And Now She's Gone(90)
She gripped the key ring she’d kept in that safe deposit box. House keys, Jaguar key, Range Rover key, mailbox key … Calm, even though her heart roared, Gray tugged on the black gloves, then rolled up the sidewalk as though she belonged there. She stepped onto the porch.
Please let this work.
Holding her breath, she slipped the key into the lock.
49
Click.
The key worked.
Surprised, Gray gasped, and electricity zinged through her blood as she pushed … open … the door … and stepped across the threshold.
The foyer was cold and dark. A vampire’s lair.
She pulled the knife from her bag, then crept into the living room.
An overstuffed couch and armchair upholstered in a busy paisley pattern, and a just-as-busy floor rug with matching curtains.
No more khakis. No more yellows.
To the fireplace …
Framed pictures sat on the mantel: Sean and a pretty Latina who wore lots of eye makeup. A pretty, preteen girl wearing a white soccer uniform. A handsome teenage boy holding a football. Though the kids were too old to be his biologically, Sean was still someone’s stepfather. And they were living in Natalie’s house.
Sean and Natalie Dixon had never divorced. Not that he needed her to sign divorce papers; published notices in a large-circulation newspaper were enough.
Gray glared at those children.
Fucker. He had ended that dream for her.
Was she really gonna do this?
Hell yes.
She floated to the kitchen, and with a disconnected hand she opened the refrigerator.
A gallon of milk. A carton of eggs. A plate wrapped in foil. Wine bottles. Lunchables. Bottles of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Sean loved that beer. That’s why she took the last bottles from the shelf. Opened each. Poured the beer into the sink. Left the empties on the counter.
Fucker.
Did specks of her blood still live beneath the granite island? She’d bled down there, and she’d bled over by the pantry door, too. Once on Fourth of July. Once on the day before taxes were due. And once, that last time, in August …
Gray crept up the stairs. The door to the first bedroom was open. She peeked in.
Posters of LeBron James and Russell Wilson. Certificates. Ribbons. Trophies.
The second bedroom was painted pastel purple. Rihanna posters. Certificates. Trophies. An American Girl doll on a rocking chair.
The master suite sat at the end of the hallway. Its double doors were open.
God’s hand kept Gray upright as she tiptoed toward her old bedroom. She stood at the threshold until her heartbeat slowed from a gallop to a trot. And then she looked.
Fussy paisley-patterned bed linens. Fussy lamps. A chaise. A flat-screen television. A big bed. A pile of laundry sat in the path to the master bathroom. Wasn’t Gray’s bed anymore, not with all those pillows. Not her bathroom, not with those flouncy towels. Sean’s clothes, including the cashmere sweater she’d bought him for Christmas, still hung on his side of the closet, but the clothes on the other side, those heels and belts … not hers. The carpet had changed, too. Blue now instead of white. Gray had bled all over that white carpet. Blood was a bitch to get out of white carpet.
She needed a drink.
Gray returned to the living room and sat on the couch. If the pretty Latina came home first, Gray would tell the woman about the stepfather of her children. If Sean came home first, well … that’s what the Miyabi Evolution was for. Smooth, even cuts every single time.
Four o’clock came and went, and soon golden light crinkled through the blinds. No one had stepped across the threshold. The car garage door hadn’t rumbled.
Gray hadn’t moved from her spot on that couch. Gray had thought of nothing and everything and had ignored that voice whispering, telling her to leave. She’d ignored the prickle of her numbing legs and feet, the thud of a full bladder, and the creak of her empty stomach.
The house moaned as the sun’s heat warmed wooden beams and ceramic tiles.
At eight o’clock, she finally moved to peek out the living room window.
Across the street, a white woman wearing boxer braids and carrying a Bichon Frise plucked a newspaper from the sidewalk.
“Excuse me,” Gray called out as she crossed the street. “Good morning.”
The woman smiled at her.
Gray asked about the family who lived at 595.
“They’re at Lake Mead,” the woman said. “I think they’re coming back next week.”
Gray let the dog lick her hand as she asked, so matter-of-factly, “Do you know if Sean went with them?”
“Who?” the woman asked.
“Sean Dixon. He owns the house.”
The woman’s thick eyebrows scrunched. “I’m not so good with names.”
“He’s tall, a little darker than me. Cute. You’d remember him if you saw him.”
The woman shook her head. “I just moved in three weeks ago, and I’ve only met Precious and her kids, Cayden and Cierra, so … Sorry.”
The old white guy who lived on the right side of 595—where Phil and Lorraine and their platters of leftover sandwiches had lived until Lorraine’s mother in Rhode Island needed live-in help—knew the family, including Sean. “He travels a lot.”
No one was coming home today.
Gray whispered, “Shit, shit, shit,” as adrenaline drained from her body. Over the two-mile walk to the gas station, she cursed herself. And those three names stayed on her tongue.