And Now She's Gone(18)

Had Isabel left suddenly on that Monday morning?

Couldn’t have. Mrs. Tompkins had mentioned that Isabel was carrying a suitcase. She’d had enough time to pack. And to dye her hair.

There was a blank notepad on the breakfast counter. There were no specks of dried blood on the oven door. No shards of broken glass or ceramic on the tile floor. No tufts of pulled-out hair beneath the refrigerator vent.

“Morris,” Gray said. “How did he die?”

“He ate something.”

“Poison?”

“No idea.”

Gray squinted at him.

Ian gaped at Gray. “Seriously? Now I kill cats? To be honest, I never saw Morris. He was always hiding anytime I came over. Iz never asked me to watch him, not once.” With a trembling finger, he pointed in the direction of Mrs. Tompkins’s condo. “You talk to that old busybody and not tell me?”

Before she could respond, he whirled away from her. “Fucking remarkable. And now I’m a cat killer. She steals my dog, but I’m the villain. She never cared about Kenny G.”

“Did she take care of him at all? Because of your schedule?”

“Please. Kenny G. had a dog sitter most times. Isabel was a flake and she’d forget to come over. I couldn’t rely on her. Yes, she’d help out every now and then. That’s why she had him on that Monday—she picked him up from the sitter that morning, around ten.

“And Tea is a liar—you should know that before you talk to her again. She’s so caught up in the Saint Isabel myth, she can’t even think straight. Take my advice: only believe ten percent of what she says.” He shook his head, then added, “I didn’t kill the fucking cat, okay?”

“Okay. I may need to come back here to look at some things.”

Ian blanched. “Nick said we were gonna be done by tomorrow or Saturday at the latest.”

“Maybe. I’m moving as quickly as I can.”

He ran his hands over his face. “I’ll try to let you in again, but I do have patients.”

Down at the security gate, he said, “And yes: it is Isabel’s birthday tomorrow. I know that. You just mentioned it at a random time. But, of course, you take that the wrong way.”

Once again, Gray pushed that synthetic smile to her lips. “Thank you for taking time out of your day to walk me through. I know you’re incredibly busy. Is there anything else I should know? Any relevant secrets that could help explain her disappearance? Is there another woman in the picture? Or another man?”

The doctor shook his head. “Other than that guy Omar? No. Nothing. No one.”

Gray kept her eyes locked on his.

What about the Big Secret? Or the Hot Nurse? What did you really do on the Friday night of Memorial Day weekend?

Ian O’Donnell dropped back into his Porsche. He zoomed down the hill without tossing her a wave or a nod.

As Gray returned to the Camry, she knew that she’d need to take a closer look around Isabel Lincoln’s condo. There was something about that blank notepad on the breakfast counter. And there was something about that tiny key hidden beneath the missing woman’s lingerie. And that hard metal box on the floor in the darkest reaches of Isabel’s closet …

There were big secrets everywhere.





11


Before partaking of tacos, margaritas, and hot Jewish bartenders, Gray needed to stop one more time at the office. And just as she plopped back at her desk, Dominick Rader strolled into her office with slices of pepperoni pizza on a paper plate.

“Finally,” she said, “a visit from the big boss.” She pushed her glasses to the top of her head, then tugged at her shirt, caring now about the small gaps between the buttonholes and the roll of … her bulging over the waistband of her wrinkled linen slacks.

Nick’s tanned skin gleamed with pizza grease, but even with oil smears he was a gently handsome, forty-six-year-old man who checked every box to describe his ethnicity—his ancestors’ ethos of “Love the one you’re with” showed in his slanted gray eyes, his full lips, and those sharp, freckled cheekbones.

“I see you’ve settled in,” he said. “Glad you could get an office.”

“Let’s just say that I know a guy.” Seeing him sit there in her guest chair—her chair, her office—anyway, seeing him there made Gray’s breath tumble in her chest.

Outside her office, skip tracers and administrative assistants, data analysts and random consultants huddled at the island in the large kitchen around boxes of pizza. And now the irresistible aromas of Italian meats and oregano-kissed tomato sauce tickled Gray’s nose.

Nick adjusted the leather shoulder holster beneath his blazer. “You know, there’s pizza out there. My treat.” He paused, then added, “You’re not on those shakes again, are you?”

“Maybe?” Right now there was a can of strawberry-flavored with her name on it, chilling in the office fridge. “The newsletter said that there would also be beer.”

His eyebrows lifted. “On my dime?”

“Yep. Good beer, too.”

“You guys are worth it,” Nick said with a full mouth. “The best for the best.”

“The new H.R. lady’s all about employee happiness. It’s no secret that we care about you. That’s the signature line on her emails.”