Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

if he was in the garden.
    Arlene was off in a comer with her issue, the lovely Janice, the sporty-looking Bailey, looking nearly as blank as everyone else. Only Samuel showed expression, and what I saw scared me. Then Molly came out of the kitchen, holding a glass of water. When she saw me in the doorway, she bit her lip and shook her head, making my stomach lurch.
    I heard two more sirens whooping, and I could see the flashing lights outside the dining room windows. Still holding the glass of water, Molly went to look.
    I looked, too. From where I was standing, I could see through the sidelight next to the door, where David usually stood, that two more police cars had pulled in and stopped in front of Harbor View. They’d come from Jane Street, driving against the traffic on West Street, and now, doubleparked on the other side of the ambulance, they were blocking off a lane of traffic headed north, everyone slowing down to see what had caused all the fuss, me still hoping this was just the usual overkill response to a 911 call.
    I had turned around, looking for a sign of the paramedics, of Venus, of Eli and Nathan, wondering where they all were, my heart thudding, when Dashiell began to pull on the leash. He headed for Venus’s office, his nose going a mile a minute, blowing air out and sucking it in with an urgency that let me know with no uncertainty where the paramedics had gone.
    Molly, the glass of water spilling as she went, was rushing toward the front door to let the uniforms in as I ran across the lobby, praying Venus’s door wouldn’t be locked. But of course, it was.
    Molly was filling in two police officers, talking softly, their heads bent to hear her, one writing in his notebook, the other ready to call in on his radio.
    The door to Venus’s office pulled open then, and Nathan stepped in front of it to hold it ajar.
    Standing in the lobby, Dashiell at my side, all I could see was the back of one of the paramedics, kneeling over someone and working on them, though I couldn’t see what he was doing right away.
    I wondered if it was Eli, succumbing to all the stress, everything going wrong here, one thing after the next after the next. Most people retire by his age, buy a little condo down in North Miami Beach, wait for the sirens each night, find out in the morning who had died. Not Eli. He was working as hard as he ever had, keeping weird hours, not taking care of himself.
    But it wasn’t Eli.
    When one of the paramedics reached for the gauze bandages he’d placed on the desk, I saw who it was. He pulled away the blood-soaked bandage and pressed a clean one to the wound, a cervical collar keeping her head from moving, her dreadlocks hanging over it, matted with blood.
    I heard the radio crackle behind me, then the uniform spoke softly into it.
    “Ninety-seven H to Vinnie’s.”
    I couldn’t make out the response, if there was one; it was as futile as trying to understand the dispatcher’s message when you’re sitting in the back seat of a taxi.
    Eli was there, looking ashen, standing on the other side of Venus’s desk.
    A cold wind blew through me.
    Maybe it was the air-conditioning. With the door open, the cold air was rolling out of Venus’s office like a storm blowing in off the ocean. I’d just been out of doors, running as fast as I could in the unrelenting heat, and Venus’s air conditioner was cranked up, the compressor going, the room frigid, the way it always is in hospitals, especially in the emergency room, sick people waiting their turn to see the doctor, trembling with cold. I wondered if the paramedics had made it this cold, if it would have any positive effect on Venus, slow down the bleeding or help her breathe.
    I watched as the paramedic wrapped gauze around Venus’s head, anchoring it under her chin to hold the compress in place, her head all in white, as if she were wearing a wimple.
    “Ready?” he asked when he was finished, a middle-aged Hispanic man with a potbelly. No wonder, I thought, always seeing the ambulance parked in front of the pizza place around the comer, at Baskin Robbins, Taylor’s—anywhere where there was food, the richer the better.
    On a count of three they lifted Venus onto the stretcher, carefully tightening the wide straps around her, then covering her with a blanket. It should have been red, I thought, but it wasn’t. It was blue.
    “Careful,” Nathan said, stepping forward, one hand holding the door, the other outstretched, as if