hour?”
Halliburton held up a warning hand. “Sorry. I’ve done all I’m going to do. I was never here, I don’t know anything about illegal kids. Annie and I are going out to dinner.” He got up, took his coat from the stand, shrugged into it. “This girl needs care and she should be watched.” He picked up his bag. “Plenty of fluids, light nourishing food, bed rest. Lock away the knives. Good seeing you, Ginn.” He closed the door firmly behind him.
“Good seeing you, too, Phil,” Ginn said to the closed door. The retreating footsteps faded. “So what are you going to do with a bunch of illegal kids you can’t communicate with?”
“I don’t know.” Matt hesitated, then said, “Would you feel safe staying alone with her? I won’t be gone long.”
“You’re really going to bring them here?”
“If you’ve got a better suggestion, God knows I’m open to it.”
Ginn shook her head. “All right, I’ll stay, but I’ll have to make a call. I had plans, too.”
“Oh. Okay, I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Matt went into the small spare bedroom. Of course she was dating, he should have expected that. But right now she was here, with him. That was something. He opened the closet, pulled out skis and poles, tennis racquets, a couple of baseball bats and mitts, and threw them on the bed so that he could get at the shelves of old winter clothes, some of it his, some of it Ginn had left behind when she moved out. Her sweats were small enough for the girls to wear, Hasan, too, come to that. He was so slight he was hardly there. A tough little bastard, though, a fighter. Matt cleared a shelf, dumped the clothes into a black canvas bag.
Then he felt Ginn behind him. Matt breathed in the scent she always wore, maybe from the giant bottle he’d put in her stocking last Christmas with a card from Barney…Not last Christmas. Last Christmas was the first without her in five years. Last Christmas he’d skied in Davos and fucked his brains out with some Italian girl whose name he didn’t even remember.
“I raided the refrigerator. You haven’t got much, just some cheese and bread and some apples. I put in water as well.” Ginn handed him a plastic bin liner. “I tried to get her into bed but she wouldn’t go. She’s lying down on the couch, so that’s something. I had to let Barney get up on the couch with her.”
Matt gave a small laugh. “Bet that was hard.”
“You know Barns. Matt, do you think Phil will go to the sheriff?”
“Come on. I know he’s not your favorite, but he wouldn’t do that.” He packed in another load, fastened the bag and stood. “Okay, now you’ve got my cell phone number, Bobby’s is on speed dial on the kitchen phone and in the bedroom. If she gets violent or threatens you, just run. You leave her, or you let her go if that’s what she wants. Don’t try to stop her. Promise me.”
“Matt, she’s not going to do anything like that.”
“Ginn, please, just do as I ask. Promise me.”
“Okay. I promise. But don’t worry, I’ve got Barney.”
Matt picked up the bag. “Back in an hour.”
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