Vanished in the Dunes Read Online Free PDF

steps.
    “Is Henry Jewish?” he asks, and immediately realizes the banality of his words, yet she quietly says, “Yes, but he’s not very religious.” He hopes that perhaps she now realizes she shouldn’t be here, and that her seduction was misplaced. It’s time to go.
    He pats the pocket with his keys, and then his eyes abruptly look down to his jacket. He moves his hands from one pocket to the other, stopping for a moment and then repeating the process.
    “What’s wrong?” she asks.
    His hands stay in motion while his body turns to scan the floor, as if the object of his interest might somehow lie at his feet. He walks back to the couch and lifts the cushions before he comes back.
    “Did you lose something?” At first he doesn’t appear to hear, as he scans the floor, the kitchen counter, and the hallway.
    “My wallet. Can’t find my wallet. Dammit! I just went to the bank and took out a lot of cash. Goddammit! We’ve got to go. I must havedropped it at the beach or at Citarella’s. Come on. First I’ll drop you at the bus stop.”
    “I don’t want to go just yet. Maybe after some more wine. Maybe when you get back.”
    Her smile teases him. She stretches here arms behind her head, which accentuates the swell of her breasts. Her mouth opens and her lips seem to ripen. She knows what she’s doing, but he has no interest in such games. Not now. Not anymore.
    “I said I want to go now.” His voice rises.
    He grabs at her upper arm, but she pulls away.
    “Don’t.”
    “Sorry. Look I don’t have time for this. I’ll be back soon, but be ready to leave when I get here.”
    He moves down the steps and out the door without looking back. He doesn’t see her, but senses she still stands and watches him while he feels a mocking smile, until the closing door swallows the image.
    It takes longer than the few minutes he’d hoped. The beach yields nothing, and so he drives to Citarella’s. It’s not under the table he sat at, and he goes inside and asks a cashier. She directs him to the manager who’s on the phone. It’s maddening. There’s nearly five hundred dollars in the wallet, but he can’t rush it.
    “Yes, we found the wallet,” the manager says without hesitation after the briefest of inquiries.
    As his Lexus enters his own street, a car he doesn’t recognize turns at the far corner. Another few weeks till summer and this street will be full of cars. His watch shows almost forty minutes have passed since he left. Dammit. What if Sara had called while he was out? He parks and leaves the car door open as he jogs up the front steps.
    The door opens about three-quarters of the way and then stops. Something blocks further effort. Something heavy, but there’s still enough room for him to easily enter.
    She lays there without moving. Her eyes closed. He calls to her, but his voice is no more than an echo. At first he thinks she’s playing some game with him, some final attempt at seduction, a stupid, vain idea, he later realizes, yet she looks so serene, lying there, composed in sensuality with one long leg stretched against a stair riser, as if she had been placed there by an artist, a bowl of fruit in a still life.
    But then he sees blood seeping from the back of her head. He calls to her again without response. Then he shouts, as if a higher octave would make a difference. He draws a breath to calm himself and lifts one of her hands. The same one he held minutes before. The warmth is still there. He speaks to her now. Soft words that go unheard, but he continues. Then he reaches a finger toward her neck to check her pulse. He knows how to do this from a course in emergency medicine the firm gave some years ago.
    He sits beside her, staring blankly at the entrance door, seeing nothing. He has no comprehension of what has just happened, so he cries. At one point he drops his head to her chest to check for a heart beat—uselessly. How could this have happened? How? How? But he knows. The stupid