Read Online Palindrome by Stuart Woods - Free Book Online

house, and intruders were not welcome. Quietly, she felt for her large camera case, found what she wanted, and moved toward the kitchen, weight on the balls of her feet, afraid to breathe. She stopped at the kitchen door and tamped down her fear for a moment. Then she eased her head around the doorjamb. A man was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking something. The moonlight through the window was weaker at the back of the house, but even in the dimness she could see that he was naked. For some reason, this made her even angrier. She brought her hand up, shut her eyes tightly, and fired the strobe light. "Jesus Christ!" the man yelled. There was the sound of furniture overturning.
    When she opened her eyes he was backed against the kitchen wall, shielding his eyes, trying vainly to see. The strobe had a five-second recycle time, and she counted aloud—"Thousand one, thousand two, thousand three"—as she moved toward the kitchen counter. She could tell he was starting to see again by the time she reached the knife rack. "Thousand five," she said, and fired the strobe again.
    "Will you stop that! Are you trying to blind me?" he shouted.
    Liz had the chef's knife, now, the one with the twelve-inch blade. She stepped in front of him, knife at the ready, and fired the strobe again, while shutting her eyes tightly. "Maybe I'm trying to blind you," she said, her voice shaking with anger, "and maybe I'll do worse with this knife. What are you doing in my house?"
    "Christ, all I wanted was a beer," he said, rubbing at his eyes. "It's even my beer. I put it in the icebox before you came."
    "All right, so it's your beer; it's my house, and I didn't invite you."
    "Just take it easy," he said, shielding his eyes from another possible burst of light. "I didn't mean to disturb you; I thought you were out."
    "I'm not out, I'm here!" she said, nearly shouting, "but even if I were out, it's my house!"
    "I'm sorry I invaded your privacy. Let me tell you who I am."
    "I know who you are," she said. "You're Keir Drummond." Her own eyes had adjusted better to the dim light, and she could see now that he was not naked, merely wearing the loincloth she had seen him in before. She walked to the door and switched on the light. "Have a seat," she said, indicating the far end of the table with her knife.
    "Thanks," he replied. He sat down again and picked up his beer, but he kept his eye on the knife. "So you're Liz Barwick," he said.
    She went to the fridge and got a beer of her own. She didn't want it, but somehow she felt at a disadvantage because she didn't have one. "That's right," she said, drawing up a chair to the opposite end of the table. "Why have you been coming into my house?"
    "It's just that my present quarters are without an icebox and a coffeepot," he said.
    "And where are your present quarters?"
    "So you're a photographer," he said, ignoring her question.
    "That's right. And I expect you know why I'm here."
    "I know what you've told the others." For a moment she had the feeling that he could see into her, that he knew not just why she was here, but everything else about her since the day she was born. She shook it off.
    "Then you know why I'm here," she said tartly. She had known they were identical, of course, but still, she was amazed at how perfectly like Hamish he was—in appearance, anyway.
    There was something beneath the surface that was different. "That brings us to the question of why you're here," she said, anxious to get the ball back into his court.
    "I told you. I wanted a beer."
    "Here on the island."
    "This is my home. Why shouldn't I be here?"
    "Why don't your sister and your brother know you're here?"
    "I don't have a brother," he said mildly. "I'll see Germaine soon enough."
    "What about your grandfather?"
    "He's the reason I'm here. He's going to die soon."
    She felt somehow that this was more than a general prediction of the health of a man in his nineties. "I met him today," she said. "I liked him."
    "And he