The Disappearance of Grace by Vincent Zandri Read Free Book Online Page A

“Something about the number I just dialed is not correct or can’t be connected.”
    â€œMore than likely the man is calling from a cell phone, his number blocked.”
    Graces reaches beyond me with the phone, her arm brushing up against my shoulder, hangs it up in its cradle.
    The room fills with a hard, icy silence. After a beat, Grace breaks it.
    â€œDoes anyone know we’re here, Nick?” she asks.
    I shake my head.
    â€œFar as I know,” I answer, “only Uncle Sam.”
    â€œDo they often rent this apartment out to other wounded soldiers?”
    Wounded soldier. I’ve never thought of myself as a wounded soldier. A casualty of war. But I guess that’s precisely what I am. A casualty.
    â€œI have no way of knowing.” I go for the phone. “But I can make a call or two—”
    Grace grabs hold of my arm just before I’m able to grab hold of the phone.
    â€œLet’s just go,” she insists. “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for whoever’s called and lets us know that he can see something…whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
    â€œI still say it’s some kind of bad joke,” I add, lowering my right hand.
    â€œOr bad timing,” Grace says. She heads for the open door. “You coming, Nick?”
    â€œYes,” I say, trying to picture in my head an old man standing somewhere in the world speaking the words, “I. See.” into a cell phone. I picture a bald, craggy-faced old man. Perhaps the man who used to own the rare bookshop.
    â€œClose the door behind you,” Grace insists as she begins to descend the steps down to the first floor.
    I do it. I close the door behind me, reach out for the railing, and begin to make my way down the staircase.
    â€œBe careful,” Grace reminds me after a beat.
    â€œI will,” I say, carefully feeling my way down each step with the bottom of my feet. “I survived Afghanistan. I’m not about to die in Venice.”

Chapter 12
    I CAME TO VENICE to live again.
    I came to Venice to heal.
    I came to Venice to regain my eyesight.
    I came to Venice to learn to love Grace all over again and to forget about the mistakes of the past.
    I came to Venice to forget about a village I bombed.
    I’m not sure I’ve succeeded at anything yet. I’m not sure I will succeed. I’m not sure of anything other than the next footstep I will take and the one after that and the one after that. Other than an old man who keeps calling and telling me that he sees something at a time when I most definitely do not see a thing.
    Or do I?
    Walking arm in arm with Grace through the narrow alleys and cobbled corridors, I once more see the moment when we first met. It was still long before my second war and I was working on building my writing career. I’d published a couple of novels, one of which became a bestseller. That one book resulted in a few invitations to speak at some writing and book conferences all across the states. When you spend as much time as I once did all alone inside an eight-by-ten room writing for a living, you learn to take advantage of these conference invitations, no matter how humble the event.
    At one such conference in New York City, I find myself giving a lecture on “the writing life” to a group of young, would-be authors. It’s my job to tell them what it’s really like to write books for a living. The large room is filled mostly with young people learning how to write. Young people buried in jobs they can’t stand, student loans they can’t pay off, and a quickly developed conviction that the nine-to-five life of sleep/video games/bed is the sure path to suicide. They’re also convinced the one unfinished opus they have going on their laptop is the next great American novel. I know the feeling. I was there once myself. Two books ago. Two wars ago. One ex-wife, two grown sons, and many, many failures