And Now She's Gone(60)
“No, but with the timing, and the ‘Be blessed’ thing, I just…” She shook her head. “Well, anyway, I just wanted to call you, since I didn’t send a report last night. One more thing: Do you have a toothbrush that belonged to her?”
Twenty minutes later, Gray met the cardiologist in the parking lot of her office building.
He handed her a plastic baggie holding a purple toothbrush. His eyes were bloodshot and the blond whiskers across his jaw threatened a beard if he didn’t shave in the next day. “Doesn’t seem like we’re close to ending this.”
Gray waggled the baggie. “Hopefully, this brings us closer.” This case was ivy—uncontrollable and tangled—and right then she was a rat without teeth, unable to bite her way through the dark mess that hid who knew what else.
She hadn’t heard from Tea that morning—as Tea or as Isabel. What now? Dance in place until the next step presented itself? Or find out whose hair and nails?
Gray turned into a Culver City office park with its planned grass, planned trees, and bland architecture. Even though she’d eaten breakfast, her stomach gurgled. It was worry—knowing that this case was an iceberg but not knowing what would happen to her once she hit it. Because she was going to hit it.
Would she survive the impact? Would Ian?
All of Me specialized in Maury Povich–style scenarios. You are not the father of little DeShawnivon. You are the father of Little Enchantress. The DNA testing service took a few days to provide results for paternity questions, and up to four weeks for more detailed forensic results.
Rader Consultants was a regular, pay-on-time client, and now Gray needed something in between quick and accurate. She knew that she couldn’t request DNA testing without Isabel’s consent—she’d watched a video on YouTube University that had informed her of that. But there were ways around this stipulation. And so she plucked at the root seven hairs from her own head and slipped them into the bag alongside Isabel’s. Then she tore two nails from her left fingers, wreaking havoc on a perfect manicure. She dumped those in the baggie, too.
She’d have to sign an informed consent form—and she had a right to sign it, since two of her own fingernail samples were in the baggie alongside two of Isabel’s fingernails.
Two reports would be generated—the results of her DNA and the results for Isabel’s.
Hopefully.
At All of Me, the pictures on the walls showed happy families wearing shorts and flip-flops running on a sunny beach now that All of Me had determined that little Kylie was heir to a 2003 Volkswagen Jetta and a rackful of Starter NFL jerseys.
“I thought I was the only one working today.” Gray smiled at Dr. Mary Alice Piper.
The older woman peered at Gray over the top of her silver eyeglass frames. “Do you have a reference sample? Buccal swab, blood card, whole blood to compare against?”
“Yep,” Gray said, shivering. “Well, kinda. I have this.” She held up the bag with Isabel’s purple toothbrush. “This is almost as good, right? She abandoned it at his house. But her spit’s all over it.” She waggled the toothbrush bag again.
With a promise from Mary Alice to rush the analysis, Gray stepped out into the crisp July morning. “What next?” she asked the world.
Firefighters continued to battle the blazes around the Basin. Overnight, they’d contained the two fires closest to the city. That meant Los Angeles no longer had a funhouse mirror kind of a sky—wavy, pearly, a trick of light that made you think you could touch the city’s ceiling. No. This morning’s sky was true blue, with no specks of danger. Imperfect still, just like the city, but the green of L.A.’s feral parrots popped against it, and there was a breeze, and Gray’s eyes didn’t burn, and the creamy yellow linen pants she wore this morning seemed appropriate, now that the world didn’t smell like an ancient Reno casino.
Refreshed. For once, her mind wasn’t crowded. A single thought had the space to linger and twist without being run over and smashed into the ground by another. And as she drove, she sang, along with Oleta, “I’ve Got a Right,” with those drums and big horns.
Gray sped east into the sun, notepad on her lap, jotting down things to do for the day—paperwork, inbox. And she’d check off each task, because today the city wasn’t burning down, because she wore yellow linen, and because her car had a full tank of gasoline.
Ten minutes later, she swerved into her usual parking space on Don Lorenzo Drive, in front of Isabel Lincoln’s condo. Weren’t many cars parked on the street. The breeze rustled the leaves of the eucalyptus and magnolia trees and, somewhere, someone had dumped fertilizer onto a bare lawn. Gray didn’t even mind the smell of crap in the air. It smelled like victory—if not now, then three weeks from now, as new blades of green poked past the shit that had been weighing them down.
That was her life, and she was way overdue for those victory blades of new grass.
As she crossed the street, her phone buzzed.
A message from Ian O’Donnell about his latest credit card statement.
Came in yesterday’s email but I just opened it now.
Sephora in San Diego. Target in Phoenix. Soriana in Cancun.
Did you visit any of these places?
No of course not.
Nothing had changed in Isabel’s condo since Gray’s last visit—the ugly couch was still ugly. That pack of Kools had remained unsmoked …