And Now She's Gone(71)
There was peace here.
Nick’s gray eyes sparkled and caught glints of sunlight, and that light danced in her chest. His hands cupped her cheeks and he whispered, “Happy Hump Day.”
“Happy Hump Day.”
He bent toward her.
She lifted her head.
But then he dropped his head and turned away from her.
Her heart dipped.
He whispered, “I’m … We’re … I want to, but…”
Her love for him moved through her body like butterflies dancing in new sunlight.
He wasn’t ready.
Was she?
39
Three hours later, after gobbling Grand Slams and chasing her antibiotic with slurps of coffee at an Indian casino Denny’s, Gray led Nick into Isabel Lincoln’s dark condo. The air was still and hot and the lights no longer worked. The hum of the refrigerator was no longer a sound to envy, since it no longer hummed.
Gray wandered the living room. “Ian probably called the power company.”
Nick opened the fridge. “Still cold. So it probably just happened.”
Gray returned to the kitchen and to the breakfast counter. She pointed to that name—Elyse Miller—on the Coach sale postcard.
Nick asked, “But who the hell is she?”
“Don’t know,” Gray said, “but she was married or not married to this Omar guy, who was found dead in the desert, and—shit.”
She pointed to the front door. “Mrs. Tompkins told me that the cops came knocking on her door back in June. They asked her about someone named Lisa.”
“Maybe they asked her about ‘Elyse.’”
Gray started to respond, but her phone rang. “Oh, look,” she said, with fake cheer. “Tea Christopher, also known as Grifter Number One, is calling.” Gray answered. “Tea, how are you?”
“Okay.” Just in that one word. The young woman sounded winded. Winded and hurried. Winded, hurried, and harried. “Are you around to talk?”
“Sure. When?”
“Now.”
“I’m about to go into a meeting. How about later this afternoon? Say … three thirty?” Gray suggested Post & Beam, a soul food restaurant down the hill from Isabel’s condo, then ended the call. “I need to change. I stink.”
Nick glanced at his watch. “You have time for that?”
She groaned. “No. But I can’t stand myself.”
“You can…” He blushed, then chewed his bottom lip.
She lifted an eyebrow. “I can what?”
“Shower at my place. I don’t … You can … I…”
She laughed. “I would take you up on that, but I don’t have a change of—”
“You do. Still. In your drawer.”
Her drawer—third one on the left side of the dresser at his house in Playa del Rey. There, the bare walls were painted white and the teakwood floors were bare. Nick had bought a red suede couch and an armchair since her last visit, and it was the only living room furniture he’d owned in the ten years he’d lived there. But he had a custom bed with high-thread-count sheets and a view of the Pacific Ocean. He’d let her sleep there on her first nights while he had bunked in the guest room.
Gray now stared at that bed—so comfortable that she had sweated while sleeping.
Dressed and fresh in her left-behind pair of jeans and gray T-shirt, she joined Nick out on the deck. She wrapped her arm through his as he sipped from a heavy glass of bourbon. Together, they stared out at the ocean, at foamy waves breaking against the shore. The mist felt good. His arm felt better.
“Why…” Nick sighed, then said, “Why are you here?”
She tilted her head to look at him, then found the ocean again. “Uhh … cuz I’m meeting Tea and needed a shower since I smelled like old Cheetos and—”
“No. I mean … I could’ve relocated you to Paris or Hawaii, but you chose L.A. Why?”
Because you’re here. But she couldn’t say that … could she?
“Well…” She took a deep breath, then slowly released it. “You’re the only family I have, you know? The only person who knows who I was, who my parents were, and … I know that … you care about me, and you still would care if I were in Paris but…” She almost smiled. “I can grow safely here. Don’t go and get a big head. Well, a bigger head.”
Nick didn’t speak.
Her cheer died. Had she said too much?
“I need to head back,” she said, her face suddenly warm.
He drained his glass, straightened and stretched. “Drive one of the trucks.”
“‘kay,” Her skin tingled as she remembered their walk in the forest. She thought about standing on tippy toes now to kiss him, about leading him past that barren living room and to the best bed in the world.
But she waited a second too long, and he turned on his heel and went back inside, where he plunked the empty whiskey glass on the fireplace mantel.
In silence, he drove her back to Rader Consulting and pulled behind her silver Camry. “Get your stuff out of the Toyota. I may disappear the car for a while.”
“You know I’m gonna get this bitch, right?”