And Now She's Gone(53)
Now what?
The old Gray would’ve texted Nick her distress code—4357—then grabbed the already packed Louis Vuitton backpack—a Christmas gift from Nick—that she kept in the back of her closet. A blue Honda minivan with plates that led to nowhere, sent by Nick, driven by a mom type with a bad ponytail and high-waisted jeans, would have picked her up in the lowest level of the parking garage. Gray would have hidden on the floor of that minivan, among the crushed Goldfish crackers and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Her eyes would be closed as the Honda wheezed on its climb up the Hollywood Hills or Topanga Canyon to a safe house. She would have stayed there until Nick moved her somewhere else. Again.
Gray had changed her adult life already because of Sean Dixon, all because of a young woman’s natural desire to be loved, all because she’d had mercy that night and didn’t end him when she’d had a chance.
Now she grabbed her Glock from beneath the pillow on her bed, then grabbed the vase of perfect lavender roses. Her heart, scarred from nearly four decades of living, pumped electric blood through her body as she snatched open the front door.
She looked up and down the hallway, hoping that Sean Dixon stood there with a smug smile on his face, with his Jim Beam eyes widening as the Glock lifted in one smooth motion, pointed in his direction.
But no one stood in the hallway.
Gray left the door open, hoping that Sean would pop in and “surprise” her from the shadows. Heeeere’s Johnny! Then she could shoot him and claim that he’d been trespassing and had invaded her home. That’s what she hoped for as she slipped into the trash room and pulled down the chute’s handle. She dropped the vase in and down it went, sixteen stories, fifteen, fourteen … until a crash, then silence.
Somewhere, a door hinge squeaked.
Gray strained every muscle in her body to hear …
Voices, male, deep, floated down the hall and into the trash room.
She stepped back into the hallway.
Alone.
No one stood at her door or at the emergency exit.
Back in her apartment, she stood in the doorway.
The fridge grumbled.
She crept to her bedroom.
The comforter on the bed—that dip in the middle. Was that always there or …
Into the bathroom.
She slammed the shower curtain to one side.
Empty.
She peeked into her closets.
Empty.
No one was here.
Nauseous, she closed her eyes. Breathe. Just breathe.
The red numbers on the nightstand clock glowed 10:02, and the refrigerator rattled, and it was as it was every night … except she could still smell the faint scent of those lavender roses.
The old Gray would have never eaten that peach cobbler. No. Tonight, Gray enjoyed her hard-earned meal but drank only one glass of Viognier. She could have eaten more, drunk the bottle to commemorate My Abusive Ex Found Me Day. But he didn’t deserve any of her fought-for binge.
Still …
How had Sean Dixon found her?
Did he have someone following her again?
After dinner, she cleaned her gun and remembered those Sunday afternoons when she’d done the same with Victor Grayson. Then she made sure that knives remained in their designated spaces around her six hundred square feet. And she made sure the Mace in the medicine cabinet sat beside vials of pills, mouthwash, and Chanel No. 5—the perfume, not the cologne. Then she drank cans of LaCroix. Sober. Steady. Tired of his shit. Tired of this shit. Couldn’t even get properly drunk on a night she deserved to be wasted.
Sean had fucked up, this time.
No more running.
She’d find his spy and kill that person. Then she’d find Sean Dixon, but she’d let him live long enough to realize, to understand, and to accept that he would die by her hand. And then she’d kill him. And this time she’d shove mercy through the holes she’d put in his bloody chest.
TEN YEARS AGO
AN OLD FRIEND
Two months before Natalie had graduated with a B.A. in history, Victor was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It was a nasty, quick disease, and he died a day after her graduation Sunday. Nick had remained at Victor’s bedside as Faye had flown down to attend their daughter’s ceremony.
Victor Grayson’s funeral had been upright, with American flags everywhere and straight spines and somber men, many soldiers wearing uniforms. Faye, wearing black, had clutched that trifolded flag like a life raft. Evil hadn’t taken away her beloved—his treacherous body had.
Every federal agent in Northern California, including Dominick Rader, attended his funeral. Victor’s small family, the two women he’d left behind, cried and mourned. The younger one hurt but understood that her dad had been in pain. With her diverse belief system as a foster child, she knew that Victor Grayson could be anywhere or nowhere after his death.
It was a Thursday three months later when Faye kissed her daughter’s forehead and told her that she wanted to be alone for a moment and that she’d made lasagna for dinner. The heartbroken widow retreated to her and Victor’s favorite place, Half Moon Bay, a small coastal town an hour’s drive south of San Francisco. Big waves. Good fishing. Perfect sunsets. And as Natalie watched a rerun of The X-Files while eating pasta and drinking from one of the many bottles of wine left from Victor’s funeral repast, Faye Grayson walked into the cold waters of Half Moon Bay. Surfers found her battered body yards away from a pod of seals.