And Now She's Gone(81)
Her face burned, and she wanted to vomit. “Okay. I won’t be much longer…”
Nick backed away from the door. “Call me later. Got something interesting for you.”
“About Isabel?”
He started down the hallway.
“What is it? Gonna give me a hint?”
“Later.” He pointed toward her apartment. “Tend to your guest.”
Hank was closing in behind her, and her hard shell was regenerating. “I’ll call you later.”
Nick said, “Yep,” then sauntered down the hallway.
Look back. Please look back. She kept thinking that—Look back—until her head hurt.
Before turning to hit the elevator bank, Nick looked back at her, smiled, then waved.
She caught that smile and crammed it into her heart with the other smiles he’d tossed her since they’d met, so long ago.
44
Hank’s blue eyes and his strong arms with those sexy tats had lost their power over her. And those hard abs and strong jaw? Like expired Children’s Tylenol in a smashed bottle.
“Is it because of that guy?” he growled, pointing at the door. “You’re seeing him, too?”
“Who I’m seeing is none of your business.” Gray crossed her arms, but not because she was angry. She felt … nothing. Nothing for him, nothing for his spiky words.
His frown set deeper in his face. “Then you need to find yourself another cantina.”
She stared at him—if she kept at it, she could freeze him solid. “That it?” She opened the front door. “Go ye into the world and live your ignorant truth, Henry. Thanks for playing.”
He stomped past her and out into the hallway. “You—”
She slammed the door.
He kicked it.
She didn’t flinch. Alas, she’d expected it. Men like Hank grabbed arms, took food without asking. Men like him asked, “Who’s that guy?” and “Why didn’t you pick up when I called you?” Men like Hank Wexler kicked doors and, sometimes, broke doors down. Just in case this one felt like the Kool-Aid Man, Gray grabbed her Glock from beneath the pillow on her bed.
Someone knocked on the door.
Gray peeped through the peephole.
Tiny Mrs. Kim from across the hall stood there with her hands behind her back.
Gray opened the door and smiled at her gray-haired neighbor.
“You okay here?” Worry etched the old woman’s face.
Gray said, “Oh yeah. Just … men.”
Mrs. Kim tugged at the neck of her T-shirt. “He come earlier. I see him downstairs.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t home yet.”
The old woman scowled. “He with some other man. Big white man. No hair. They wanted to ride up, but I say, No, you wait.”
Gray’s ears chilled hearing that. “A big white bald man? You sure?”
Mrs. Kim gave a solid nod. “I don’t like either one of them. You be careful.”
Back in her living room, Gray logged on to ORO and found the earlier alert. Range Rover plates had been read a mile from Rader Consulting and then near USC, three miles from her apartment. There were plate-reading cameras near Staples Center and also Seventh Street and Figueroa and all around downtown, but there’d been no alerts from those.
Because Sean hadn’t been the only one looking for her.
She called Nick. “Sorry about that.”
“You don’t have to apologize. You’re a beautiful woman. You should date whoever—”
“I don’t want to be with him. He’s gone now. Nothing to do with you.”
Phone to her ear, she walked to the solarium with a trash bag and stooped to sop up the wine she’d knocked over. “There was something about him that bothered me.”
“Hunh.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Hunh.”
She dumped the cartons of Thai food into the trash bag. “Clarissa did a background check on him and he came up clean.”
“Clarissa did a … Not you?”
She said nothing as her certainty spilled around her like the wine had.
Nick took her silence as No, not me, then said, “What’s his name?”
“Henry Wexler.” She spelled it for him and listened as he tapped at a computer keyboard.
“Sam Jose’s, right?” Nick sighed.
Gray said, “What?”
“Henry Wexler worked at TRIBE as a bartender from 2010 to 2013.”
Gray’s stomach dropped alongside her certainty and she plopped onto the carpet. “Oh, fuck. Are you sure? Oh, shit.”
She had been married to Sean and living in Las Vegas, and TRIBE had been Sean’s second and most successful nightclub. Located in the Tropicana, TRIBE had pulled in a younger, trendier set with its music, its drinks, and its celebrities. African tapestries mixed with Asian lacquers with a dollop of Native American dream catchers and Celtic crosses. “Just chill” spaces; high balconies; the aromas of sage, spices, and oranges wafting across the dance floor. And there were also great cocktails, mixed by …
Nick said, “You didn’t recognize him?”
Gray moved her mouth, only to hear it squeak. Finally, she managed to say, “I kept my head down. I didn’t meet any man’s eyes because I didn’t know if he was a … spy.”