Now You See Her Page 0,15

each. Darren’s nineteen, very tall and handsome, thinking of going into dentistry, like his dad. He’s working as a camp counselor for the summer.”

“Sounds like fun. And your daughter? What’s she up to?”

“Devon is twenty-one, or no, actually, she’d be almost twenty-three now,” Marcy said, correcting herself immediately.

Vic cocked his head to one side, smiling to mask his obvious confusion. “Devon is the girl you thought you saw this afternoon?”

“I did see her.”

“Your daughter is here in Ireland?” This time there was no attempt to hide his confusion.

“She’s traveling through Europe for the summer,” Marcy said. “I didn’t realize we’d both be here at the same time, not until I saw her this afternoon. I guess she must have changed her plans at the last minute. That’s a lie,” she added in the next breath.

“I kind of figured.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right. You don’t owe me any explanations.”

“My daughter supposedly drowned in a canoeing accident about two years ago,” Marcy said, watching Vic’s brow furrow and his eyes narrow. “Twenty-one months ago, to be precise. Except they never found her body. And I know, I know, she’s still alive, that for whatever reason, she faked her death.”

“Why would she do that?” Vic asked, as Peter had asked earlier.

“To get away. To start a new life. Start over.”

“Why would she want to start over?”

“Because she was so unhappy. Because she’d gotten herself into some trouble … I’m sorry. Can we not talk about this anymore?”

“We can not talk about whatever you’d like.”

Marcy continued, unable to stop herself. “Everybody else is so positive she’s dead. But I know what I saw. I saw my daughter. You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

“I think a mother knows her own child.”

Relief washed across Marcy’s face like a cool breeze. “God, you’re a nice man,” she said.

“And you’ve had a very eventful day. Come on. Finish up. I’ll take you back to your hotel.”

Marcy reached across the table, took Vic’s hand in hers. “I have a better idea,” she said.

FIVE

HER SISTER WAS RIGHT about one thing, Marcy thought, sitting up in bed and gazing through the darkness at the man snoring softly beside her: Sex was like riding a bicycle. Once you knew how to do it, you never really forgot the mechanics, no matter how long it had been since the last time you did it. And it didn’t matter what kind of bike it was or how many speeds it had or how many embellishments had been added, the basic operating premise remained the same: You mounted; you worked the pedals; you got off.

And her sister would know. As Judith herself admitted, she’d ridden a lot of bicycles.

Marcy climbed out of bed and walked to the window overlooking Fleet Street. It was quiet, although surprisingly, even at almost two in the morning, there were still people out walking. The trendy area of Temple Bar never really shut down, according to Vic, who’d pointed out several scantily dressed fashion models draped like fur stoles around the shoulders of some music industry bigwigs at the boutique hotel’s crowded bar.

They’d gone to his room at her suggestion.

“Are you sure?” he’d asked when they first entered the elegantly underfurnished lobby of his hotel.

“I’m sure.”

They’d undressed each other quickly and expertly, made love easily and effortlessly. And repeatedly, she thought now, feeling the pleasant soreness between her legs. When was the last time she and Peter had made love more than once in a single night? Not in at least a decade, she thought, then immediately amended that to two decades.

She grabbed her blouse off a nearby chair and wrapped it around her, the soft cotton teasing her nipple, mimicking Vic’s earlier touch. At first she thought it would be strange to have another man’s hands exploring her so intimately. After almost a quarter of a century of being with the same man, she was used to a certain way of doing things, a clearly defined order of what went where and when and for how long. She and Peter had long ago fallen into a familiar rhythm—satisfying and pleasant, if no longer terribly exciting. But good nonetheless, she’d always thought. Dependable. Reliable.

She’d had no desire to change things.

And then Devon had paddled her canoe into the middle of Georgian Bay one brilliant October morning—the air cold, the dying leaves a miraculous succession of red, orange, and gold—and nothing was ever the same again.

Marcy shook thoughts of Devon from her head and looked around the room, which was sparsely decorated