One by One (Роберт Хантер 5 Поодиночке) - Carter Chris (2) (читать книги бесплатно полные версии txt) 📗

Garcia was looking through the photographs on top of the chest of drawers. There were four in total. All of them of Ethan Walsh with his baby daughter. The drawers revealed a few books and magazines, all on computer programming, and a vast number of comic books. The kitchen was a little untidy, but not any more than one would expect for a single man living on his own. The fridge had several microwavable dinners and a lot of beer.

Hunter left Garcia to look around the living room some more and moved onto the rest of the apartment. The bathroom was a sardine can, with a cracked shower enclosure, a toilet and not much else.

The bedroom didn’t look much bigger either. A full bed was pushed up sideways against the far wall, directly under a small window, and even so it left very little space for one to maneuver around it. Besides the unmade bed, there was only a sliding-door wall wardrobe and a bed table with a reading lamp on it.

Hunter checked under the bed – two empty suitcases. The wardrobe had shirts, T-shirts, jeans, trousers, jackets, two pairs of sneakers, a pair of social shoes and two cardboard boxes full of videogames. Ethan’s bedroom was untidy, but again within what would be expected. Once more, nothing suggested a disturbance.

Hunter returned to the living room, where Garcia was standing next to the uncomfortable-looking sofa, flipping through the pages of what looked like a notebook or a diary. As Hunter stepped back into the room, Garcia paused and frowned at the page he was reading.

Hunter recognized the look. ‘What have you got?’

Garcia looked up and smiled.

‘Our first link.’

Ninety-One

The man carrying his empty basket walked down the long fruit and vegetable aisle in the supermarket for the third time, still unable to decide what to get. He stopped by the oranges section once again, picked one up, brought it to his nose and breathed in its intense aroma. He really liked oranges, but still, not one made it into his basket. He moved a couple of steps further along and paused by the ample and diverse apples display. His favorites were Fireside apples, but they were hard to find in Los Angeles, being a lot more popular in the upper Midwest. It didn’t much bother him though, because Pink Pearls were just as nice, and they were a product of northern California, abundantly found everywhere in LA. He held one in his hand for a long moment, resisting the temptation to bite into it right there and then. He put the apple back and moved along to yet another fruit display.

The indecisive man wore a dark blue suit jacket that didn’t match his light-colored trousers. His shoes were battered, showing years of wear. His hair had been combed back loosely, but only by his fingers, and his two-day stubble made him look a little older than he really was.

The man moved past the blueberries display without stopping. He didn’t like their grainy texture, and to him they were never sweet enough. Anyway, blueberries were way too expensive. He reconsidered buying some pears, peaches or nectarines, but in the end he moved on once again without making his mind up.

When he reached the end of the aisle, he paused and looked back at it, sighing with disappointment. He placed his hand inside his trouser pocket, closed his fingers around all the money he had, pulled it out and counted it again. He didn’t have a lot, just enough to buy the few items he had placed on his mental list. Fruit was one of those items, if only he could decide which one. He returned the money to his pocket and slowly walked back to the top of the aisle again. An attractive woman, who looked to be in her late twenties, was carefully selecting oranges and placing them inside a small, clear plastic bag. The man paused by her side, and after a few seconds tentatively reached for one.

‘These are great,’ the woman said quite enthusiastically.

The man smiled shyly.

‘I bought some the other day,’ the woman continued. ‘And they were the sweetest oranges I’ve had in a very long time.’

‘Really?’ the man replied, now intriguingly eyeing the orange in his hand.

‘I’m telling you.’ She paused and looked at him. He had kind eyes, she thought. ‘It’s like they’ve been infused with sugar or honey or something. You should try some.’

And just like that, a decision was made.

The man smiled and nodded happily. ‘OK, I think I will, then.’ He placed two oranges inside his shopping basket. Two were all he could afford.

A few minutes later the man had, at last, managed to buy all the items on his mental list. Happy with himself, he exited the supermarket, carrying everything inside a brown-paper bag. When he reached the semi-dark parking lot he paused, looking a little confused. He glanced left, then right, trying to decide which way to go. As he turned to go right, the brown-paper bag he was carrying ripped open at the bottom. The few groceries he had in it spilled to the ground, scattering around his feet. The two oranges he bought began rolling away in different directions.

‘Shit!’ he whispered, scrambling after the first of them like a cat after a tennis ball. He finally managed to pick it up, and quickly turned to look for the other one. He spotted it just as it was about to roll away under a parked SUV. All of a sudden, a foot came out of nowhere and stopped it.

The man looked up and saw the woman he’d met at the orange display. She bent over and collected the fruit from off the ground. ‘This one is a runaway, huh?’ She smiled.

The man looked at her, then at the ripped bag and the rest of his groceries on the ground.

‘It’s a bummer when that happens, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I can’t believe this supermarket still uses paper bags. They’re crap, and not very good for the environment either.’

The man was unsure of what to say, so he said nothing. Timidly, he started collecting his things.

‘Here, let me help you,’ she said, picking up half of the items, among them a jar of coffee. ‘You’re lucky this didn’t break.’

The man nodded, thinking that he was also lucky that he hadn’t chosen apples instead of oranges. They would’ve certainly bruised.

‘Thank you,’ he finally said, trying to collect the items she had picked up, but he didn’t have enough hands.

‘It’s OK. I can help you with these,’ she said. ‘Do you have a car?’

The man nodded. ‘Just over there.’ He pointed to his car, which was further down the parking lot.

‘Do you live around here?’ she asked, as they started walking toward the man’s car.

‘Not very far, you?’

‘A couple of blocks away.’

The man nodded. ‘Oh!’ he said after a few seconds, as if he’d just realized something. ‘Would you like a ride home?’

She smiled again. ‘Oh no, my car is parked just back there. The SUV that your orange almost rolled under. But thank you for the offer, anyway.’

When they got to the man’s car, he unlocked it and opened the back doors. ‘You can just put everything in the back seat, if you don’t mind.’

‘Sure,’ the woman replied.

As she placed the groceries down, one of the oranges rolled away from her, off the seat and onto the floor. She moved quickly, thrusting her body forward, stretching her arm and managing to stop it just before it disappeared under the driver’s seat.

‘This one really is a runaway,’ she thought.

Suddenly she felt a presence behind her. She twisted her body slightly, and looked over her right shoulder. The man was standing right behind her. The kind look in his eyes had changed to something much darker. He smiled in a way that scared her. When he spoke, his voice also sounded different – calm, but with a cold edge to it that sucked the air straight out of her lungs.