And Now She's Gone(30)

She held her middle, stepped over to the moody, tree-trunk-looking abstract painting that hid a surveillance camera. Though her apartment was only nine hundred square feet, she still didn’t want anyone entering it without her knowledge. But as she viewed the video, she saw that no one had entered. There’d only been one knock on the door, announcing the water bottle’s arrival. Unless he was the Fly or Spider-Man, no man (or woman) could sneak in through the windows. Even firemen, with their tallest ladder, couldn’t reach her, not here on the seventeenth floor. No one could enter except through the door.

Finally, she texted Hank—home in 10 minutes, come here—and included her address. She rarely invited guests to her home, but if shit was going down, she’d rather be on her territory than his. There was a Glock in the nightstand drawer, a hunter’s knife beneath the couch cushions, a can of Mace in the medicine cabinet, and an ice pick in the potted fern in the solarium. Besides, Clarissa had performed a background check and Hank wasn’t problematic and he probably wouldn’t require her to use any weapon on him other than her killer sex appeal.

She said, “Sex appeal,” aloud and chuckled. Amused, the Skipper stripped the yellow pillowcases from the pillows and replaced them with black. Then she changed the white sheets and the white comforter on the bed for the black sheets and the black comforter.

The bottle of Ketel One vodka was calling her from the ice cube bin in the freezer. The refrigerator coughed again, and Gray heeded the call. She shuffled to the bright white kitchen, made brighter by the painting of bright yellow dahlias. She found the five-pound bag of rice in the cupboard, dug through it to find a stainless steel shaker and a single martini glass. Behind the cans of broth, refried beans, and diced tomatoes, she found a jar of jumbo green olives and a small bottle of vermouth, and she made a perfect dirty martini. A treat now, she allowed herself just one bottle of vodka a year since she’d adopted tequila as her public profile liquor, the official booze of Grayson Sykes.

She closed her eyes as the vodka dribbled down her throat. Her knees sagged and her head fell back. She wanted more. Needed more. Only seven olives and a quarter of the Ketel One bottle remained, though, and it was just July. She finished the martini, chomped the two olives, washed and dried the glass and the silver shaker, then hid both in the bag of rice. She shoved the Ketel One back into the ice cube bin, shoved the jar of olives and vermouth back behind the cans of broth, refried beans, and diced tomatoes, then grabbed from the lower fridge shelf one of a million cans of cran-raspberry LaCroix sparkling water, her go-to sober alternative.

Body looser, she grabbed her phone and texted Hank. Just got in.

Since her vodka break, nothing had changed on the freeways. Once the Big One finally broke California off from the rest of the continent, once the state fell into the Pacific Ocean, every one of those cars would sink and their headlights would glow in the depths of the sea like phosphorescent deep-sea creatures with strange jaws and bulging blind eyes.

She chuckled—vodka thinking.

Her phone rang.

Nick’s picture brightened the phone’s screen. He was the only person in the world who possessed her true phone number. But if she had to, she’d burn him, too. He expected nothing less from her. Don’t hold on to something you can’t leave behind in five seconds. He’d taught her that. And then he had added, “Even me.”

Phone in hand, she tapped the green Accept button. “Shouldn’t you be spooning in Hawaii right now?”

Nick laughed. “You know better than that.”

“Yeah, I do.”

The biochemist now had a new name and a new job waiting tables and getting paid in cash. She was now hiding her Ph.D. and love of chemistry in a bag of rice and an ice cube bin.

“So?” Nick said. “Feeling better?”

“About the case? Don’t know. I still have my reservations.”

“Well,” Nick said, “he called me.”

“Who? Dr. O’Donnell?”

“Yep. Said you were rude.”

“Oh?”

“Despite your personal feelings about him, you need to be respectful, all right? He’s a client. He’s paying us.”

Gray forced down the bile burning her throat, then caught Nick up on the Lincoln case.

“Something’s strange,” he said.

“Exactly.”

“Grayson—”

“But if this guy hurt his girlfriend—”

“Then sniff it out. Get proof. Dive in and grow the fuck up.”

“Excuse me?” The spaces behind Gray’s eyes creaked with the threat of a headache.

Silence from Nick.

She pictured his tight mouth, his hand balled into a fist.

“If Ian hurt her,” he said slowly, “you will find that out. You will see past his blond hair and blue scrubs, and if she needs help and protection from him, we know how to do that. Something is strange with this case, and you’ve seen strange before, correct?”

Gray nodded, even though he couldn’t see her.

“If you need me for anything,” Nick said, “call immediately. Okay?”

“Yup.”

He waited a beat. “We good?”

“You’re a national treasure.” Her voice sounded shaky.

“And you’re chicken soup for my soul. I’ll be back in L.A. in a couple of days.”