“No. It vanished without a trace.”
“There are a lot of things around here that seem to vanish without a trace,” Nina observed.
April struggled into a sitting position, and a fine line of sweat dripped down the side of her face. She wiped it away. “I better head out,” she said. “I’m late to work out. I missed my exercises all week because I was sick. I can’t miss again today, or I’ll fall behind on my new health program.”
Nina shot a warning glance at Gretchen, and Gretchen composed her face.
“April has lost fifty pounds,” Nina said to Gretchen. “She’s working out at Curves.”
Gretchen hadn’t noticed any poundage loss, but she had spotted April’s purse on the side table by the door and a set of keys beside it. She’d also noticed an overnight travel bag tossed carelessly on its side by the bedroom door. A cosmetic bag and a hairbrush had slid out onto the floor.
It looked like the woman stricken with valley fever had been away from home.
“Maybe she’s packing for a trip,” Nina said, when they returned to the car. They opened all the car doors, Nina turned on the ignition and the air-conditioning, and they waited on the sidewalk while the car cooled down. April lumbered to her crumpled Buick and waved as she drove off. Nina opened the back door and helped Tutu onto the seat. Nimrod squirmed out of his purse and ran back and forth in the rear as Nina took the driver’s seat and belted up. “Maybe she’s leaving today.”
“I think she lied about the valley fever,” Gretchen said, digging a folded piece of paper from her shorts and scanning the copy of Martha’s inventory list. She found the doll April had once coveted: “German miniature, all bisque, jointed, marked German 10 on back of head, original hand-made dress, three and a half inches high.” She glanced up at the street ahead. “Can you catch up to her? Let’s see if she’s going where she said she’s going.”
“Fun. My first tail.”
Nina stepped on the gas, and Gretchen’s head snapped back. “Take it easy. I don’t want any more trips to the hospital.”
Several lights ahead, the back of April’s car came into view, and Gretchen watched it turn onto University Drive and head for Phoenix. Fifteen minutes later April pulled over in front of a building bearing a small overhead sign, Curves. Curves, a popular fitness center exclusively for women, was sweeping the country, and Gretchen had considered paying a visit to one. This was her chance.
“Now we’ll go in and ask her if she’s leaving town,” Nina said.
“We can’t say it just like that.” Gretchen watched April enter the building. “I’ll go in and think of some reason for following her, something we forgot to ask her before she took off. You stay here with the dogs.”
“We can all go in.”
“I’m sure they don’t allow dogs,” Gretchen said. “Let’s not cause a scene.” She walked into Curves.
April was waiting for her.
“I thought I saw Nina’s car following me,” she said, eyeing Gretchen up and down. “You could stand to lose a few pounds, and there’s no better way to do it. You want to give it a try, don’t you?”
Gretchen gave April a weak smile. “That’s why we decided to follow you. What do I do?”
April looked over at the front desk. “That okay with you?” she said to the woman sitting behind the desk. “That’s Ora, the manager.”
“Hey,” Ora said to Gretchen. “April will take good care of you.”
“You can be my guest today,” April said, pride in her voice. “Follow behind me, and I’ll show you how to use the machines. But watch that bad arm. You’ll have to skip some of the arm weights. Our workout usually takes thirty minutes, but we’ll cut it short since we’re both on the mend.”
April jumped onto a piece of equipment as an energetic voice called from a CD overhead, “Change stations now.” Gretchen peered out the window and caught Nina’s eye. She sent a telepathic message to let Nina know that she’d be back in twenty minutes and hoped Nina’s invisible antenna was operating at peak performance.
A circle of women on various machines and platforms moved in unison, performing simple stretching exercises. Gretchen joined in next to April and spotted Bonnie Albright and Rita Phyller at the opposite end of the circuit. She waved. They waved back.
Jogging in place on a platform, Gretchen said, “Is this the local hangout for the doll club members? I see Bonnie and Rita.”
“It is,” April said, rowing away on a machine, her elbows flapping like chicken wings. “Usually we have more than this. Where’s Nina?”
“She didn’t want to leave the dogs alone in the car. It’s too hot without the air-conditioning running.”
With each “Change stations now,” April and Gretchen rotated on the equipment circling the room. Gretchen had to skip at least half of the machines because of her broken wrist. She jogged in place instead.
“Did you hear from your mother yet?” Bonnie shouted over the beat of disco music.
Gretchen shook her head, noting the glances exchanged between the two doll collectors on the other side of the room. She wondered what they said when she wasn’t present, and whether they thought her mother had killed Martha. It made for good gossip regardless of the final outcome, and Bonnie could squeeze juicy tidbits out of a barrel cactus.
“Now move away from your station and find your heart rate.” Every woman in the room raised her hand to the side of her neck as the prerecorded instructor called off the count.
Gretchen heard April breathing in sharp, jagged gasps. The front of April’s shirt was soaked as though she had taken a dip in a swimming pool with all her clothes on. As a few women cleared the workout stations around April and Gretchen, Bonnie and Rita skipped ahead and joined them.
After one time around the circuit, April sat down on a chair by the door. “I need a breather. Ten minutes is about all I have in me all at one time,” she said thickly. “You go on around again. I’ll catch up.”
“I’m going over to South Phoenix to look at a Barbie,” Rita said. “It’s a Ponytail with a black-and-white-striped swimsuit, and in its original box. I looked at it yesterday and can’t decide if I should buy it.”
“What’s holding you back?” Bonnie said.
“The price,” Rita said. “They want twelve hundred dollars, and I really can’t afford it.”
“That’s a lot of dough,” April called out from the chair.
“That’s why I’m looking at it again,” Rita said, bending over and touching her toes. “I’m hoping they’ll come way down on the price.”
“I haven’t been able to touch my toes since high school,” April observed wistfully.
“Keep losing weight the way you have,” Gretchen said encouragingly, treading steadily on a machine labeled the stepper, “and you’ll be touching your toes in no time.”
“Change stations now.”
Everyone rotated.
“When I went to look at the Barbie yesterday,” Rita said to Bonnie, “I saw you going into the Rescue Mission. Are you volunteering there?”
Bonnie looked startled. “You must be mistaken,” she said. “I wasn’t anywhere near the Rescue Mission.”
“That’s funny. I was certain it was you.”
“No,” Bonnie said, shaking her red shellacked flip. “It wasn’t me.”
Gretchen studied Bonnie. Flaming red hair and makeup painted on in exaggerated colors. It would be hard to mistake someone else for her.
“Anyway, what else is new?” April rejoined the group with renewed vigor and put everything she had into the shoulder press machine.
Gretchen, dancing on a platform, couldn’t believe how easily the conversation turned in the right direction. Without missing a beat, she asked, “Anyone planning any trips?”
Death.
Caroline had felt its presence ever since that horrible moment when the doctor spoke the chilling words: “Breast cancer.” The disease she had feared the most had invaded without a warning battle cry, its army of killer cells waging a war for supremacy within her chest.