Missing Persons

27

“I tried her cell again,” I said. “I think someone turned it off. The call went straight to voice mail.”

“That’s enough for me. I’m going to call hotel security,” Raoul said. “Get them on this.”

“Get them on what?” I asked, gently. “You’ll tell them you’ve been unable to reach your wife for an hour? So what? In Vegas terms that’s an eye-blink. You know what the security people will say: She met somebody she knew, got distracted. She met somebody she didn’t know, got distracted. She went to a show, went to a club, went for a walk, found a hot slot machine or a hotter craps table, went out for a meal, went out for a drink. So she’s been gone for an hour? Nobody’s going to care. Not for an hour, not for a day. Maybe not even for a week. Not in Las Vegas.”

“They don’t know Diane. I do. You do, too. This isn’t like her. If she said she was going to call, she would’ve found a phone. She would’ve called.”

“But that’s the point. They don’t know Diane. To them, she’s just a tourist who lost her cell phone. Big deal.”

Stubbornly, Raoul said, “I’m going to call hotel security.”

“Okay,” I said. I knew that were I in his shoes I would want to do something, too, no matter how futile.

“Write down my hotel number here.” He dictated it. “Call it if you hear from her. I’ll be on my mobile.”

I curled my tongue against the roof of my mouth and forced just enough air through the gap to cause a high-pitched, low-volume whistle to emerge. Emily, the big Bouvier, responded immediately. I could hear her lumbering in my direction from the other side of the house. The sharp tips of her nails click-clacked as she made the transition from carpet to hardwood. I knew that Anvil, the miniature poodle, would follow her. He’d follow not because he found my whistle alluring. He’d follow because whatever Emily found alluring, he found alluring.

In our tiny neutered dog pack, Emily was the alpha-Amazon and Anvil was the eunuch slave.

The dogs waited impatiently while I pulled on a jacket and stuffed the cordless phone from the kitchen into one pocket and Lauren’s cell into the other. We all crashed together heading out the front door.

Emily ran immediately across the lane toward Adrienne’s house. For her it was like visiting extended family. I stage-whispered to her that everybody was in bed; she apparently didn’t care. Anvil peed copiously in the dust before he loped off in the same general direction.

Raoul’s version of my predicament was simple. In his view I possessed information that might help him find his wife. Sure, he’d been married to a psychologist long enough to know that the information he wanted was privileged. Realistically, of course, he didn’t care. Who in his position would?

The fact that I’d already revealed that the information had at least a tangential tie to Hannah Grant’s unfortunate demise would only aggravate his insistence that I breach confidence and tell him what he wanted to know. But what he also didn’t know was that the patient of Hannah Grant’s whose mother was in Las Vegas was Mallory Miller and that the reason for my anxiety over Diane’s sudden vanishing wasn’t only because I was concerned that it might have something to do with Hannah’s death, but also because I feared it might have something to do with Mallory’s disappearance.

I’d already decided that, ethical or not, as soon as I felt that Diane had been sucked into that vortex I’d tell Raoul whatever I knew.

It wasn’t the way the rules were written. But so be it.

Ten minutes outside with the dogs and I was getting cold. It was apparent that Emily-she didn’t get cold until wind-chill numbers were in double-digit negatives-was eager to head down the lane on her usual evening jaunt, but I feared that kind of walk would yank us out of range of the cordless phone so I forced both dogs to roam the area between our house and Adrienne’s. Emily found some smells that were compelling and she adapted. Anvil hung around close by. Raoul called back just as I was coaxing the reluctant dogs back inside the front door.

“Hi, Raoul?” I answered. “You hear anything?”

“Not from Diane. Security’s not going to help. I’m in a cab on the way to the airport. I’ll be in Vegas in a couple of hours.”

“You’re sure that’s a-”

“Yes, I am. You didn’t hear from her?”

Raoul’s interruption shouted at me that his usual unflappable civility was developing fissures. “No,” I said.

“Sometime tomorrow morning, if I’m not waking up next to my wife, I’m going to want to talk to this patient’s mother, Alan. Be prepared to help me find her.”

“Raoul, I-”

He hung up.

“-will do whatever’s necessary.”