Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes by Carol Lea Benjamin

other people were in the building, people whose habits I did not know.
    But I thought back to Venus’s first call, and so I took a chance on staying a few more minutes, enough time to pick up Harry’s phone, unscrew the mouthpiece, and find what I hoped I wouldn’t, sure now that I’d find the same thing in Venus’s phone, perhaps in Dr. Kagan’s too.
    Venus had tried to protect herself the wrong way. Whispering doesn’t keep a conversation from being overheard when the phone you’re whispering into has been tapped. Whatever it was she’d wanted to hide was out.
    And whoever it was she was hiding it from wasn’t being fooled by my cover.
    How dangerous this was, I didn’t know. But suddenly Venus wasn’t the only one playing beat-the-clock. Her deadline was Friday. At least she knew.
    Before leaving, I stapled the will back together and returned it to the file. I put the cushions back on the couch, looked around the room one more time, then picked up the picture that sat in a silver frame at the comer of Harry’s desk, a young woman in a halter top smiling at the camera.
    I shut off the lights, pulled back the curtain, and released the shade, holding on so that it would roll up slowly. Telling Dashiell to wait, I went out first, swinging one leg over the windowsill, poking my head out next, feeling as twisted as a pretzel.
    The night air was cool against my skin, a breeze moving my hair across my face so that for the moment I couldn’t make out anything in the yard, not even the shadow of the big tree someone had drawn over and over again. I leaned out carefully, holding on to the window with one hand, fishing around for the ground with the leg that was outside before pulling the other one through, still seeing nothing, my eyes not yet adjusted to the moonless night.
    My toe was touching the brick flooring and I was ready to swing out when it happened—bony fingers, as strong and cold as steel, grabbing my ankle; the other hand, this one wet and sticky, as if covered in blood, encircling my wrist, then pulling in the direction I’d been going, out into the darkness of the yard. As I spilled out the window, completely off balance, my legs buckling under me, the powerful hands that held me propped me up, not letting me fall.
    Not letting go, either.
    It took all my willpower not to cry out and bring Molly or Samuel to catch me in the middle of a felony.
    Or save my life.
    But then, before my eyes became accustomed to the dim light in the garden, before anyone spoke, I heard Dashiell’s tail, banging against Harry’s desk.
    And a moment later I too smelled something that allowed me to exhale.
    “Thanks,” I said. “I might have fallen if you hadn’t caught me.”
    The fingers holding my leg let go. The other hand released my wrist. When he stood up, he towered over me. Facing him and smiling, I whistled for Dashiell, heard his nails scrabbling on the wooden sill, heard him land on the bricks with a soft thud, and then felt the comforting heat of his body at my side.
    Jackson bent to pick up the leash that had come untied and dropped to the ground when he’d nearly scared the life out of me. For a moment we just stood there, me looking at him, him looking at some point beyond me as the smell of paint dissipated in the cool night air.
    “How did you get out?”
    He didn’t answer me. Instead he walked away, Dashiell following him. Standing in the open space in the center of the garden, he lifted his arms above his head, wiggling his fingers in the breeze.
    I wondered if I’d left the door to the garden unlocked when I came out here, but I was pretty sure all the doors locked automatically. After closing Harry’s window, not quite all the way, and pulling the screen back down, I walked over to the door and tried to open it, but it didn’t budge. So I whispered to Jackson. This time, instead of asking him how he’d come out into the garden alone, I asked him to help us back inside.
    Jackson bent and