And Now She's Gone

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  A teardrop tumbled down Mrs. Dixon’s cheek. That was the only movement on her body.

  Watching that teardrop fall made anger flicker in Sean’s eyes. “I…” His nostrils flared.

  Barely breathing, she tore her gaze away from his. She grew rigid as his breath scorched her ears. What was he about to do to her?

  He said, “I’ll never touch you like that again. Okay?”

  His words traveled like a giant pill scraping her throat and leaving behind a bitter taste. She swallowed whatever it was, then whispered, “Okay.”

  He grasped her shoulders, then kissed the top of her head. “I don’t deserve you. I know that. You know that. The world, including dude last night, knows that, and I let it get to me. You’re incredible, Mrs. Dixon. You take my breath away, and I’m gonna make it up to you.”

  He’d said almost the exact collection of words once he’d apologized for forgetting her birthday last month. I’m gonna make it up to you.

  This morning, he kissed the bruise on her arm. “Get dressed. We’ll eat breakfast and then we’ll go shopping, okay? And I was gonna surprise you, but…” He grinned, bashful all of a sudden. “I got us tickets to see Copperfield tonight. You love Copperfield. So … Okay. Let’s get going.” He winked at her reflection and patted her butt.

  Mrs. Dixon tensed beneath his kinder hit that was still a hit. Even after he’d left the bathroom, she stayed there, in front of that magic mirror, with that diamond in her nose. Flawless. But those bruises were getting uglier as blood continued to spill through broken veins beneath her skin. She didn’t want to see that ugliness, not on this, her first anniversary.

  So she pawed through her makeup bag, moving aside eyeliner, lip gloss, mascara, a tampon, moisturizer, sharpener, cotton swab, tweezers … Ah. Here. And she twisted the cap off the bottle of liquid foundation, and she dabbed a perfect drop on her finger.

  14

  Tea ordered dessert, then asked Gray to promise she wouldn’t drag Isabel back to L.A.

  But Gray hadn’t been hired to drag anybody anywhere. After watching Tea consume churros and ice cream, and after paying the bill, she walked the woman out to the parking lot, to a scraped-up green Altima with its rear window lined with thousands of troll dolls.

  The sun had set and all light came from hundreds of headlamps and brake lights that buzzed east and west on Jefferson Boulevard. It was time to join the fray.

  “Just ask Isabel to send the few things that I need,” Gray told Tea, “and I’ll pick up the dog from wherever she decides, and then we’ll be done. Promise.”

  “I’ll do my best to convince her,” Tea said. “Thanks, Gray. Be blessed.”

  Back in the restaurant, Jennifer grabbed her purse from the banquette she’d shared with Gray for just six minutes. “So much for us not working tonight.”

  “Don’t worry,” Gray said. “You didn’t work. And it couldn’t be helped.”

  “You told her to meet you here,” Jennifer pointed out.

  “Rookie mistake,” Clarissa said.

  Jennifer slipped her arm through Gray’s as they strolled to the exit. “Productive?”

  Gray glanced back at the bar. Hank was pouring beers for the college kids. “She claims that the boyfriend used to beat Isabel.”

  “What’s that in your voice?” Jennifer asked.

  “I’m just not sure why Nick gave this case to me. I mean, I get it, but…”

  Jennifer squeezed Gray’s arm. “If you don’t want it, I’ll take it. And you can go back to doing what you do best. What was that again? Typing?”

  “Typing and proofing,” Gray said. “Anyway, Isabel should be sending proof of life tomorrow and I will have solved my very first case. Yay, me.”

  With that, Gray climbed back into the Camry and started her twisty, five-extra-miles drive home. Her route was a centipede, a tableau of red ribbons, a bullet ricocheting through a 503-square-mile corpse. No black Range Rovers or red Jaguars reflected in her rearview mirror. And that made her think about her promise not to drag Isabel Lincoln back to Los Angeles.

  Because the truth was this: every nine seconds, a woman was battered in America. Over ten thousand women were killed by their current or ex-partners every year. America—the world—had a woman problem, and there was not enough money in Warren Buffett’s bank account to compel Gray to contribute to those statistics. If it came down to that, to dragging Isabel back to Los Angeles, she’d hand the case over to Jennifer and apologize to Nick.

  Do unto others.

  15

  Just five years ago, Beaudry Towers had been one of the swankiest places to live in downtown Los Angeles. Apartment units either boasted northern views of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and city hall or southern views of downtown skyscrapers and the bulk of south Los Angeles. The Towers had a swimming pool and patio space that sparkled. Trees and shrubbery had been regularly trimmed and tended.

  But then real estate barons constructed fancier apartments that boasted better views and grocery stores on the ground floors. Beaudry Towers became the neglected big sister left to fend for herself. She hadn’t been downgraded to “dump” yet, but she was a gurgle away from being “down the drain.” And now her tenants left grocery store circulars on the sticky linoleum. Worse, they wedged squares of cardboard between the latch and the strike plate of the security door that separated the mail room from the elevator bank.

  Gray was glaring at one of those stupid wads of cardboard now.

  “I know how you feel.” That came from Mr. Shrewsbury, the gray-haired widower who also lived on the seventeenth floor. “I’m tired of assholes leaving their shit. And that.”

  With a stiff brown finger, he pointed at the door. “Why am I paying for a secured building when they allow horseshit like that? Makes no gah-damned sense.”

  “We’re supposed to be getting new keys,” Gray said.

  “Again?”

  She tossed the cardboard wedge into the trash can. “Third new key since Christmas.”

  “Did you hear? Folks broke into this door again this morning. Probably the same ones who tore off the entire mail panel two weeks ago. Stole some checks and gift cards.”

  Gray pulled sales papers addressed to “Resident” from her own metal box. For the last three years she’d had her real mail—like the income from renting her parents’ home in Monterey Bay—sent to a UPS Store P.O. box a mile from Rader Consulting. She also kept old important things in that same box: keys, legal papers, cash.

  “Maybe it’s time to move,” she said to her neighbor.

  Mr. Shrewsbury held the security door open for Gray. “Don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to move. I’ve been here forever, so my rent’s still lower than most people’s.”

  Like the old man, Gray paid only $1,800 a month for her one-bedroom unit.

  They were trapped.

  And so she and the widower chatted about the day’s air quality as they rode up to their luxury-living cages on the seventeenth floor. They chatted about management’s decision to change out carpet for hardwood. They chatted about the new creperie on the ground level, and then about air quality again. Shouting good night, they retreated to different parts of the seventeenth floor.

  Mrs. Kim, the ancient Korean woman in apartment 1715, had cooked something that smelled like musk ox. In apartment 1710, Jessica and Conner, a twee hipster couple with suspect income, continued to ignore the pink notices that Towers management had taped to their door.

  A five-gallon bottle of water sat at unit 1708, Gray’s apartment at the end of the hall.

  As she pulled the bottle across the threshold, her refrigerator coughed and rumbled its Welcome home, honey. Gray yelped, startled at the fridge’s mini explosion. Management had promised two weeks ago to fix the freaking motor, but they hadn’t.

  With the lights off, the dark living room glowed with light from the Department of Water and Power across the street and from diffused light that moved like pollen from cars snaking along the freeway.


  Purple sky. No moon. Cars, cars, cars jamming the 101 and 110. Always alive. Always fast. The freeways that never slept. It was never, ever completely dark in downtown Los Angeles, even during blackouts. Closing her eyes—that was the only time Gray saw darkness. And quiet? Never quiet. Even with thick, double-paned glass, Gray still heard traffic hum, helicopters roar, and the city rumble, wild and nonstop.

  The air conditioner clicked on and the vertical blinds shifted with the new breeze.

  Over on the couch, her phone buzzed in her bag. Isabel.

  Tea said she saw you

  Gray’s hands shook. Yes. She didn’t know what else to say, she wanted to say so many—

  You don’t know me but I am here for you

  Once, we were in his car on the 10. Going to some fancy dinner. Honoring his greatness.

  Don’t even remember what I said

  And he kept one hand on the wheel

  Punched me in the head with the other.

  Tears stung Gray’s eyes. I’m sorry.

  Can you do me a favor?

  Just write a statement and sign it. I’ll ask Tea to pick up the dog.

  Can’t

  Why do I have to jump through hoops???!!! I haven’t done anything wrong!!

  I know I’m sorry

  Are you????

  Gray typed Yes. And she stared at her phone, waiting for Isabel’s response. For minutes and more minutes, she stared and waited.

  Nothing.

  Finally, she sank to the couch and pushed out a long breath.

  Her phone buzzed. A text message from Hank.

  Home yet? I could come there or you could come here

  The smile on her lips lasted a second before it waned. She wasn’t ready to leave the view or this quiet yet. Thursday had been a day of unexpected noise and unexpected lies. Thursday had forced her to think way too much about her past. And that thinking made a ribbon of hot pain twist from her navel to her right side.

  Pain—the only expected event.

  Hank would help her relax, and now she thought of him, of his hands working their way around her body. She thought of his kisses across her back—and his hardness, she thought of that, too. All of it made her feel light as cotton.

  But then it would be over, and he would fall asleep, and she would lie awake next to him with her eyes on the ceiling and—

  No. Don’t. Deal with it when, or if, you get to it.

  She held her middle, stepped over to the moody, tree-trunk-looking abstract painting that hid a surveillance camera. Though her apartment was only nine hundred square feet, she still didn’t want anyone entering it without her knowledge. But as she viewed the video, she saw that no one had entered. There’d only been one knock on the door, announcing the water bottle’s arrival. Unless he was the Fly or Spider-Man, no man (or woman) could sneak in through the windows. Even firemen, with their tallest ladder, couldn’t reach her, not here on the seventeenth floor. No one could enter except through the door.

  Finally, she texted Hank—home in 10 minutes, come here—and included her address. She rarely invited guests to her home, but if shit was going down, she’d rather be on her territory than his. There was a Glock in the nightstand drawer, a hunter’s knife beneath the couch cushions, a can of Mace in the medicine cabinet, and an ice pick in the potted fern in the solarium. Besides, Clarissa had performed a background check and Hank wasn’t problematic and he probably wouldn’t require her to use any weapon on him other than her killer sex appeal.

  She said, “Sex appeal,” aloud and chuckled. Amused, the Skipper stripped the yellow pillowcases from the pillows and replaced them with black. Then she changed the white sheets and the white comforter on the bed for the black sheets and the black comforter.

  The bottle of Ketel One vodka was calling her from the ice cube bin in the freezer. The refrigerator coughed again, and Gray heeded the call. She shuffled to the bright white kitchen, made brighter by the painting of bright yellow dahlias. She found the five-pound bag of rice in the cupboard, dug through it to find a stainless steel shaker and a single martini glass. Behind the cans of broth, refried beans, and diced tomatoes, she found a jar of jumbo green olives and a small bottle of vermouth, and she made a perfect dirty martini. A treat now, she allowed herself just one bottle of vodka a year since she’d adopted tequila as her public profile liquor, the official booze of Grayson Sykes.

  She closed her eyes as the vodka dribbled down her throat. Her knees sagged and her head fell back. She wanted more. Needed more. Only seven olives and a quarter of the Ketel One bottle remained, though, and it was just July. She finished the martini, chomped the two olives, washed and dried the glass and the silver shaker, then hid both in the bag of rice. She shoved the Ketel One back into the ice cube bin, shoved the jar of olives and vermouth back behind the cans of broth, refried beans, and diced tomatoes, then grabbed from the lower fridge shelf one of a million cans of cran-raspberry LaCroix sparkling water, her go-to sober alternative.

  Body looser, she grabbed her phone and texted Hank. Just got in.

  Since her vodka break, nothing had changed on the freeways. Once the Big One finally broke California off from the rest of the continent, once the state fell into the Pacific Ocean, every one of those cars would sink and their headlights would glow in the depths of the sea like phosphorescent deep-sea creatures with strange jaws and bulging blind eyes.

  She chuckled—vodka thinking.

  Her phone rang.

  Nick’s picture brightened the phone’s screen. He was the only person in the world who possessed her true phone number. But if she had to, she’d burn him, too. He expected nothing less from her. Don’t hold on to something you can’t leave behind in five seconds. He’d taught her that. And then he had added, “Even me.”

  Phone in hand, she tapped the green Accept button. “Shouldn’t you be spooning in Hawaii right now?”

  Nick laughed. “You know better than that.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  The biochemist now had a new name and a new job waiting tables and getting paid in cash. She was now hiding her Ph.D. and love of chemistry in a bag of rice and an ice cube bin.

  “So?” Nick said. “Feeling better?”

  “About the case? Don’t know. I still have my reservations.”

  “Well,” Nick said, “he called me.”

  “Who? Dr. O’Donnell?”

  “Yep. Said you were rude.”

  “Oh?”

  “Despite your personal feelings about him, you need to be respectful, all right? He’s a client. He’s paying us.”

  Gray forced down the bile burning her throat, then caught Nick up on the Lincoln case.

  “Something’s strange,” he said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Grayson—”

  “But if this guy hurt his girlfriend—”

  “Then sniff it out. Get proof. Dive in and grow the fuck up.”

  “Excuse me?” The spaces behind Gray’s eyes creaked with the threat of a headache.

  Silence from Nick.

  She pictured his tight mouth, his hand balled into a fist.

  “If Ian hurt her,” he said slowly, “you will find that out. You will see past his blond hair and blue scrubs, and if she needs help and protection from him, we know how to do that. Something is strange with this case, and you’ve seen strange before, correct?”

  Gray nodded, even though he couldn’t see her.

  “If you need me for anything,” Nick said, “call immediately. Okay?”

  “Yup.”

  He waited a beat. “We good?”

  “You’re a national treasure.” Her voice sounded shaky.

  “And you’re chicken soup for my soul. I’ll be back in L.A. in a couple of days.”

  “Okie-dokie.”

  “You working right now?”

  “Nope. I’m about to take a shower and call it a night.” She didn’t mention Hank.

  But Nick was in the business of knowing everything. H
e probably knew that Hank was just now zooming onto the 405 freeway in his blue Camaro. Knowing that Nick was all-knowing didn’t stop Gray from pretending not to know that he knew.

  Silence, then Nick said, “Good night, you.”

  She stared down at the crowded roadways and the bright lights. For a moment, she wished that her life had been normal, that Nick had been normal, that they could be normal together, falling in love properly, having babies, vacationing in Oahu, watching MasterChef on Wednesday nights and buying Christmas trees on the second Saturday of every December. If wishes were fishes, as her father used to say.

  Back in her bedroom, Gray aimed the remote control at the television and found Running Man on cable. She padded to the bathroom and stripped off the stained silk shirt and wrinkled white linen pants. In the medicine cabinet, she found the still-full bottle of amoxicillin and popped one. She grabbed the new bottle of oxycodone from her purse and shook it as she wondered whether the dull thud in her side required a nuclear weapon.

  No. She sat the narcotic on the medicine cabinet shelf and grabbed the vial of Aleve. After taking two, she stared at the diagonal surgical scar on the side of her navel. Small but angry. Yellowing and red hot. Is that color normal? And did she want Hank to see it?

  “I’ll wear a tank top.” Then she brushed her teeth, twice—Hank would taste the vodka.

  In the shower, lather, lather everywhere, over scars and knots and discolorations. She scrubbed away Thursday until her skin twinkled. She didn’t wash her face—didn’t have enough time to reapply her makeup. Even though nearly five years had passed, she could still glimpse her right eye, swollen and black. Back then, hiding that eye with inexperienced hands had taken her over an hour, and half a bottle of concealer. Eventually, she learned to use primer first and then foundation to even her skin tone. Once she’d reached pro levels, she harnessed the power of contour powders to make her face look slim and not swollen, and highlighter—she used that for its shimmer and magic. Bronzer made her look sun-kissed, as though she’d lain on a beach for days instead of on her bathroom floor for hours, stunned and scared.