Lady Vanishes (21 page)

But before I could, something dark and unyielding came from behind me and knocked the gun out of my grasp. I heard a cracking sound, something breaking, the garden tilting it seemed, swaying first one way, then another. There was another sound, the gun skittering across the bricks and stopping, but I couldn’t look. Something else caught my eye. The dogs. They had both jumped into the garden through the window some careless person had left open, Dashiell first, Lady right behind him.

Samuel was bending, to try to get the gun, and Nathan was telling him to grab me, so that David could strike again—David, who wasn’t even there.

My temperature seemed to shoot up, and my right arm felt numb, but my mind was clear.

“Lady, walk-up,” I shouted. “Walk-up,
good
girl.”

Samuel was reaching for the gun. I kicked as hard as I could, connecting with his face, dead center.

Jackson was still being held as a shield. No matter. I had a plan, too. And mine also included teamwork.

“Dashiell, paws-up,” I yelled, pointing at Jackson, and with Lady right behind Nathan, where I’d positioned her, Dashiell flew into Jackson, hitting his chest with the force of a sledgehammer, sending him, and Nathan, backward, falling over Lady and landing on the brick. I heard the satisfying clunk as Nathan’s head hit the unforgiving garden floor, and as soon as I saw that Jackson was fine, cushioned by Nathan’s enormous bulk, I took my eyes off them, kicked Samuel once more for good measure, and with my left hand retrieved my gun from under the table.

“Watch them,” I told Dashiell, seeing his body start to vibrate with the pleasure of being presented with a task he was magnificently up to.

I slipped the gun into my pocket, offered my left hand to Jackson, helping him up and out of harm’s way, then pulled out my cell phone, asked Jackson to hold it up for me, and dialed the precinct.

After sitting in the emergency room for two and a half hours waiting for the doctor to look at my arm, then another hour waiting for the X ray to be taken and read, I had the cast put on my arm. It was a soft cast, layers and layers of thick gauze covered with stretchy purple tape and a no-nonsense sling, navy with an ecru trim. When I looked at my reflection in the big window, it resembled a hammock.

The pills they gave me had started to kick in, replacing the pain with a sense of euphoria. A few more minutes, and I could have played baseball, using the arm as a bat.

By the time I was released, it was dark out. I stopped in the gift shop for some candy bars to tide me over and went upstairs to Venus’s room.

She was sitting up, looking wildly beautiful, that long dark hair framing her pretty face, a magazine across her lap. When she looked up, her hands flew to her mouth.

“What happened?”

“Samuel hit me with the business end of a shovel. But you ought to see the shovel.”

“You promised after we talked you were going to the police.”

“I couldn’t. Not after last time. Not until I had it all.”

“You could have been—”

“But I wasn’t,” I told her, sitting on the edge of the bed, crossing my legs so that I could lean the arm on my right thigh, give my neck a rest.

“Poor Eli,” she said.

“He’ll be here tomorrow. He wants to talk. I think things will be okay at Harbor View.”

“I’m going to sell, Rachel.”

“What.”

“I’m not going to close. I’m going to sell. Harry and Eli were foolish not to take advantage of this offer. I can buy something else in the neighborhood and have it renovated exactly the way I want it, the way Eli and I decide would be best,” she said. “We’ve learned so much since this building was purchased and renovated. I’ve been thinking, since you left, that with the money we can get for this site, we can have something better. The kids don’t appreciate the view anyway. That sort of thing means nothing to them. And I wouldn’t mind getting them away from the highway, all that noise and exhaust. What I’d like for them is a pool. And if we had a larger facility, Eli could do some training, one or two young doctors at a time. We can pass on what we’ve learned. We can learn from others, young doctors with fresh ideas. I think it’s a fantastic opportunity.”

I nodded, my eyelids feeling as if they’d been weighed down with bricks.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice coming from far away.

“I’m fine,” I lied. I’d been lying all day. What was one more? I reached for the water, and she poured me a glass.

“Did you find out about the necklace?” she asked.

“Janice,” I said. “She’d gone to the bathroom. Samuel ‘discovered’ you on the ground. He called her over, practicing his shocked look, which was no doubt genuine, given how he feels about the sight of blood, then he left her there and went to call the others, including Nathan, who had already washed his murderous hands and gone back to the dining room to be with the others when Samuel broke the news. She saw the necklace. When you were down, it slid up to your neck, out from under your shirt, which reminds me—” I pulled it out from under my shirt and bent my head. Venus unhooked it and put it on.

“So it was Janice who tore it off me?”

“Right.”

“How do you know this part?”

“I called her,” I said. “Not much else to do, all those hours I was waiting in Emergency.”

“Then how did David get it?”

“She tore it off you and found some blood on her hand, freaked out, and dropped it. She ran out to wash her hands. When she went back, it was gone. In fact, she looked again the day of the funeral, thinking it might have gotten kicked under the desk by accident.”

“But David had picked it up, because of the sparkle. He loves this necklace.”

“He’d seen it before?”

“Yes, I used to take it off and let him play with it when we were alone.”

“And the bookend—Jackson picked that up when Nathan dropped it. As you told me, they were all there. Then he buried it. And dug it up later to give it back. Weird.”

“Weird is his middle name,” she said.

“They’ve seen a lot,” I said, shaking my head. “Too much.”

“But you said they’re okay. That’s what makes me think I can move them. Of course, finding the new place and having it renovated will take time. It’ll put off any new construction at our current site for at least a year.”

“But KR Properties has been after the site for two years. One more year won’t matter.”

She nodded. I closed my eyes for what I thought was a couple of seconds.

“Rachel?”

Venus was smiling at me.

“You’ve been asleep. Go home and do it properly.”

I nodded.

“By the way, you know I can’t pay you until I get out of here,” she said.

“That’s what they all say. Hey, I know where to find you.” I flashed her the Kaminsky grin, only slightly drugged and lopsided.

“I hope you will,” she said. “I hope you will find all of us, any chance you get.”

I lifted my broken arm and waved it slightly up and down.

“Be seeing you,” I told her.

On the way home, I pictured the new place—a big cheerful dining room, Cora and Dora bickering by the window, Willy holding a coaster or maybe a T-shirt, Jackson painting, Charlotte drawing, all settled in. I pictured the staircase, too, going up to all their bedrooms, and on the side opposite the railing, a brand-new dirt mark on the freshly painted wall, because Lady was back, and wherever they were, she’d be taking care of them, as nobody but a dog can.