Thomas Perry - Vanishing Act

She heard a dog in a yard a block away give a low bark, and then another dog joined him in a pained, crooning howl. "It’s only me," she whispered. A few seconds later, the low wail of a fire engine’s siren moving past on St. Paul Boulevard reached the range of human hearing and then diminished.

She walked on along the railing to the place above the rocks. She opened her pack and took out the two big pouches of Captain Black’s pipe tobacco that she had bought in the shop at the airport. She opened the first and held it out over the cliff, then shook it to let the shreds pour down into the chasm and spread in their long fall to the rocks where the Jo-Ge-Oh lived. "This isn’t the stuff you’re used to, little guys," she whispered, "but it must be good because my father used to smoke it." She opened the second package and poured it down to them. "He was Henry Whitefield."

Then she picked up the knapsack and unzipped the top. She held it out over the railing. "Thank you for my life." She turned the knapsack upside down. In the moonlight, she could see the hundreds of pieces of paper money fall, turn, flutter like butterflies, and drift down toward the dark water below.

She carried the knapsack as far as the trash barrel at the edge of the park and left it there. Then she got into the rental car and drove back down the street toward Mt. Read Boulevard. At this time of night she expected she could make it most of the way to the Thruway entrance without running into any traffic.

Jane Whitefield came up the sidewalk in Deganawida in the early morning, wearing the new outfit she had bought in Saratoga Springs. She saw that Jake Reinert was watching her from the old wooden swing on his porch. She walked up the steps and sat down beside him.

"Glad to see you, Janie," he said. "You might even say relieved."

"Me too."

He looked off into the distance at the big old trees planted along Franklin Street, swaying a little in the breeze and fluttering their thousands of leaves. "The fellows we met in California never came to see you."

"I didn’t think they would." She patted his arm and stood up to go to her own house, but he stood up too, looking a little nervous.

"The person who did come was a fellow a bit older than you. He came in the middle of the night, like they always do. He had a little boy with him, looked to be about six or seven. He was scared ..." Jane looked at Jake, waiting for the rest of it. "They’re back in my kitchen now, eating some breakfast."

NOW IN BOOKSTORES, THE LATEST RIVETING JANE WHITEFIELD NOVEL

DANCE FOR THE DEAD BY THOMAS PERRY

JANE WHITEFIELD WILL HELP YOU DISAPPEAR,

IF IT HELPS YOU STAY ALIVE....

DANCE FOR THE DEAD

In bookstores everywhere.

Published by Ivy Books.

For a glimpse of this thrilling novel,

please turn the page ...

1

The tall, slim woman hastily tied her long, dark hair into a knot behind her head, planted her feet in the center of the long courthouse corridor, and waited. A few litigants and their attorneys passed her, some of them secretly studying her, more because she was attractive than because she was standing motionless, forcing them to step around her on their way to the courtrooms. Her chest rose and fell in deep breaths as though she had been running, and her eyes looked past them, having already dismissed them before they approached as she stared into the middle distance.

She heard the chime sound above the elevator thirty feet away. Before the doors had fully parted, three large men in sportcoats slipped out between them and spun their heads to stare up the hallway. All three seemed to see her within an instant, their eyes widening, then narrowing to focus, and then becoming watchful and predatory, losing any hint of introspection as they began to move toward her, one beside each wall and one in the middle, increasing their pace with each step.

Several bystanders averted their eyes and sidestepped to avoid them, but the woman never moved. She hiked up the skirt of her navy blue business suit so it was out of her way, took two more deep breaths, then swung her shoulder bag hard at the first man’s face.

The man’s eyes shone with triumph and eagerness as he snatched the purse out of the air. The triumph turned to shock as the woman slipped the strap around his forearm and used the momentum of his charge to haul him into the second man, sending them both against the wall to her right. As they caromed off it, she delivered a kick to one and a chop to the other to put them on the floor. This bought her a few heartbeats to devote to the third man, who was moving along the left wall to get behind her.

She leaned back and swung one leg high. The man read her intention, stopped, and held up his hands to clutch her ankle, but her back foot left the ground and she hurled her weight into him. As her foot caught him at thigh level and propelled him into the wall, there was the sickening crack of his knee popping. He crumpled to the floor and began to gasp and clutch at his crippled leg as the woman rolled to the side and sprang up.

The first two men were rising to their feet. Her fist jabbed out at the nearest one and she rocked him back, pivoted to throw an elbow into the bridge of his nose, and brought a knee into the second man’s face.

There was a loud slapping sound and the woman’s head jerked nearly to her left shoulder as a big fist swung into her cheekbone. Strong arms snaked around her from behind, lifted her off her feet to stretch her erect, and she saw the rest as motion and flashes. The first two men rushed at her in rage, aiming hard round-house punches at her head and face, gleeful in the certainty that she saw the blows coming but could do nothing to block them or even turn to divert their force.

Two loud, deep voices overlapped, barking for dominance. "Police officers! Freeze!" "Step away from her!" When her opponents released her and stepped away, she dropped to her knees and covered her face with her hands. In a moment, several bystanders who had stood paralyzed with alarm seemed to awaken. They were drawn closer by some impulse to be of use, but they only hovered helplessly nearby without touching her or speaking.

The judge’s chambers were in shadow except for a few horizontal slices of late-afternoon sunlight that shone through the blinds on the wood-paneled wall. Judge Kramer sat in his old oak swivel chair with his robe unzipped but with the yoke still resting on his shoulders. He loosened his tie and leaned back, making the chair’s springs creak, then pressed the PLAY button on the tape recorder.

There were sounds of chairs scraping, papers shuffling, and a garble of murmured conversation, so that the judge’s empty chamber seemed to be crowded with invisible people. A female voice came from somewhere too close to the microphone. "This deposition is to be taken before Julia R. Kinnock, court stenographer at 501 North Spring Street, Los Angeles, California, at ten ... seventeen A.M. on November third. The court’s instructions were that if there is an objection to the use of a tape recorder, it will be turned off." There was silence. "Will the others in the room please identify themselves."

"David M. Schoenfeld, court-appointed counsel to Timothy Phillips." Schoenfeld’s voice was smooth, and each syllable took too long to come out. Judge Kramer could almost see him leaning into the microphone to croon.

"Nina Coffey, Department of Children’s Services, Los Angeles County, in the capacity of guardian for a minor person." Kramer had read her name on a number of official papers, but he had never heard her voice before. It was clear and unapologetic, the words quick and clipped, as though she were trying to guard against some kind of vulnerability.