And Now She's Gone(5)

Gray held up a hand. “Let’s back up. You said, ‘left this time.’ She do this a lot? Leave?”

“Are you going to write any of this down?” he asked, eyeing her.

Gray’s cheeks burned. “Umm…” She pointed to the cup of pens near his computer monitor. “May I?”

He nodded.

She scribbled as much as she could in five seconds. A bead of sweat trickled down her temple but she didn’t swipe it.

Ian O’Donnell bent to open a small refrigerator near his desk. He pulled out a bottled water and twisted the cap. “I think you need this.”

She caught that bead of perspiration with a knuckle, then reached for the small bottle. As the cool liquid slipped down her throat, the craggy, cranky places in her smoothed and cooled.

Refreshed, she dropped the empty bottle into her bag. “Thank you.”

“It’s hot out there.” He leaned back in his high-backed chair. “So, Isabel leaving … Whenever we’re in a rough patch—if we’re arguing or her friends are being jerks or whatever—Iz—that’s what I call her—Iz just gets in her car and leaves. Since we’ve been together—it would’ve been a year on the fourth—she’s walked off about two or three times. She’s gone for a few days and then she comes back, ready to be a grown-up again.”

“Where does she usually go?”

“Palm Springs. Vegas once.”

Las Vegas used to be a great disappearing town, before the casino owners installed all those surveillance cameras, before sorority girls Snapped and Boomeranged and selfied, sometimes catching random, taggable folks in the background. It was damn near impossible to hide in Vegas now.

Gray asked, “Is it possible…”

No ink coming now from the nib of the borrowed pen.

She wanted the earth to gobble her up for good. Since the earth refused to move, she lifted the binder some, so that Ian O’Donnell couldn’t see that the words she wrote on her pad were now invisible. “Is it possible that Isabel just didn’t want to come back this last time?”

The doctor’s green eyes flared. “We have a future together. I’m a nice guy, and … and there’s her family. I don’t think she would’ve left them to get back at me. No way.

“She’s selfish, that’s her problem. Thinks only about herself, and part of me wants to…”

“Part of you wants to … what?”

He pinched his lip.

“You don’t think she wants to come back,” Gray said. “Why, then, does she need to be found?”

He turned a sad pink. “Because I want my dog.”

“Are there other folks I should talk to?”

Isabel’s parents, Joe and Rebekah Lawrence; her best friend, Tea Something; her coworkers Farrah, Beth, and Nan; and Pastor Bernard Dunlop.

“Oh,” the doctor added, “and one time, this guy Omar texted her while she was in the shower. I took down the number but never called it. Don’t know who the hell he is.”

“Did you read Omar’s text message?”

“Nope. Her phone was locked.”

“Could you send those numbers to…” Gray offered her new phone number, and Ian O’Donnell texted contact information for everyone except the Lawrences.

“I’ve never met her parents,” he said. “Tea’s been my go-between in this craziness.”

“When was the last time you talked to Tea?”

“I saw her about two weeks ago. She still hadn’t seen Iz.”

Gray held up the intake form. “On here you describe Isabel as being white. I’m looking at her and I’m … not seeing that. Which means that other people won’t see that, either.”

“She’s biracial. She prefers to check that box instead of the other box.”

“The … other box?”

Ian waved his hand. “I don’t see color. She’s human to me.”

Gray’s nerves jangled, and she was almost certain that her eyes had crossed.

He cocked an eyebrow. “What?”

Gray jammed her lips together.

“Iz and I … we’re post-racial, and really … Do you act this way with all of your clients?” He sighed at her just like the white boys she’d dated back when Public Enemy and Air Jordans had crossed color lines.

“What questions should I ask her to prove that she’s Isabel and that she’s okay?”

Ian O’Donnell rubbed his chin as he thought. “What was my first car? What was my first gift to her? And … what am I allergic to?”

Ian, Ian, Ian—even in Isabel’s proof of life.

“Did you and Isabel live together?” she asked.

“We were talking about her moving to my place, but we hadn’t done it yet.”

Probably because she smelled the crazy on him and didn’t want it to get into her favorite coat. Hard to get the stink of nuts out of wool. Gray had lost many a good outfit that way.

“I helped pay her rent, though,” he said. “Since her credit’s shot, I hold the lease.”

“Where does she live?”

“Some neighborhood. I don’t know. I don’t go over there a lot. Never went over there before we started dating.” He then recited Isabel’s address on Don Lorenzo Drive.