Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes by Carol Lea Benjamin Page A

wide enough for a horse and wagon to pass.
    Venus was leaving the gym, wearing a white linen suit, a peach-colored shell underneath. As she passed the windows where the treadmills were, I could see that the heart was tucked away again, which made me think of something else; the way she’d put her hand on her chest at the gallery, squeezed her eyes closed, and taken a minute to collect her feelings before continuing. It was the necklace she was touching, feeling it through her shirt, getting comfort from it, the necklace Harry had given her, which she didn’t want anyone at work to see.
    I looked across at the Jersey skyline. Two towers were going up, the window openings still without glass, like dark open mouths. I thought about how quickly the world was changing now, how slowly things seemed to move when I was a kid, the time between my seventh and eighth birthday taking ten times as long as the time between my thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth.
    How had time moved for Venus and Harry that first moment, when they understood who it was they’d each been writing to, someone they each had known for years, but in a very different way?
    He was easily old enough to be her father, and as Venus had said, he wasn’t an attractive man. He had one of those faces, if it were sculpted out of clay, that looked as if someone had placed a hand on top of the head and leaned a little too hard, scrunching everything into a permanent scowl.
    Harry, the money man, watching figures all his life.
    But kind to his dying wife.
    He’d been kind to Venus, too, paying attention to her concerns, listening to her dreams. He’d shared his thoughts and feelings with her, month after month. He’d been truthful with her, telling her he had a wife.
    Maybe not at first, but soon enough.
    You could hardly fault the man, wanting someone to talk to when his wife had been so sick.
    Could you?
    Besides all that, he was rich, richer than anyone else Venus had ever known.
    How long after that first glimpse did Venus think about the money?
    Looking at the river, the light sparkling on the water the way it did on Venus’s diamond necklace, I wondered about that, about their first meeting and what each of them was thinking when they saw the other for the first time, Harry sitting there waiting for her, Venus carrying a single red rose.
    I slowed down the belt and stretched out my legs. There was work to do, and for the moment, I was glad that Venus was going elsewhere and that I wasn’t going with her. I had the feeling I’d find out much more on my own. I touched the outside of my pocket to check for the keys she’d given me, then headed home with Dashiell to shower and change.

Chapter 12
    All Fall Down

    I decided to get to Harbor View before the night man, though this was just guesswork. No one had told me exactly when he came on, nor who else might be there in the evening. Since it was likely there’d be more than one person around, on the way over I thought up a variety of excuses for my after-hours presence.
    When I unlocked the front door, I heard singing from the dining room. David was in the dining-room doorway, the way he had been when Samuel was doing dance therapy, maybe the closest he got to participating in anything, and little as it was, I was probably not the only one there to think this little bit of contact was a result of good care. There were places I’d been with Dashiell where nothing was too generous a term to describe what some of the residents did.
    I let Dashiell go to him first, tying his leash around my waist and waiting in the empty lobby, the floor freshly mopped, the doors to all three offices closed, and my guess, locked. I looked at the keys, still in my hand, five of them, wondering if the offices used the same key or separate ones and planning to find out if any of the keys I’d been given would get me where I needed to go.
    Dashiell stood next to David, all but touching him, wagging his tail from side to side in slow