The Finder: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

was Ray Grant, he told her. She liked Ray, liked him in the way women will sometimes like a certain man. He seemed unaware of how his shoulders and arms looked in the T-shirt, the way his jeans hung on his hips. She didn't see a wedding ring. His fingernails were clean. His eyes were the bluest blue, which she always loved, and she saw both confidence and aloofness in him. He wasn't going to tell her anything, or not much, even.
    Okay—she threw herself at him! Invited him in for coffee, and she heard his heavy boots behind her as they went up the stairs into her kitchen. Coffee became a late lunch. He wasn't in a hurry, didn't check his watch. Didn't say much, either. She just talked and talked, got herself more excited.
    "So your dad owns the place next door?" she repeated, when the conversation paused. "Maybe I've seen him a few times, come to think of it, but not in a while."
    Ray nodded. "He's sick, so I came back to be with him."
    "Sick?"
    "Very sick."
    "I'm sorry—is he, will he get better, I mean?"
    At this Ray cut his eyes to the floor in quiet sorrow. Lifted his baseball cap and put it on again. Full head of hair, she noticed. She could see the pain in him, how he tried to keep it inside. I kinda love this guy, she told herself, what's wrong with me?
    "No," Ray finally said. "He's not going to get better."
    She just looked into those blues eyes. "I'm so sorry."
    "It's a rare blood-vessel cancer. Angiosarcoma. They went in looking, thinking it was something in his kidneys. But it was all through him. He's got, I don't know, a few weeks maybe. Hard to judge."
    She'd just met this man. Don't pry, she told herself.
    "Came back?" she said anyway. "I mean
you.
You came back from where?"
    He looked at her in a way that meant he wasn't going to tell her. "I was away," he said. "I've been back about three months."
    "Oh."
    "I've been mostly overseas the last five years or so," he added. "Don't need to say much more than that."
    "Even if I'm dying to know?"
    "Even then," he said, but gently.
    She played with the edge of the tablecloth, folding it back, smoothing it, folding it again. "Sounds sort of glamorous."
    "It's in no way glamorous."
    Time to change the topic, she thought, time to stop acting like a schoolgirl. "What did your dad do before he got sick?"
    "He's been retired a long time. Before that, a cop."
    "Are you a cop?"
    "Nope."
    But there was something in the way he said this, a pause that meant something. "You just look after your father's house?"
    "Yes."
    "He has just one rental?"
    "Six."
    "All kind of like the one next door?"
    "He kept buying them, back in the eighties when they were cheap."
    She did the math. The houses probably weren't fancy, but with the staggering rise in real estate prices in New York City, the sick father was a wealthy man by everyday standards.
    "Six rentals?"
    "Yes."
    "So you're here in the city," she ventured. "Are you trying to find gainful employment, are you dating five girls at once, are you reading any good books lately?"
    Ray smiled. "You want those answers?"
    "Girl doesn't mind knowing a few things."
    He nodded playfully.
Game on.
"Okay, sure. I'm not looking for work. I'm taking care of my father, nothing more than that. I'm not dating five girls at once. I was seeing someone but she told me we were over a few weeks ago—"
    "Was your heart totally broken?"
    He studied the question. "It presented an opportunity to think."
    "That sounds like a lot of you know what."
    "It might be. But I try not to be too attached to anybody or anything. I fail but I try."
    "Are you Buddhist?"
    "No, but they have interesting ideas."
    She just studied him, this Ray Grant. He was earnest. No spin, no attitude. She liked this.
    "And as for the books, yes, I'm reading a couple of good books right now. Does that answer your questions?"
    "Yes, thank you."
    He nodded. "So," he said matter-of-factly, "what are we doing here?"
    "What are we doing here?" she repeated, knowing exactly what he meant.
    Ray