Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

first was from Nathan, telling me that the staff meeting had been canceled.
    The second was from Marty Shapiro, telling me to drop in and see him when I had a free minute.
    The third was from my sister. It didn’t say much of anything. Typical, I thought. She was acting like a smitten teen. I wondered how long that would last.
    The last call was from Chip. I erased the first three and saved that one, playing it again as I got dressed just to hear his voice.
    I made some phone calls, took some notes, then stopped at the Sixth on my way back to Harbor View. When I opened the door to the bomb squad, Marty got up and joined me in the hall rather than asking me in.
    “I got something for you, kid,” he said.
    “Really?Great. What is it?”
    “It’s about the bike.”
    “Yeah?”
    “We found it.”
    “No kidding? How?”
    “Perspicacious detective work. You impressed?”
    “You bet. Both with the fancy footwork and your astonishing use of the English language.”
    “I thought you would be.”
    I was ready to punch him.
    “So?”
    “Here’s the thing. The driver of said vehicle doesn’t have an astonishing use of the language. In fact, he probably only has enough use of it to make change.”
    “No joke.”
    “Which means—”
    I bit my tongue.
    “That someone borrowed said murder weapon whilst a hungry family was paying for their egg foo yung.”
    “Brilliant. But does that mean you can’t tie the thief to the bike, because of all the time that elapsed and the number of people using it?“
    “The lab is still trying, but the bike was out on the street all this time, including in the rain.”
    “Still, it’s remarkable—”
    “Footwork.”
    “This is true.”
    “You come up with anything on your end?”
    “I might know who took the dog.”
    “It figures,” he said. “So, hey, you’ll be sure to keep us posted on that, kid, right? The captain, he’s dying to know what happened to the dog. It’s way up there on his list of concerns.”
    “I promise I’ll call,” I told him. “Or even better, I’ll drop in. As soon as it’s confirmed.”
    I still had at least an hour. I didn’t want to waste a minute of it. I walked down to Hudson Street and hailed a cab, telling the driver to take us to St. Vincent’s and not spare the horses, falling against Dashiell when, a few blocks later, he made a right on Twelfth Street, taking me at my word.

CHAPTER 32
    They Say It's Good Luck, He Said

    Willy was first behind Dashiell and me, carrying the pillow from his bed. Charlotte was wearing her , earmuffs, but not the red gloves. She had a piece of paper i that might have been from her drawing pad crunched up in | one hand. Cora and Dora were off to the side, sort of clapping to the music. And half a dozen other people were cir- i cling around, waiting for Dashiell to drop so that they could fling themselves to the floor, too.
    Jackson, in the middle, had his arms stretched high, his red fingers wiggling like leaves of a Japanese maple blowing in the wind. Fortunately, Dashiell didn’t see him as a tree. He kept his cool and kept his mind on the game. Mouth open, tongue lolling out, concentrating on the words so that he wouldn’t miss his cue, he ambled slowly in a large circle, his tail wagging, his new friends trailing after him, as best they could.
    He was a dog. It was all the same to him; cross-eyed, mute, lame, forgetful. He loved them all. When he got the word, he crashed loudly to the floor. Cora dropped her head as if she were praying. Dora covered her eyes. Willy, clever thing, placed his pillow carefully on the floor in front of him and lay down. Charlotte lay on her back. Staring at the ceiling, or at nothing, she smoothed out the drawing and let it rest on her chest as if it were protective armor. Who knows? Maybe it was. Jackson reached for the sky, and I noticed that the paint had dripped down his arms since I’d last looked. My friend Jackson was having a bad day.
    After two rounds of Dashiell’s new game, he and I sat off to the side, and Cora and Dora joined the group. Samuel pulled the chairs in a circle for everyone else and started tossing a big, light ball from person to person, trying to get them to catch it and toss it back in time to the music he was playing.
    Pretty ambitious, I thought, watching the ball hit Willy’s shoulder and land on the floor.
    Dashiell and I had gotten to the ICU without a glitch. We looked familiar now. No one questioned where we were going. But