Where Are You Now? Read Online Free PDF Page B

the receiver from him.
    When there was no answer, he demanded sharply, “Kate, why are you looking for Leesey?”
    â€œI don’t know, I just hoped . . .” Kate’s voice broke.
    â€œKate, tell me what happened.”
    â€œLast night she went out with some of our friends to the Woodshed, a new place we’ve been talking about trying.”
    â€œWhere is it?”
    â€œIt’s on the border of the Village and SoHo. Leesey stayed after the others left. There was a really good band, and you know how she loves to dance.”
    â€œWhat time did the others leave?”
    â€œIt was about two o’clock, Dr. Andrews.”
    â€œHad Leesey been drinking?”
    â€œNot much. She was fine when they left but shewasn’t here when I woke up this morning, and no one has seen her all day. I’ve been trying to reach her on her cell phone, but she doesn’t answer. I’ve been calling everyone I could think of who might have seen her, but no one has.”
    â€œDid you call that place where she was last night?”
    â€œI spoke to the bartender there. He said that Leesey stayed till they closed at three o’clock and then left alone. He swore that she absolutely wasn’t drunk or anywhere near it. She just stayed till the end.”
    Andrews closed his eyes, trying desperately to sort out the steps he needed to take. Let her be all right, God, he prayed. Leesey, the unexpected baby born when Helen was forty-five years old and they had long since given up hope of having a second child.
    Impatiently, he pulled his legs off the hassock, pushed it aside, stood up, brushed back his thick white hair from his forehead, then swallowed to activate the salivary glands inside his suddenly dry mouth.
    The commuter traffic is over, he thought. It shouldn’t take more than an hour to get down to Greenwich Village.
    â€œFrom Greenwich, Connecticut, to Greenwich Village,” Leesey had joyfully announced three years ago when she decided to take early acceptance at NYU.
    â€œKate, I’ll start down right away,” Andrews said. “I’ll call Leesey’s brother. We’ll meet you at the apartment. How far is this bar from your place?”
    â€œAbout a mile.”
    â€œWould she have taken a cab?”
    â€œIt was nice out. She probably would have walked.”
    Alone on dark streets, late at night, Andrews thought. Trying to keep his voice from breaking, he said, “I’ll be there in an hour. Keep calling anyone you can think of who might have an idea where she is.”
    *   *   *
    Dr. Gregg Andrews was showering when the phone rang, and he decided to let the answering machine pick it up. He was off duty and had a date with someone he had met the night before at a cocktail reception for the launching of a novel by a friend. Now a cardiac surgeon at New York–Presbyterian Hospital, as his father had been until his retirement, he toweled dry, walked into his bedroom, and considered the fact that the May evening had begun to turn cool. From his closet, he chose an open-necked long-sleeve light blue shirt, tan slacks, and a navy blue jacket.
    Leesey tells me I always look so stuffy, he remembered, thinking with a smile of the little sister who was twelve years his junior. She says I should get some cool colors and mix them up.
    She also says I should get contact lenses and get rid of my crew cut, he thought.
    â€œGregg, you’re really cute, not handsome, but cute,” she had told him matter-of-factly. “I mean women like men who look as though they have a brain in their heads. And they always fall for doctors. It’s kind of a ‘Daddy’ complex, I think. But it doesn’t hurt to look a little zippy.”
    The message light was blinking on the phone. He debated whether he should bother to check it now but then pressed the play button.
    â€œGregg, it’s Dad. Leesey’s roommate just called