Читать книгу Darwin’s Children - Greg Bear - Страница 22

Kaye pulled the Toyota truck to the side of the rutted dirt road and dropped her head onto the wheel. The rain had stopped, but they had nearly gotten their wheels stuck in mud several times. She moaned.

Mitch threw open the door. “This is the road. This is the address. Shit!”

He flung the crumpled piece of paper into a wet ditch. The only house here had been boarded up for a long time, and half of it had slumped into cinders after a fire. Five or six acres of weed-grown farm ground surrounded them, sullen behind a veil of low mist. Streamers of cloud played hide-and-seek with a watery sun. The house was bright, then dark, beneath the coming and going of those wide gray fingers.

“Maybe he doesn’t have her.” Kaye looked at Mitch through the open door.

“I could have transposed a number,” Mitch said, leaning against the cab.

His cell phone rang. They both jerked as if stuck with pins. Mitch pulled the phone out and said, “Yes.” The phone recognized his voice and announced that the calling party’s number was blocked, then asked if he would take the call anyway.

“Yes,” he said, without thinking.

“Daddy?” The voice on the other end was tense, high-pitched, but it sounded like Stella’s.

“Where are you?”

“Is that you? Daddy?” The voice went through a digital bird fight and steadied. He had never heard that sort of sound before and it worried him.

“It’s me, honey. Where are you?”

“I’m at this house. I saw the house number on the mail box.”

Mitch pulled a pen and pad from his inside coat pocket and wrote down the number and road.

“Stay tight, Stella, and don’t let anyone touch you,” he said, working to steady his voice. “We’re on our way.” He reluctantly said good-bye and closed the phone. His face was like red sandstone, he was so furious.

“Is she okay?”

Mitch nodded, then opened the phone again and punched in another number.

“Who are you calling?”

“State police,” he said.

“We can’t!” Kaye cried. “They’ll take her!”

“It’s too late to worry about that,” Mitch said. “This guy’s going for bounty, and he wants all of us.”