And Now She's Gone(49)

Or maybe it still was Ian O’Donnell behind this, eager to prove that his ex-girlfriend was alive and to end his business relationship with Gray and Rader Consulting by sending that faked picture. See? Nothing’s wrong—and the P.I. found nothing wrong.

Gray’s phone buzzed in her hand. Ian O’Donnell’s number sent the missing woman’s picture to the background.

“Hey,” the doctor said. “Tea just texted me. She said that Iz responded? When were you going to tell me?”

“Well, I wanted to confirm—”

“You need to come over,” he said. “I’m home. You can show me the picture and then we can end this. We’re done.”

“But—”

“No. Now. Thanks.” He spat out his address.

Twenty minutes later, Gray reached Ian O’Donnell’s neighborhood, a block lined with jacarandas. This late in the season, a few bright purple flowers still clung to their branches. Like Gray had clung to this case. He stood in the doorway, wearing Adidas trainers, a gray Harvard T-shirt, and black slip-on sandals. He said, “That took forever.”

“Traffic.” The usual excuse for tardiness in Southern California.

Ian’s living room boasted lots of light and bleached wood floors. A comfy couch and pastel throw pillows, a coffee table the color of driftwood. Chill. Relaxed. A room she wouldn’t have picked out for the so-not-chill man standing beside her.

“Anything to drink?” He strolled to an airy kitchen the size of Gray’s entire apartment.

“Yes, please. Anything would be good.” She wandered the living room, pausing at the mantel and the pictures of Ian and Isabel at a black-tie event, Ian and Isabel shaking hands with Stevie Wonder, Ian and Isabel parasailing. Those frames were dust free, unlike the pictures of him and an older blond couple who had his eyes and his jaw. Or the six pictures of Kenny G. on surfboards and sailboats. Either he’d dusted Isabel’s pictures and forgotten to dust the others or he had just placed those pictures on the mantel before Gray’s arrival.

Ian offered her a glass of white wine. “Hope you like Viognier.”

She said, “Perfect,” and it was.

He settled in the armchair with his own glass of wine.

Gray sat on the love seat. She closed her eyes as the wine scoured a throat thick with ashes and anxiety.

He said, “So? How was your meeting with Rebekah Lawrence this morning?”

“More on that in a minute. Have you heard the name Kevin Tompkins before?”

“No. Who is that?”

Gray told him about the soldier’s claims that he and Isabel were secretly dating.

Ian flicked his hand. “Isabel is a lot of things, but she’s not crazy enough to date … that guy. And army, so his checking account isn’t big enough for her.”

Gray chuckled, because if a broke Navy SEAL was standing naked in her bedroom … Money? What was money? Sometimes women craved something more than big dollars.

She handed Ian her cell phone with Isabel’s email on the screen.

His eyes pecked at the words there. “She answered correctly.”

“What are the secrets she’s referring to?”

“Not really your concern.”

“Then this won’t be over. As long as she has something on you…”

“The picture. She send the picture?”

“Tap the attachment.”

He squinted at the image. “That’s Isabel. And that’s USA Today. Maybe my dog is at the groomer’s, or at a boarding facility.” He handed the phone back to Gray. “Anyway, I guess that’s that. She’s alive and wants nothing to do with me.” He looked tired—red-rimmed eyes, sallow skin, gnawed fingernails.

“Don’t you want me to authenticate the picture?” Gray asked. “Don’t you want to know for sure if the dog is okay?”

He set his wineglass on the coffee table. “She’d never hurt him. She loved him almost as much as I did.”

“It wouldn’t be a problem—”

“She answered correctly, Ms. Sykes. What difference does the picture make? She’s in a tropical paradise and she’s obviously happy. And Kenny G.—he’s okay. I know he is.”

Gray cocked her head. Why did he want to end this? “This picture can’t be.”

Irritation spiked from the doctor’s eyes. “Pardon?”

“This can’t be Isabel standing here holding today’s paper.” She hoped that he didn’t leap over the coffee table to strangle her and then bury her beside his other big secret.

Maybe I shouldn’t have drunk the wine. Maybe he poisoned it and I’m already dying. Since it was too late now, she went on to explain the discrepancy between the email’s time stamp and the time Isabel had mentioned in the words she’d typed.

“I’ll confirm that what I’m saying is correct,” Gray said, “but I’m pretty sure. Also, her hair in the picture isn’t black and she didn’t send a picture of her tattoo or a picture of the dog.”

He covered his eyes with his hands.

“Dr. O’Donnell,” Gray whispered, “there’s something else.”

He groaned, then let one hand fall from his face.

Gray told him about the allegations of abuse.