The Girl in the Face of the Clock Read Online Free Page B

thoughts.
    What did Allah have in mind when He came up with places like this? she wondered unhappily. Wasn’t life puzzling enough on its own, without dark rooms full of unconscious men and women in disposable nightgowns? The coed sleeping arrangements struck her as dreadfully improper, too, though none of the patients seemed to mind.
    â€œJane, Jane, Jane.”
    Jane looked up in amazement. For an instant, she was a little girl again and her father was calling her. Had Aaron Sailor returned? Was he waking up? She waited a moment, afraid to breathe, feeling gooseflesh raising on her arms and legs.
    But there was no further sound. There was no movement. The gaunt figure on the bed was no more sentient than it had been a minute before. Jane let out a deep sigh. Her father had simply repeated a word he once knew, not really called her name. Now he returned to a more familiar refrain.
    â€œNo, Perry. Don’t do it. No, Perry, no.”
    Jane returned to her chair and sat for another few minutes, until she couldn’t stand it any more. She had stayed only for the sake of appearances, and she had stayed long enough. She no longer felt ready to run off screaming into the bushes, but her appetite, which had disappeared the moment she had entered the nursing home, had now returned with a vengeance. Was there a pizza place near the Great Neck station, maybe? Could she hold out until she was safely back in Manhattan? Was it horrible of her to think about her stomach at a time like this?
    â€œJane, Jane,” murmured her father again, as if he knew she was going to leave.
    Jane reached into her purse for a felt-tip pen and carefully drew a little heart on the cast that covered his arm. Inside the heart she wrote “Love Janie” in the tiniest of letters.
    â€œNo, Perry, no,” he said in response, oblivious. “You’re a liar, Perry. I know the truth.”
    â€œThe truth about what?” Jane asked.
    â€œNo, Perry. Please don’t do it. Please.”
    Jane left the room dry-eyed, but with a lump in her throat. Benton Contino was waiting for her in the hall. He wouldn’t let her escape into the light of day until she had assured him that she didn’t intend to sue.

Three
    An hour and a half later, hands deep in her pockets, stupid hat squished on her head, Jane climbed the front stairs of her brownstone on West Ninetieth Street.
    Automatically she checked the mailbox, but of course there was nothing in it. The forwarding order she’d filled out at the Post Office before leaving town last month would be in effect until tomorrow. Nothing of any interest had reached her in Cincinnati anyway. Who but catalogue companies would care that she was now back in New York?
    Jane stared up the long staircase that stood between her and her apartment on the fifth floor. She hadn’t been gone long enough this time to sublet, and it was amazing how much dust a New York apartment could accumulate in a month just sitting empty.
    The prospect of a lonely unpacking session followed by an hour of dusting wasn’t much motivation to climb four flights of stairs. On the way home, she had stopped for some gyoza and a California roll at one of the zillion Japanese places on Broadway, then grazed for half an hour at the huge Barnes & Noble at Eighty-third Street. What else could she do to postpone the inevitable?
    Jane’s keys were still in her hand from opening the mailbox. A small steel one at the end of the ring caught her eye. It was the key to her storage space in the basement. Was there an address book somewhere in the boxes of Dad’s personal things that she had stored down there? Could it tell her who this Perry was that Aaron Sailor was suddenly mumbling about? “No, Perry, no.” Jane had tried to push her father’s words out of her mind, but they kept coming back. “No, Perry. Please don’t do it.” Who was this guy?
    Not needing further encouragement, Jane