And Now She's Gone(57)

As she healed, those first few days, she’d stay away from Sean and home. She usually hid in a room at Whiskey Pete’s in Primm, Nevada. No hot water in the shower. Damp. Red Cross–thin blankets on the bed. She never pressed charges against Sean—and he knew that she wouldn’t, and that she’d never cross that state line into her home state. California was as far away as Tasmania, even though it sat five hundred steps away from her hotel room. She’d use makeup to hide bruises that took too long to heal, then hit the road to return to her Spanish-Californian with the silver porch light and the stark, red-bloom succulents, with “Next time, I’ll leave for good” on her lips, just like the now-dry blood that would come alive in the next quarter, her own red bloom, so stark in the wasteland of her life.

But she’d taken pictures of her injuries. Nurse Anderson had held the camera, not saying a word, just using a finger to move her patient’s head to the right or to the left. Those pictures were printed and sent to a P.O. box she’d told Natalie to open. “It’s safer there,” the old black nurse had told her. “Keep the pictures in there along with some money. Mad money, my momma used to call it. When the time comes, you’ll have what you need.”

Mad money. Like the kind sitting in an account in California, bursting with rent payments from her tenants in Monterey Bay.

Sean had always noticed her stitches. He had also noticed withdrawals from his bank account—three hundred dollars—every time his fist crashed at some destination around her one-hundred-ten-pound frame. He knew his wife would be discreet and handle her business.

And she was discreet … until she wasn’t.

After changing her name, Grayson Sykes had used those pictures and identity in her argument to the judge to seal her court records—as protection and to keep the new name secret. And it had worked. With Nick’s know-how and Gray’s vigilance, Natalie Dixon wasn’t in the system anymore.

Years later, she still worried about doctors’ visits, that Sean would somehow obtain her records from clinics and the courts. And now that he had found her, she knew she’d been right to worry.

Had Isabel Lincoln, an abused woman, escaped like she had?

Maybe.

Except Gray no longer believed that the missing woman was an abused anything. The fake proof of life picture, the banged-up Maserati, the blackmail … Gray had no body, and sure, Isabel Lincoln could indeed be dead. But something in Gray’s gut told her …

And Tea: the way she and Isabel had texted Gray all day, asking if they were done. So desperate to end it. “It.” What was It? There was something, the It of it all.

Maybe Noelle Lawrence would know some of It.

Phillips BBQ on Centinela Boulevard was nearly invisible—fragrant purple smoke billowed from the smoke pits in back of the barbecue joint. A few customers waited for their orders on the sole bench—and none of them looked like Noelle Lawrence.

Gray peered at her phone—three minutes after six o’clock—then ordered hot links with medium-heat barbecue sauce, beans, and coleslaw. “And one of those.” She pointed to the sweet potato pie wrapped in cellophane.

So far off the road of postsurgery restrictions.

After paying for her meal, she retreated outside to wait. Since she was waiting, she called Beth, Isabel’s coworker over at UCLA.

“Like, what kind of injuries?” Beth asked.

“A busted lip, bruises…”

“Hmm…” Beth thought for a minute. “Not that I can remember.”

“You have any pictures taken with her in April or May?”

Beth texted Gray three shots: a scholar reception with donors and Isabel, smiling, flawless. At Diddy Riese cookie shop. Close-up of her bare face with the ice cream sandwich. No bruising or swelling. No makeup trying to hide bruising or swelling. Taken on April 28. And the last picture: jogging at the track on campus. All smiles. No bandages. No stitches.

Gray then called Noelle. The phone rang until voice mail picked up. Gray didn’t leave a message—she didn’t know who had access to the woman’s phone.

At seven o’clock, and with no word from Noelle Lawrence, Gray finished the last bite of sweet potato pie. Her phone vibrated on the car’s dashboard.

It wasn’t Noelle.

I don’t know why you haven’t responded yet.



Isabel.

Ian is a liar.

I can prove it.

He and Trinity are scamming patients. This is all about insurance

TRUST ME

Gray’s heart hammered. Trust me?

Something was up, and she was now caught up in it.





31


Trust me?

Isabel was also a liar.

But I haven’t proven that yet.

That’s because Gray had spent the day sleeping and watching spider monkeys and hobbits and Ringwraiths do things as she did nothing but sleep and watch.

Guilt kicked in—for blowing off most of Saturday, for not answering emails or phone calls. The sun still sat in the sky, and since investigators didn’t work banker’s hours, Gray drove to work in an effort to move files from one place on her desk to maybe a cabinet or credenza.

“Allow me to either, like, jack up your evening or make it totally better.” Clarissa stood on the other side of Gray’s desk, iPad in her hands. “First, though, you feeling okay?”