And Now She's Gone(106)

“I’m going mad,” she once told Dominick after dinner. “My mind is decomposing.”

Slumped in the Adirondack chair, he had glanced over at her and had then drained his glass of whiskey.

She threw her gaze back out to the ocean. “Not that I want to go back…” Her eyes filled with tears. She groaned. She was so tired of crying.

“Maybe you should see someone,” he said. “I’ll pay for it.”

“I have money.”

“You don’t have to touch it. Not with you planning to change everything. Won’t be cheap, getting a brand-new identity. That’s what I meant.”

“Yeah.” She hid her face in her hands and clenched into a tight ball. She took deep breaths to push back the madness at her soul’s gate. Two hundred and sixty-seven deep breaths later, she loosened from that ball, then joined Dominick on another walk along the shore.

They took so many walks, they made new sand.

Dominick introduced her to Shonelle Crespin, a psychologist with auburn dreadlocks and perfect white teeth. “What should I call you?” the woman asked. “Besides ‘Nick’s friend’?”

She’d been thinking about her name, about all those names she’d dreamed about as a kid. Lola, Lucky, Deenie, Scarlett, Jo, Pippi, Leia …

“Gray,” she said. “Grayson Sykes.” And it felt right, coming off her tongue. Sykes—as in “Psych: you thought I was who I was but I’m not anymore.” She said it again, and something inside of her wiggled, broke free, and broke apart. Ten minutes into this appointment and parts of her had already healed.

Grayson saw Sean Dixon once during those first months away from him. It had been a random sighting on Sepulveda Boulevard, near UCLA and the federal buildings that housed the State Department. He’d known to look for her in a place that issued new passports. How had he known, though, to hunt for her in Los Angeles?

“A guess,” Nick told her. “It’s four hours away. He probably looked in Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. Did he see you?”

She shook her head. “I was on the shuttle. It had tinted glass.” Her lungs had closed as her husband stalked across the street. He had recovered from her stabbing him and had regained his upright, master-of-the-universe gait. Her knees had sagged, and she was glad that she was holding on to the shuttle’s pole.

Twice a week, Gray had nightmares.

Each time, Nick shook her awake.

In one dream, Sean had been strangling her on the beach and his face had transformed into the xenomorph from Alien. Those teeth. That cylindrical skull … The relief of waking up hadn’t pushed away that fear. No, she could only clench Nick tighter, tighter still, and wait for time and the strong sunlight to bleach away those images of Sean strangling her.

Gray lived in Nick’s guest bedroom for nearly a year. She ate on Nick’s dime. Saw the psychologist on Nick’s dime. Started the court proceedings to erase who she was and to become who she needed to be—all on Nick’s dime.

“I should buy one of those jumpsuits,” Gray told him, before the hearing to seal her records. “You know, the ones that race car drivers wear, with all those patches from sponsors sewn on it. You’d be all over me.”

His eyes danced, then hardened. “Just a loan. I’m just fronting you until it’s safe.”

And once she legally became Grayson Faye Sykes, born in November and not in April, Social Security number ending in 0608, she would leave bundles of cash on Nick’s dresser, next to his keys or wallet or empty glass that still smelled of whiskey.

On those nights he didn’t come home, Gray wondered about the woman he was with. Sometimes she caught a glimpse of him at the nearby Italian place with a blonde named Emma. Or the redhead, Kit or Kate or something. On the weekends, Nick sometimes drove up the coast with a pretty Asian woman he’d brought home once. On one of those weekends, Gray moved into Beaudry Towers. The one-bedroom apartment had enough room for her and gave her enough space from Nick.

Financially, she was now square with her benefactor. She owed him nothing that could have been deposited at a bank. Those intangible things … Well, she could never repay him, so she wouldn’t try.

“I’ll just live my best life,” she told herself as she stood in the solarium.

The muted noise of jammed freeways became the new soundtrack of her life.

And her life with Sean Dixon became as dusty and “wayback” as a video game token left in the middle of the Mojave.





58


Gray was ready to go home. Los Angeles had become Shangri-la, Buckingham Palace, and Paisley Park all mixed up, but without the queen and Prince. She’d left a voice mail for Detective Jake Days, who oversaw Tommy Hampton’s case, but he hadn’t picked up, and she was glad that he hadn’t. If she talked to one more person today, her brain would explode quicker than whatever organ inside of her was still giving her the business.

At Oakland International Airport, she dropped the rental car back at Avis and thanked Mike, her temporary bodyguard. She trudged to the departure gate for a late-night flight to Los Angeles, but a text from Jennifer made her slow her step.

No travel abroad for Elyse Miller.



“Maybe she’s using another name,” Gray said.

For Deanna Kelly, the world was filled with the unforgotten or the gone-too-soon—the possibilities for new identities were endless. And she’d never stop on her own; she’d been too many people.