And Now She's Gone

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  She had thought about canceling her trip to Vegas. She’d come up with excuses to Clarissa on why she had to remain in Los Angeles.

  This Lincoln case just blew up in my face.

  You will never believe what Nick needs me to do.

  But Gray offered no excuses. She couldn’t—not after receiving from the bride-to-be a bouquet of BFF cake pops and a three-hundred-dollar gift card to Target.

  And really, the Lincoln case had threatened to boil over, but Isabel hadn’t texted again with a picture of Kenny G. or with demands that Gray hand over the insurance check. And Ian arriving at the coffee shop right then—that coincidence still bothered Gray. And, since Tuesday night, Tea had been hunkered down in her house in Westchester. Gray had called Myracle Hampton as she sat and surveilled Tea, but there had been no answer. No return call, either. So here she was.

  Stuck in Sin City.

  The bitch was back.

  Some good would come from celebrating Clarissa’s upcoming nuptials and being one of the girls again. And then there was also something personal, too … something bloodier.

  Gray had thought about things.

  She’d taken steps.

  Like burning all those extraneous phone numbers and providing her coworkers with a new number. They didn’t blink, because new numbers were a part of the game. Since then, she hadn’t received a text message from Sean.

  Like changing her routes around the city again, no longer driving herself, not even in Nick’s cars. Instead, she rode in cars hired from hotels just a half mile south of her apartment.

  Like giving Jennifer the Lincoln case, if necessary. Jennifer probably would have finished by now, anyway. With her experience, she would see the links more clearly than Gray.

  By Sunday, life would be different for Gray … or whoever she’d be by then.

  Gray had packed a few things that she could have left behind in five seconds but didn’t want to leave behind. She wished she could have left that raggedy Liz Claiborne purse, but she had no other handbags. She did pack thin black gloves and those soft jeans she’d washed hundreds of times over four years. She’d packed the signed copy of President Obama’s memoir, which she’d read twice and highlighted. Where there is no experience, the wise man is silent. She had also packed that black, yellow, and red handmade mandala she bought on a family trip to Panama so long ago. Irreplaceable things that could again be a foundation for her new start in a new place.

  Gray also had made a stop at the safe deposit box that held her Tiffany journal and Faye’s jewelry. She left the diamonds and took the keys to the house in Summerlin. She also took her amended birth certificate, which had been issued once the Graysons had formally adopted her, and fifteen thousand dollars in cash.

  And the black Louis Vuitton backpack that Nick had privately gifted her for Christmas, she’d brought that with her, too.

  And now the girls poked at her, making ado about the four-thousand-dollar extravagance with the asymmetrical zipper and metal studs. “Since when does Dominick Rader pay us enough to buy Louis Vuitton?” Clarissa laced her calf-high Doc Martens boot, just one piece of her Final Fantasy tutu-leggings-ponytail ensemble that she’d put together for her special weekend.

  Jennifer snorted. “Since when does Gray carry designer bags? Was it a Please take me back gift from the Hot Marine?” The blonde looked like she wasn’t traveling to Clarissa’s destination, not wearing those mom capris, espadrilles, and Cartier sunglasses. WASPy cosplay.

  From the front seat of the taxi, Zadie popped open a can of Dr Pepper. “Since when is it any of your business how she got the damned thing or why she’s carrying it?” Zadie wore sensible sandals and a gold sundress. Nana-wear. She smelled of sunscreen and cigarette smoke.

  Gray wore blue jeans and a white T-shirt with no funny sayings or memorable graphics. She planned to blend in this weekend.

  Yes, Nick had given her the backpack, and she didn’t want to leave it behind because it was gorgeous, and Nick didn’t spend several grand for “just friends.” When she’d first taken it from its dust bag on that Christmas day, she’d imagined the days and nights afterward: Holding hands at the Santa Monica Pier. Going to the driving range and swinging a nine iron as he chose a Big Bertha. She imagined their drives along the Pacific Coast Highway. Kisses—short and sweet ones, and then longer, breathtaking ones. But then, in real life, he’d told her that they couldn’t happen yet because she needed time. So, if she couldn’t have him, she’d have his bag, and she clutched it to her chest as their hired car headed north toward the Strip.

  No more lobster and sirloin steak for a dollar on the Strip. No more showgirls, either. The hotels in the pyramid, the lion, the castle, the big top, and the needle hadn’t changed. Some spots were newer—slick-sided, non-kitschy high-rise hotels like the Aria and the Cosmopolitan.

  I’m back here after swearing …

  Gray’s stomach felt waxy and slick. She wanted to vomit. She closed her eyes and waited for the dizzy spell to pass.

  Jennifer waggled Gray’s knees. “You okay?”

  “She’s fine,” Clarissa said. “She’s perfect. This is perfect. Nothing will go wrong this weekend.” The bride-to-be patted Gray’s head. “For a minute, though, I totally thought you were gonna, like, flake. We’re gonna have so much fun!”

  Jennifer found her mirrored compact in her purse, then applied a new coat of cotton candy–pink lipstick. “And I’ll show you all the sights. I know Vegas better than any of you. It’s like a second home.”

  Gray smirked. Oh, Jennifer. She was happy to hang out and be a girlfriend. Even though she kept her true intentions secret, she would enjoy as much drinking, gambling, and celebrating as she could before retreating underground again like a cicada.

  “As a present to you”—Jennifer pointed at the bride-to-be—“Nick told me to use the company card for dinner tonight.”

  “He’s paying?” Clarissa said, eyes wide.

  Jennifer nodded.

  Clarissa screeched.

  “That man is a mystery,” Zadie said.

  “Yeah,” Jennifer agreed. “One of those sexy men with mysterious pasts.”

  Gray said, “Uh-huh,” even though she knew that Dominick Rader grew up in Santa Monica with his mom, dad, surfboard, skateboard, and a pit-boxer named Teeny. He’d been valedictorian of his senior class at Crossroads School, had earned his bachelor’s degree and JD from UCLA, had joined the FBI afterward, and now visited his parents, both alive and retired in Scottsdale, four times a year.

  The Cosmopolitan was big and pretty. “Smooth” was the word Gray thought of. And “bright.” Chandeliers and more chandeliers—over bars, over slot machines. And the interior smelled like pastries and fields of flowers. And it all twinkled.

  Clarissa’s five nonwork friends—Kylie, Haley, Kailey, Skylar, and Brianne—were waiting in the hotel lobby. Young women young and perfumed, high-pitched voices, “ohmigosh” and “literally” and “like” and selfies and fake eyelashes …

  Gray and Jennifer shot each other looks and mouthed, Wow.

  Each woman had booked separate rooms. “In case we have company,” Jennifer said with a wink. “In case. Listen to me. I will have company.”

  Clarissa blushed and blinked at Jennifer. “Dude. You’re, like, married.”

  Jennifer patted the young woman’s shoulder as the group wandered to the elevator bank. “And you’re, like, not. Which means you wouldn’t understand. How do you think I met Reynaldo? Sharing a hymnal at church after my second divorce?” She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Clarissa. Life isn’t Little House on the Prairie.”

  Kylie, Skylar, and Brianne blinked and asked, “What’s Little House on the Prairie?”

  As the group rode up to the ninth floor, Clarissa shared her vision of married life. Never going to bed angry. Fidelity until death. Open communication. Clean kitchen. Fifty-fifty everything, even in parenting. The young women said, “Aww” and “So romantic” and “It is possible if you try.”r />
  The older women held back laughter. Zadie even added, “They’re so precious. Aren’t they precious, girls?”

  Jennifer and Gray smiled, and said, “Oh yeah. Totally precious.”

  They all gathered in Clarissa’s suite before breaking apart—to rest for Gray, Jen, and Zadie; to drink for the young’uns. Clarissa, phone in her hand, rattled off the evening’s itinerary. “We’re eating at Bardot Brasserie at the Aria at six. We’re going to the Cirque du Soleil show at eight, and then we come back here to dance at the Marquee. Okay?”

  Gray, Jennifer, and Zadie gaped at her—the fuck?—and then said, “Okay,” and “Yeah.”

  Clarissa clapped her hands. “And let’s meet back here, dressed and ready for dinner, in … three hours. Okay?”

  Gray said, “Sure,” then trudged across the hall to room 911. After slipping the DO NOT DISTURB hangtag over the doorknob, she took in her surroundings. Marble floors in the bathroom. Soft queen-size bed. From the picture window, she had a view of the entire Strip. All of it took her breath away, and she hated the awe now filling her lungs.

  Ten minutes later, she speed walked out of the hotel, caught a cab, then settled in for the twenty-minute drive to Fashion Show mall. There, she entered Sur La Table, a kitchenware mecca that boasted a wide selection of knives.

  A sweet-faced brunette asked if Gray needed help.

  Gray said, “No,” with her attention on the Miyabi cutlery. “I’m good, thanks.”

  “If you do a lot of food prep,” the clerk said, ignoring the no, “this one…” She pointed to the Evolution slicing knife. “This one is perfect. Nine and a half inches of steel. Gives you smooth, even cuts every single time.”

  Gray left Sur La Table without buying the knife. Instead, she sat outside the store and looked for the perfect mark. There. Her proxy buyer: a shabby-looking mom pushing a shabby-looking stroller filled with twin redheaded toddler boys. She looked like she needed fifty dollars to either buy a new stroller or to trim the damaged ends of her frizzy red hair.

  “That’s it?” the woman asked Gray, bloodshot eyes big. “You’ll give me fifty dollars to buy the knife?”

  “Yep.” Don’t ask me why. Please don’t ask me why. She had thought of a story—her mom was with her in the mall and she didn’t want her to see the knife because it was a surprise gift. Not a very compelling story, but the shabby-looking mom of twins didn’t ask.

  Didn’t take long for Gray to possess the knife and the woman to collect fifty dollars.

  47

  It was 5:05, and Gray had an hour before the theater curtains opened again. She spent twenty of those minutes on a power nap, and as she lay in that wonderful bed, she refused to let her mind sprint from the thought of finding Sean to the thought of killing Sean. No, she let her mind take long strokes—Nick, freedom, Nick, food, freedom—until it tired itself out, and soon she felt herself slipping away.

  At 5:25, the phone’s alarm clock beeped.

  Gray popped up, refreshed and ready for a shower. She wanted to stand beneath that perfect blast of hot water forever, but she couldn’t. Face painted on, and dressed in black cigarette pants, an off-the-shoulder blouse, and heeled boots, Gray joined her coworkers and the young’uns in Clarissa’s room.

  Zadie sparkled in her grandmother-of-the-bride sequined shirt and satin pants. Clarissa wore the tiara and veil Jennifer had gifted her, along with another tutu and pink Doc Martens boots. If Zadie looked like the grandmother of the bride, Jennifer could have been the stepmother of the bride in her cut-too-low-for-your-age wrap dress and platform stilettos.

  The friends, all eyelashes and baby giraffe legs, wore short dresses and clunky heels. With dewy skin and bright white teeth, they were lovely creatures excited about their future loves and their future lives.

  “Okay, okay,” Clarissa chirped, flapping her hands. “Picture time!”

  Gray inwardly groaned but acquiesced. This could possibly be one of her last moments with the only friends she’d had since before Sean.

  At Bardot Brasserie, she devoured wood-grilled bone marrow, lobster bisque, and roasted Mediterranean sea bass.

  “You’re eating like it’s your last meal,” Jennifer snarked, though she was not restrained either as she dined on plates of oysters, a gigantic wedge salad, and an enormous rib eye.

  “I’m eating like Nick is paying.” Gray gasped. “Oh. He is.”

  Later, from her tenth-row seat, Gray whooped as the divers of O did tricks off of diving boards.

  Afterward, in the Bellagio’s lobby, Clarissa shouted, “Time to club!”

  Entering the Marquee, it was as though Gray were stepping on hot coals. She winced at the produced commotion—lasers and loudness, girls dancing on perches. She sipped Kentucky mules and hoped that the bourbon would dull the edges now scraping across her heart and lungs. She squinted through lasers and smoke and searched for eyes that were lingering on her too long.

  “You’re more quiet than usual tonight,” Zadie said. She and Gray were sitting in a booth while Clarissa and Jennifer danced with two gelled blond bros wearing cheap suits.

  Gray smiled at the older woman. “Can’t remember the last time I was in a club. Guess I’m just trying to enjoy … this.”

  Zadie eyed Gray’s cocktail. “No margarita?”

  “Taking a break from tequila tonight.”

  “You’ve been so careful.”

  Gray said nothing, just looked at the old woman shining in the dark.

  Zadie knocked around the ice in her seven and seven. “You two ever gonna just … go for it?”

  Gray squinted at her. “You missed me with that.”

  “You and Nick. Your relationship.”

  Gray sat possum-still and hoped that Zadie would move on to kill something else. But Zadie stared at her, waiting for an answer. Gray said, “Nick’s my boss.”

  “I know who he truly is to you, sweetie,” the old woman said. “Who he was to you before Rader Consulting existed. I’m employee number one, remember?”

  As though that—employee number one—meant something to Gray.

  Zadie sipped her cocktail. “I know that you and Nick are close. Closer than close. And I also know who you are … Natalie.”

  48

  Zadie kept her twinkling eyes on Gray. She drained her cocktail, then hid a burp behind her delicate hobbit hand. “I know you escaped from this place,” the old woman whispered. “I know that Nick helped you do that. And I’ve noticed that his mood has changed in the last two weeks.” She touched Gray’s wrist and squeezed. “He loves you.”

  Gray’s eyes clouded with tears. “Who else knows?”

  “No one.”

  Gray slowly exhaled. “Can you keep it secret? All of it? About me. And him?”

  “I have all this time, haven’t I?” Beneath that club light and with those reflecting sequins, Zadie’s eyes looked sharp as razor blades. “I’m old, not stupid.”

  The air was tight around Gray’s head, and the bourbon from her cocktail gurgled in her belly. “Did Nick … He told…?”

  “He didn’t have to tell me anything. I did all of your paperwork. You know Nick hates paperwork. But don’t worry. I’ll carry it to my—”

  Clarissa staggered back to the booth. Her white veil was now stained with lipstick and grenadine and violated by little holes in the mesh that made it look like a worn mosquito net. “Are you gonna dance?” she slurred, waggling Gray’s shoulder.

  Gray blinked away her tears. “Nope. Jim Beam is my baby tonight.”

  Clarissa grabbed the nearly empty bottle of champagne from the silver ice bucket. Just like any dedicated drunk, she brought it to her lips and drank it through the veil.

  Gray couldn’t care less—about the torn veil or the young bride-to-be drinking from the bottle. There was something more alarming happening: Zadie knew about her, and Nick had never mentioned the old woman’s role in Gray’s new life.

  It was now too loud in here, and too close. People. There were s
o many people. A weather system was forming over the DJ booth from all the hot bodies and the hotter lights—low fog clung to the floor and clouded above the Exit signs.

  “I’m drunk.” Clarissa scooted into the booth and placed her head on Gray’s shoulder. “I love you, Grayson.” It only took a second for her eyelids to droop, and soon she was snoring.

  Clarissa’s college friends trundled over to the booth and took pictures with the passed-out guest of honor.

  Giggling, Gray slipped an ice cube from her mug, then swiped it across Clarissa’s nose.

  Clarissa snorted awake. “Huh?”

  The women hollered with laughter.

  Clarissa grabbed her purse from Zadie’s lap. “I need to go to bed.”

  Jennifer waltzed over with her bad-suit bro. He had a buffalo’s head and wore as much cologne as Jennifer wore perfume. They’d combust if they rubbed their bare skin together. “This is Dylan,” Jennifer said, “and—C’mon, don’t tell me y’all are tired. It’s only one o’clock.”

  “We’re tired,” Clarissa, Zadie, and Gray said.

  “We’re not,” the five young women said.

  “Stay with us, Jen,” blonde Haley pled.

  Jennifer swiveled to face her buffalo-headed date. “Come as a group, leave as a group.”

  Gray knew Jennifer must have been exhausted.

  The quartet wove through the crowds, stumbling past craps tables and old people pulling oxygen tanks. A band in one of the clubs was jamming out “Play That Funky Music,” and even though Gray was tired, she couldn’t keep her head from bopping to that funky bass line.

  Over the music and slot machine noise, Jennifer told them about her new friend, Dylan.

  Dylan’s only twenty-four, can you believe it?

  Dylan’s a hedge fund broker, already pulling in a million five, can you believe it?

  Jennifer Bellman fit perfectly in this city of secrets, and Gray had already tired of her and the bright lights and the cigarette smoke and the expense. None of that had changed in her time away, and now, more than ever, she yearned to be back in Monterey, out on the deck of the only place she’d ever truly considered home.