And Now She's Gone(83)
“Yeah, yeah,” Nick said. “You want the password or not?”
She grabbed a pen from the utility drawer and tore off a paper towel. “Password.”
“Lower case g, r, o, capital O, lower case v, y, followed by the number one.”
groOvy1. “Not a secret words mastermind, is she?” Gray dumped the empty vodka bottle in the trash can and hurried into her bedroom. She pulled the beaded cords of her window to push the blinds aside for an unspoiled city view and then settled at her desk. She brought up Isabel Lincoln’s Facebook page on her laptop computer.
Nothing had changed since Gray’s last visit. Just those wine country posts, the dead cat Morris posts, and—She stopped scrolling. That same wine tasting picture hung on the walls along the staircase at Isabel’s condo. The Benetton crew picture, too. No one had been tagged, even though there were fifteen Likes.
Who had Liked it? Cindy Eshelman, Jude Valdes, Beth Sharpe …
She said, “There’s not one Like from the women in the pictures, who were also the same crew in the snow picture, beside the Jeep.”
Nick said, “Strange.”
Gray brought up Google Images to match faces in the digital world. She uploaded the wine tasting picture, and in less than 0.016 seconds the search engine found a result.
She said, “Oh.”
Nick said, “What?”
She uploaded the second picture. “Shit.”
“What?”
“Diverse. Friends. Young women. Road trip.”
“Those are words.”
“Yeah, and they’re also tags. Tags that Getty Images uses to catalog the pictures that I’m now looking at, which came from Isabel Lincoln’s Facebook page.”
“Huh?”
“The women in the pictures are real. But they’re models. Stock photography models. The pictures on Isabel’s page and hanging in her condo? Those are stock photographs.”
She could tell by the silence on the other end of the phone that Nick was gawking at her.
“Morris the cat? His pictures are real, not stock. But the girlfriend shots?” Gray was now grinning as she uploaded each picture from Isabel Lincoln’s timeline—the foam star in the latte, the sunrise in Yosemite, the sand castle. Each had come from Getty Images.
Nick said, “You sound delighted.”
“Oh, I’m not delighted, but this is pretty good.” She moved the cursor to the top of the screen and clicked the down-arrow next to the quick help icon. There was another account profile listed. That second account …
“Elyse Miller,” she said.
“The name we saw on the mail, and on the résumé, diploma, and Social Security card up in Idyllwild.”
“And the woman married or not married to Omar Neville.” Gray’s pulse revved as though she’d drunk fifteen cups of espresso between snorting twenty lines of cocaine. She clicked on the account for Elyse Miller.
The last comments on that timeline had been posted three years before, on March 27. “Beautiful day…” along with a shot of the beach and a puffy-clouded sky.
Where u at, posted by Essence Tucker.
Miss ya girl!! From Val Hutchins.
UR a strait BICH and I hop Ur DEAD!!! From Myracle Hampton.
If Willy Wonka had a black half sister from Oakland, Myracle would be that woman. Red licorice whip hair. Lemonhead-yellow nails. Abba Zaba skin. Hot Tamales lipstick. Terrific contrast to hoping someone—a “bich”—was dead.
Elyse Miller had 378 friends, and none of those posted pictures belonged to Getty Images.
That wasn’t shocking.
What was shocking: the woman in the pictures was the woman Gray had known as Isabel Lincoln. On this timeline she was younger, a bottle blonde, with multipierced ears and a pierced nose. She liked Hpnotiq and Quarter Pounders and drove a slate-blue Impala on rims.
“This is not a woman who dates doctors,” Nick pointed out.
“Just a guess, but I’d say she dates street pharmacists.”
Gray’s throat tightened, and she forced herself to breathe. Hard to do as she read entries posted by her missing Mary Jane, showing her smoking blunts as thick as sausages and flashing crisp hundred-dollar bills. Gray clicked on the Messenger bubble icon.
Myracle Hampton, the woman who had called Elyse Miller a “bich,” had continued her screed in a private message.
WHO DO U THINK U R??? I NEW U WAS A SHADY BICH & I TOLD TOMMY U WAS NO GOOD. DON’T TRUSS HER. HE DIDN’T LISSEN 2 ME AND NOW LOOK. U COM BACK HEAR AND IMA KICK YOUR ASS UNTILL THEIR NOTHING LEFT. TEST ME BICH KEEP RUNNING.
Gray clicked on Myracle’s page. Still actively posting. Still actively misspelling.
GUN VIOLINS WAAAY NOT NESSESARY!!! HELP US LORD
GOOD MORNING FBF!
Gray clicked back into Messenger and found a conversation between Elyse and Tommy Hampton, a heavy-lidded, amber-skinned Oakland Raiders fan who looked like he smelled of hot sauce and maple syrup.
-sometimes I feel so stupid and get emotional when it comes 2 u Tommyboy -You’re special to me.
-ur special 2 me E 2
-when r we gonna meet?
-Maybe this picture will help.
-I want more.
-let’s meet up. I want to see u f2f!
-when?
-tonight
-Best Western on Embarcadero 9:00