Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

That would be around Venus’s neck. I wondered if there was anything else.
    Maybe I was just being nosy, I thought, not seeing a jewelry box, looking through the dresser drawers, then in the back of the closet shelf. Maybe not. I never knew what would trigger an insight—a smoking gun, a suicide note, a sapphire bracelet.
    I was wondering what else Venus hadn’t bothered to tell me.
    But she’d given me her key, hadn’t she?
    Still, that was because she was scared. She hadn’t stopped to think it through. Like when the doctor says, I see a shadow here; I’d like to schedule a CAT scan. Fear takes over, does the thinking for you.
    Maybe Venus was back at Harbor View now, wondering what the hell was keeping me, knowing her printer was pumping out some private documents she wouldn’t have wanted me to see, thinking I was looking in her shoe boxes—which I was, about to call it quits when I found what I was looking for, in a silk pouch at the back of a sewing basket.
    I could feel the loot before I opened the bag. Sitting on the bed, I turned it over, spilling the contents onto the white blanket. A diamond cocktail ring, a really old one, ornate, the way things were made decades and decades ago. A bow pin, more diamonds. A wedding ring. I picked it up and held it between two fingers. It was simple, a gold band; inside, one word was inscribed. Skipper.
    The other things, I had the feeling, had been Marilyn’s. Even the diamond heart. He’d probably given that to her first.
    The wedding band was new, no patina of scratches on it. Brandnew, because Venus didn’t wear it. But he would have given her anything—emeralds, rubies, diamonds. Had Venus insisted on a plain gold band?
    The printer stopped. As soon as I started down the stairs, Dashiell passed me, nearly knocking me over in order to arrive a second ahead of me, turn around smiling, because even the most obedient dog likes to show his physical superiority sometimes, remind you once in a while of the facts of life as he sees them.
    Witty, I told him. What’s next, the Letterman show?
    I rolled the papers and put a rubber band around them, shut down the computer and the printer, took one last look around—everything in place. Then I closed my eyes, thinking of Venus here with Harry, of Venus here alone.
    We dropped the papers I’d printed off at home, then slowly, because even though it was nearly two, it was too hot to move any faster, we headed for Harbor View, wiser and sadder, to see who could learn to play All Fall Down.

Chapter 19
    What Would You Have Us Do?

    I heard it before I saw it; the shrill whooping of the siren coming our way, turning on when the street was blocked and off when the road was unobstructed. At first, my only concern was for Dashiell. I bent over him and cupped his ears with my hands, trying to deaden the painful noise as best I could.
    But when the red, white, and blue fire department ambulance passed us, turning onto West Street, I began to run, getting to the comer of Eleventh and West in time to see it stop where I feared it would, in front of Harbor View, two paramedics jumping out, grabbing a collapsible stretcher from the back, snapping down the legs, then running toward the door and disappearing inside. Someone must have been standing there, waiting for them, holding the door open, not a minute to lose.
    By the time Dashiell and I got there, there were three more emergency vehicles on the scene, two from the fire department and a police car. I pulled out my keys, wondering what had happened that was more than Harbor View could handle without help—a bad fall, a heart attack, a seizure— thinking how vulnerable the kids were, how easily they got upset, and how dangerous that could be, wondering who it was, my heart pounding.
    Keeping Dashiell on leash and right at my side, I unlocked the door. The lobby was empty, and the doors that led to the dining room doors were closed. I opened them just enough to peek inside. Most of the kids were there, sitting around the tables. But no one was painting or singing or eating lunch. They looked almost like mannequins that someone had placed randomly around the tables.
    Even Cora and Dora were quiet, sitting side by side in their wheelchairs, for once with nothing to say. Charlotte was sitting alone, her fingers in her mouth. I didn’t see David. And he hadn’t been in the doorway. I looked back to make sure I hadn’t missed him again. Jackson wasn’t there either. I wondered