Читать книгу Beast in the Tower - Julie Miller - Страница 12

Grubby hands closed over her wrist and Kit screamed.

“Shh! Get in here,” a strident voice whispered.

“Let go of me!” The door slammed. The hands dragged Kit to the center of the room. She stumbled over a bunched-up rug. The foul odor of sweat and booze stung her nose, granting her recognition an instant before her assailant released the hard pinch on her bones. “Henry!”

“Shh.” The old man with the grizzled face and bulbous nose urged her aside with a placating hand. He blinked his watery eyes, trying to decide which one to spy through the peephole with. “I’m planning a surprise.”

She’d certainly gotten one.

Relief surged through Kit, replacing panic with confusion and concern. This was definitely not what she’d expected to find in her search for Helen Hodges’s apartment. Rubbing the chafe marks on her wrist, she assessed Henry Phipps’s frayed, wrinkled suit and distant expression, and wondered how an addled old man could have such a painful grip. “You can’t just grab someone like that. I thought I was being abducted.”

Now that she knew she was in no real danger, Kit took a closer look at her surroundings. The apartment walls had been stripped down to its two-by-fours, revealing hanging wires and rusted switch boxes that looked as though they hadn’t been functional for years. And though the window overlooking the parking garage still bore its factory sticker, there was nothing else new or clean about the rooms. A trio of well-worn area rugs covered the stained hardwood floor, while a motley assortment of freight boxes and a metal folding chair passed for furniture. Kit cringed at the sad clues around her. “Do you live here?”

“Shh.” Henry pressed a finger to his lips and smiled. “She’ll be home soon. It’s a surprise.”

“So you said.” Kit frowned as Henry puttered about the room, straightening what little there was. “Didn’t you spend last night at the shelter?”

He tossed her a ratty pillow that he’d probably fished out of a Dumpster. “Have a seat.” She’d pass. “Can I get you a drink?”