Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

lanes moving south. Everyone moving, I thought, no one content to stay where he was.
    A bus was passing, blocking my view of the runners—an odd-looking caravan, painted over, even the windows. It stopped where I could see it, caught by a red light at Eleventh Street. In the shade my hand created, I read the words painted on the side: FORESIGHT IS THE BEST ARMOR AGAINST THE UNKNOWN.
    Where was this bus when it was needed? I wondered. Where the hell was it when Venus was here?
    When the light changed, the bus disappeared.
    Beyond the traffic moving toward the tip of Manhattan, the John Deere equipment sat, parked and still at this hour, the men in their hard hats long gone.
    Beyond that was the “park” where I took Dashiell to ran off leash, a concrete strip adjacent to the Hudson, a place for walkers, runners, skaters. Bike riders, too.
    What if someone skating or walking there had seen the accident? So what? It wasn’t a car that struck Harry. There was no license plate. From across West Street, or from a moving car heading north, no one would be able to identify the person riding, more than likely hunched forward, as if to make the bike go faster. What good would that sort of witness be?
    Or another sort, Cora or any of the other “kids”? The possibility tantalized, but in the end, whatever they were able to offer, in words or pictures, was worse than useless.
    I watched the runners, the sun behind them turning them into dark shadows, arms sawing back and forth as they ran, someone going faster, too, disappearing for a moment behind one of the earthmovers, coming out on the other side, lickety-split, the way Dashiell liked to do it.
    And someone running with a dog. I couldn’t see the dog, but one arm was stretched forward, the leash invisible from this distance, only implied by the position of the runner’s arm. I could imagine the dog, his tongue lolling out, his legs moving rhythmically, feeling his canine runner’s high, out front and pulling. If they were racing, she was losing. He was first, top dog, loving every minute of it.
    Top dog. Was that the issue at Harbor View, too? Hadn’t Harry Dietrich, until he was hit by a bicycle, been alpha?
    For a moment, walking in place, I wondered about the others, how they felt about Harry’s position, and if there was someone, one of them, who might like to apply for that position his or herself, now that it was available.
    If so, which one?
    Slowing down the belt, for the moment unaware of the panorama before my eyes, seeing another in my imagination, I found myself wondering if this were yet another version of the game I’d been watching all my life.
    Only this time it was being played by humans, not by dogs, and involved far more than teeing up or trying to look bigger than the other guy.
    This time, it was deadly.

Chapter 23
    What's This Supposed To Be?

    Homer, wearing huge yellow rubber gloves that went nearly to his skinny elbows, was mopping the lobby. He indicated the dining room with his head, never stopping the rhythmic motion as he did.
    Sorry, I mouthed as Dashiell and I tracked up the wet floor.
    But when I was standing right outside the dining room, the doors open just a crack, I heard something that made me pause. I grabbed Dashiell’s collar before he used his big head as a wedge to push open the doors.
    When I turned around and looked to see if Homer was watching me, I saw that he had stopped too. The mop was still and Homer was staring, waiting to see what I was up to.
    I could have checked my pockets, pretending I was looking for something.
    Or bent down to tie my shoelace or fuss with Dashiell’s collar instead of just holding it.
    But I did nothing, nothing but stand there and obviously eavesdrop, at first, with my back to the door, watching Homer watch me. Then I turned around so that I could hear better.
    I heard the mop hitting the pail and the water running off it as Homer picked it up, then squeezed it out.
    “You don’t mean here? ”
    The speaker petulant.
    “Where else?” Eli. Sounding weary.
    Silence.Perhaps a shrug.
    “You mean you thought you’d do it from home, without any contact with this place at all?”
    “You do have a phone, don’t you?”
    “I think we’re jumping to conclusions here.” Nathan, trying to calm everyone down.
    “What do you mean?” the first speaker said.
    “I mean we have to see the provisions in the will, what is called for, what is set forth legally.”
    “He was my uncle,” the