Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

pins,” I said, putting my free hand gently on her arm. “Did you?”
    I waited for an answer.
    “I’m here, honey,” I whispered.
    There was no window, so for a while I watched the monitor and listened to the clicking of the ventilator.
    “Even Charlotte learned the game. Here’s what she did— she got in behind Dashiell and aped everything he did. It worked perfecdy, until he started licking the floor. I guess Homer missed a spot last night.
    “Everyone who came gave it a try.
    “Well, almost everyone.”
    Three of them there, in Venus’s office, not just David.
    Hey, I could tell Marty, we had a little incident over at Harbor View. Someone tried to kill the manager. And I have good news and bad news.
    What’s the good news? he’d ask, that cop look on his face, like the shutters were tilted so he could look out, but you couldn’t look in.
    We have witnesses, I could tell him. Three of them.
    And what’s the bad news? he’d say.
    We have witnesses. Three of them.
    I stood up and leaned over the bed, looking to see what had been done with the head wound, but it was covered. I was wondering if they’d stitched it. Maybe I could ask the nurse on the way out.
    But what difference would it make for me to know? It was Eli’s colleague in charge, wasn’t it? Wouldn’t he have done whatever was best for Venus?
    I tapped my leg for Dashiell to stand, tapped the edge of the bed for him to place his head there, and then gently lifted Venus’s hand and laid it on top of Dashiell’s big head, maybe because if I were lying on a skinny bed in an intensive care unit, that’s what I would want.
    I placed my hand on top of hers, watching her face to see if anything changed. Nothing did.
    “I’ll come as often as I can,” I told her, “but I’m still doing what you hired me to do.”
    I waited again.
    “Your home phone’s not tapped,” I told her. “That’s good. At least whoever did this wasn’t able to check up on you at home.
    “You know, they could be old, those bugs. They might not even be functional. You never know,” I told her, her eyes closed and still, not moving the way they do when you’re dreaming.
    Dashiell pushed his head up, bouncing Venus’s hand, reminding her to pet him.
    I began to think about Venus’s apartment, the sound of Dashiell’s nails on the stairs, the light coming in the window, Harry’s watch on the nightstand, part of their internet love affair printed out and waiting for me at home. The wedding band, the one she didn’t wear.
    Then I remembered the necklace.
    I stood, looked toward the end curtain, as if I thought Nurse Frostee might be watching, making sure I didn’t knock over the IV stand or accidentally kick out the plug of the ventilator. But no one was there. I could hear her, in fact, talking on the phone, sitting at the desk waiting for someone’s alarm to go off so she’d have something to do.
    I leaned over Venus and pulled away the neck of her hospital gown. No necklace there, only abrasions on one side of her neck, as if someone had been too impatient to open the latch and had yanked it off, some narcissist who had to have what he or she wanted that very second.
    I smoothed her gown, touched her face with my hand, then sat back in the chair, looking at Venus, then looking at the machinery that was keeping her going; one minute you’re fine, you’re living your life, the next minute you’re hanging on the brink because someone tried to take away the only valuable thing you have, the years ahead of you.
    And your diamond necklace.
    Now what would David want with that?
    What did the necklace even have to do with this?
    Was this done because of the necklace? The damn thing was worth a small fortune.
    Or had the necklace been an afterthought?
    I needed to clear my head, and I knew just how to do it.
    “I’ll be back later, Venus,” I told her, waiting again to see if there would be a reaction, anything at all, some tiny movement that would let me convince myself she’d heard me, that any minute she would open her eyes and be all right.
    What did I think she’d do, wave good-bye? Blow me a kiss?
    Is is, Frank Petrie used to say, trying to get me to act more like a detective, accept things the way they were, stop my wishful thinking; Medea changes her mind at the last minute and takes her kids to Disneyland; some clever engineer patches the hole in the Titanic and she sails safely to port, no souls lost at sea; Lady Macbeth discovers Purell