Chapter 44

HERE’S WHAT I WRITE: “The woman you are writing about, Grace Blunt, is my fiancée. She was taken from me while we were having lunch at a café across from the cathedral in San Marco. I have been suffering a recurring, temporary blindness since my participation in the war in Afghanistan and had no way of seeing her being taken, nor the individual who did the taking. But only moments prior to her disappearance, Grace had been complaining of a man in a long brown overcoat who was staring at her. He was a man with a cropped beard, black hair, and black eyes hidden behind sunglasses. It turns out he’s been following us all week. He approached our table, which upset Grace. Within seconds, she was gone. Please contact me here as soon as you see this. I am desperate.”

I click send and wait for a reply.

It comes to me almost two hours later.

“Dear Sir, please contact me with your phone number to this email address ABetti@gmail.com as soon as possible.”

I do it. I email her with my cell phone number.

When the phone rings with a number I do not recognize, but that most certainly originates from Italy, I know it must be her. Holding Grace’s engagement ring in one hand, I answer the cell phone with the other. For the first time in two days, my heart begins to fill with hope.

“Pronto,” I say.

“Is this Captain Angel?” the voice asks. Italian accented, soft but low toned, the English perfectly spoken without hesitation.

“It is. Thank you for calling.”

She’s not alone. Nor is she in a quiet place like her home or an office. Coming from over the phone, the sounds of a busy, congested place. Some people shouting in the distance. Laughing. Voices coming from over speakers, announcing arrivals, and departures. An airport more than likely.

“I’m at De Gaulle in Paris,” she explains. “I’m about to board a plane for Venice now.”

I glance at the article on the computer. It came out only last night. How could she write about Grace if she’s in Paris? It’s precisely what I pose to her.

“Welcome to the internet age, Captain. I can write about anything from anywhere so long as I’ve access to the proper information.”

“In this case, you don’t have all the information, Ms. Betti.”

“Can you meet me this afternoon?”

“I can try,” I say. “If my eyes hold up.”

“Where are you located in Venice?”

I tell her.

“I’ll come to you,” she says. “Three o’clock.”

“That will work,” I tell her. But she hangs up before I get to the word, “work.”

* * *

I sit in silence for the better part of an hour, stealing occasional drinks of whiskey to calm my nerves. But the alcohol doesn’t prevent me from nearly jumping through the roof when my cell phone rings. I fumble for the phone on the harvest table, thumb Send.

“Hello!”

“Nick,” the woman says. “Nick, is this you?”

A wave of confusion sweeps over my body. A man’s voice. I’ve heard the voice before, that much is for sure. But I can’t recall where or when. Until it comes to me like a slap across the face. It’s Grace’s ex, Andrew, calling from New York.

“Andrew,” I say. “How did you get this number?”

“Grace goes missing and you don’t call me?”

I don’t have his number. Nor would I have called him anyway. I’m guessing Grace gave him my number. In case of emergency.

Emergency.

I swallow something cold and bitter tasting, then clear my throat.

“The police asked me not to call anyone just yet. They didn’t want me to alarm anyone unnecessarily.”

“What a load of crap. I had to find out about it on CNN, online. The bloody internet for God’s sakes, Nick.”

Andrew is panicked. Or still in love with my fiancée. Probably both. Flashing through my brain: the image of them both lying in bed together. Naked. Pressed up against one another. I try and remove the image from my head. But it’s like pulling a molar from out of my mouth with a pair of rusty pliers.

“Calm down, Andrew. The police tell me it’s very likely she will show up in a day or two.”

“You two have a fight?”

“Not really,” I say, recalling our afternoon at the café, arguing. “Nothing like that.”

“Then maybe she got smart and left you for good. Maybe she got sick of waiting around while you play cowboys and Indians in some desolate country we’ve unjustly invaded.”

“I’m a soldier. It’s what I do. And maybe it’s time you got used to the fact that I’m with Grace now. Not you.”

“Thought you were supposed to be a writer.”

“I am a writer.”

“So that’s what this is all about then,” he pushes. “A fight. I bet you’ve been fighting and now Grace is seeing the light.”

“No, she saw the light a long time ago, Professor.”

I could tell him about the overcoat man, about Grace going missing at the café in San Marco. But then he’d be on the next flight over here and then the detective would have no choice but to put me in jail after I beat the professor to a pulp with my bare hands.

“Tell me the truth, Nick.”

“Yes, we’ve been fighting a little. It’s been hard since I got back from the war. My eyesight comes and goes. Grace has been under a lot of pressure…taking care of me, the marriage, our future. She feels like hell about what happened with you while I was away. It’s all a lot to take in.”

I hear him exhale over the phone.

“So you think she took off to be alone?”

“It’s entirely possibly if not probable.”

“And what exactly are you doing about it?”

I picture the long-haired, brown-eyed man with the phone pressed against his ear with one hand and with the other, fingering the keys on his laptop inside his Columbia University faculty office.

“I’m working with the police and being patient. I’m told to be patient.”

“Patient. Isn’t that what you asked of my wife when you decided to go off and be John Wayne once again?” An electric hum fills the connection before Andrew adds, “Call me back when you know something.” And then he hangs up.

Setting down the phone, I lay myself out on the couch, my open eyes staring at a ceiling that looks much better when I’m blind.

“She’s not your wife anymore,” I say. But there’s no one around to hear me.