And Now She's Gone(48)

“Same old, same old. She doesn’t understand me and We’ve grown apart.” Trinity hid a smirk in the pink iciness of her cocktail. “Also, Isabel’s a gold digger. An Olympic champion of gold diggers.”

“Says Ian?”

“Says Ian, says me.” She leaned across the table. “Look, I get it. Every woman wants to land a doctor, for obvious reasons, right? Well, Isabel was more obvious than the rest of us.”

“How?”

“She’d make him buy her expensive clothes. She’d open credit lines under his name, like the Nordstrom card and the Best Buy card. They’d eat at expensive restaurants on Wednesdays. Who eats at Providence or Mastro’s or JiRaffe on a Wednesday? And her little getaways? She’d pay for them with his card. Or her card on his account. When he’d catch her, she’d turn it around and tell him that it was his fault that she needed to leave and so it was only right that he pays.”

“Is that how he knew where she’d go? Cuz it would show up on his statements?”

Had Ian paid for the trip to Kauai … or wherever Isabel was hiding?

“And she’s dangerous,” Trinity said. “She’s unpredictable. Like a wounded dog.”

Isabel was also a black woman dating a white man, and just yesterday evening Gray had overheard Ian’s conversation about the “chubby transgender P.I. with a man’s name”—the conversation during which Trinity, presumably, accused Ian of dipping into the “chocolate factory.”

“Isabel’s dangerous.” Gray nodded at Trinity’s purse. “Is that why you’re packing?”

The nurse said, “I have a conceal carry license. She scares me. Her eyes … There’s no emotion in her eyes, no flicker of anything.”

Ugh. Dangerous. Unpredictable. Scary. Lacking emotion. Common adjectives used to describe black women.

Trinity continued, “And, one time, she showed up at the hospital.”

“Yes, I’m told that she knew about you and Ian. And wouldn’t she have that right to show up at the hospital since she was the girlfriend? And yeah, I would wild the fuck out if my boyfriend was sleeping with his nurse. It may not be a good look, but I would show up at the hospital ready to box. Just being honest. Woman to woman, over kale chips and cocktails.”

Trinity stared at the melting ice in her glass.

“There are rumors that Ian beat her,” Gray said.

Trinity’s eyes widened. “That Ian O’Donnell beat—What?”

Gray sipped her mineral water and kept her gaze on the woman seated across from her. “You seem shocked.”

Trinity finally blinked. “That’s the most offensive thing I’ve heard today. Ian may be a jerk in some ways, in many ways, but he’d never, never…”

The nurse folded her arms and her fingers gripped both elbows like vises. “The man volunteers at women’s shelters all around the city. He pays out of his own pocket for plastic surgery for abused women who can’t afford it. He hides women from their boyfriends and husbands and baby daddies who storm the E.R.” She dropped her voice, then added, “He helps women disappear. That’s how he knows your boss.”

Hot air rushed across Gray’s face. “So, Ian’s one of Rader’s … consultants?”

“For almost seven years now.”

And that’s why Nick had insisted that Ian … why he told her to take two steps back …

“Tell me about these.” Gray showed Trinity the pictures of Isabel’s injuries. “This happened in April. And to be honest, I thought these, not you, were his big secret.”

Trinity pointed at Gray’s phone. “She’s saying that he did this to her?” The nurse’s eyes couldn’t grow wider. Her skin couldn’t get paler. True horror racked her face—she wasn’t faking this terror, this distress. “It’s a lie. She’s lying. She’s a liar.”

“Why would she lie?” Gray swiped through the pictures again. The bruise above Isabel’s left kidney … the gash above Isabel’s right eye. That wound alone would’ve needed …

Gray’s chest tightened. That wound alone would’ve needed stitches. At least ten.

“I don’t know why she’s doing this,” Trinity said. “I don’t know why she took Kenny G. To get back at Ian for me? Because she’s evil? I don’t know. I do know this: Ian O’Donnell…”

She pointed at Gray’s phone again. “He isn’t that guy.”





26


Back in the Camry, Gray found Tea’s Facebook profile.

There had been one picture of Isabel, added on April 28, taken on the steps of the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, two days after Ian had allegedly beaten Isabel.

Gray zoomed in on Isabel’s face, tighter on her right eye.

No bruises. No scars. No signs of new stitches. No signs of any type of trauma. Barefaced; no makeup. A pretty girl without the paint. Eyebrows on fleek.

Gray studied the proof of life picture that Isabel had emailed her. A picture she knew was a piece of shit. The time zone … If Isabel had escaped to Hawaii four weeks ago, or even three days ago, her phone’s clock would have switched from Pacific to Hawaii time.

So who mocked up the picture? Isabel?