He searched for a way to make some sense of it all. He went through the existentialist canon, devouring Camus and Sartre and Kierkegaard. Camus seemed to know the questions Jack was asking, but he gave no answers.
Jack started flunking courses. He drifted away from his friends. Finally he saw no point in continuing the charade. He took all his savings and disappeared with out telling anyone, including his family—especially his family —where he was going. He moved to New York where he took odd jobs to survive, and made contacts, started getting fix-it work with a gradually escalating level of danger and violence. He learned how to pick locks and pick the right gun and ammo for any given situation, how to break into a house and break an arm. He’d been there ever since.
Everyone, including his father, blamed the change on the death of his mother. In a very roundabout way, they were right.
14
The overpass receded in his rearview mirror, and with it the memory of that night.
Jack wiped his sweaty palms against his slacks. He wondered where he'd be and what he'd be doing now if Ed had dropped that cinder block a half second earlier or later, bouncing it harmlessly off the hood or roof of his folks' car. Half a second would have meant the difference between life and death for his mother—and for Ed. Jack would have finished school, had a regular job by now, with regular hours, and maybe even a wife and kids. Stability, identity, security.
And he'd be able to drive under that overpass without reliving two deaths.
Jack came through the Lincoln Tunnel and headed directly crosstown. He drove past Sutton Square and saw a blue-and-white unit parked outside Nellie's townhouse. After making a U-turn under the bridge, he drove back down to the mid-fifties and parked near a hydrant on Sutton Place South. He waited and watched. Before too long he saw the blue-and-white pull out and head uptown. He cruised around until he found a working pay phone and used it to call Nellie's.
'Hello?' Gia's voice was tense, expectant.
'It's Jack, Gia. Everything okay?'
'No.' She seemed to relax. Now she just sounded tired.
'Police gone?'
'Just left.'
'I'm coming over—that is, if you don't mind.”
Jack expected an argument and some abuse; instead, Gia said, 'No, I don't mind.'
'Be there in a minute.'
He got back into the car, pulled the Semmerling from under the seat and strapped it to his ankle. Gia hadn't given him an argument. She must be terrified.
15
Gia had never thought she’d be glad to see Jack again. But when she opened the door and found him standing there, it required all her reserve to keep from leaping into his arms.
The police had been no help. In fact, the two officers who finally showed up in response to her call had acted as if she was wasting their time. They’d given the house a cursory once over inside and out, seen no sign of forced entry, hung around asking a few questions, then they’d gone, leaving her alone with Vicky in this big empty house.
Jack stepped into the foyer. For a moment it seemed he would lift his arms and hold them out to her. Instead, he turned and closed the door behind him. He looked tired.
'You all right?' he asked.
'Yes. I'm fine.'
'Vicky, too?'
'She's asleep.' Gia felt as ill at ease as Jack looked.
'What happened?'
She told him about Vicky's nightmare and her subsequent search of the house for Nellie.
'The police find anything?'
'Nothing. 'No sign of foul play,' as they so quaintly put it. I believe they think Nellie's gone off to meet Grace somewhere on some kind of senile lark!'
'Is that possible?'
Gia's immediate reaction was anger that Jack could even consider such a thing, then realized that to someone who didn't know Nellie and Grace the way she did, it might seem as good an explanation as any.
'No. Utterly impossible.'
'Okay. I'll take your word for it. How about the alarm system?'
'The first floor was set. As you know, they had the upper levels disconnected.'
'So it's the same as with Grace: The Lady Vanishes.'
'I don't think this is the time for cute movie references, Jack.”
He nodded. 'You’re right. Sorry. Let's take a look at her room.'
As Gia led him up to the second floor, she realized that for the first time since she’d seen Nellie's empty bed, she was beginning to relax. Jack exuded competence. He had an air about him that made her feel things were finally under control here, that nothing was going to happen without his say so.
He wandered through Nellie's bedroom in a seemingly nonchalant manner, but she noticed that his eyes constantly darted about, and that he never touched anything with his fingertips—with the side or back of a hand,
