And Now She's Gone

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  “Maybe you should see someone,” he said. “I’ll pay for it.”

  “I have money.”

  “You don’t have to touch it. Not with you planning to change everything. Won’t be cheap, getting a brand-new identity. That’s what I meant.”

  “Yeah.” She hid her face in her hands and clenched into a tight ball. She took deep breaths to push back the madness at her soul’s gate. Two hundred and sixty-seven deep breaths later, she loosened from that ball, then joined Dominick on another walk along the shore.

  They took so many walks, they made new sand.

  Dominick introduced her to Shonelle Crespin, a psychologist with auburn dreadlocks and perfect white teeth. “What should I call you?” the woman asked. “Besides ‘Nick’s friend’?”

  She’d been thinking about her name, about all those names she’d dreamed about as a kid. Lola, Lucky, Deenie, Scarlett, Jo, Pippi, Leia …

  “Gray,” she said. “Grayson Sykes.” And it felt right, coming off her tongue. Sykes—as in “Psych: you thought I was who I was but I’m not anymore.” She said it again, and something inside of her wiggled, broke free, and broke apart. Ten minutes into this appointment and parts of her had already healed.

  Grayson saw Sean Dixon once during those first months away from him. It had been a random sighting on Sepulveda Boulevard, near UCLA and the federal buildings that housed the State Department. He’d known to look for her in a place that issued new passports. How had he known, though, to hunt for her in Los Angeles?

  “A guess,” Nick told her. “It’s four hours away. He probably looked in Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. Did he see you?”

  She shook her head. “I was on the shuttle. It had tinted glass.” Her lungs had closed as her husband stalked across the street. He had recovered from her stabbing him and had regained his upright, master-of-the-universe gait. Her knees had sagged, and she was glad that she was holding on to the shuttle’s pole.

  Twice a week, Gray had nightmares.

  Each time, Nick shook her awake.

  In one dream, Sean had been strangling her on the beach and his face had transformed into the xenomorph from Alien. Those teeth. That cylindrical skull … The relief of waking up hadn’t pushed away that fear. No, she could only clench Nick tighter, tighter still, and wait for time and the strong sunlight to bleach away those images of Sean strangling her.

  Gray lived in Nick’s guest bedroom for nearly a year. She ate on Nick’s dime. Saw the psychologist on Nick’s dime. Started the court proceedings to erase who she was and to become who she needed to be—all on Nick’s dime.

  “I should buy one of those jumpsuits,” Gray told him, before the hearing to seal her records. “You know, the ones that race car drivers wear, with all those patches from sponsors sewn on it. You’d be all over me.”

  His eyes danced, then hardened. “Just a loan. I’m just fronting you until it’s safe.”

  And once she legally became Grayson Faye Sykes, born in November and not in April, Social Security number ending in 0608, she would leave bundles of cash on Nick’s dresser, next to his keys or wallet or empty glass that still smelled of whiskey.

  On those nights he didn’t come home, Gray wondered about the woman he was with. Sometimes she caught a glimpse of him at the nearby Italian place with a blonde named Emma. Or the redhead, Kit or Kate or something. On the weekends, Nick sometimes drove up the coast with a pretty Asian woman he’d brought home once. On one of those weekends, Gray moved into Beaudry Towers. The one-bedroom apartment had enough room for her and gave her enough space from Nick.

  Financially, she was now square with her benefactor. She owed him nothing that could have been deposited at a bank. Those intangible things … Well, she could never repay him, so she wouldn’t try.

  “I’ll just live my best life,” she told herself as she stood in the solarium.

  The muted noise of jammed freeways became the new soundtrack of her life.

  And her life with Sean Dixon became as dusty and “wayback” as a video game token left in the middle of the Mojave.

  58

  Gray was ready to go home. Los Angeles had become Shangri-la, Buckingham Palace, and Paisley Park all mixed up, but without the queen and Prince. She’d left a voice mail for Detective Jake Days, who oversaw Tommy Hampton’s case, but he hadn’t picked up, and she was glad that he hadn’t. If she talked to one more person today, her brain would explode quicker than whatever organ inside of her was still giving her the business.

  At Oakland International Airport, she dropped the rental car back at Avis and thanked Mike, her temporary bodyguard. She trudged to the departure gate for a late-night flight to Los Angeles, but a text from Jennifer made her slow her step.

  No travel abroad for Elyse Miller.

  “Maybe she’s using another name,” Gray said.

  For Deanna Kelly, the world was filled with the unforgotten or the gone-too-soon—the possibilities for new identities were endless. And she’d never stop on her own; she’d been too many people.

  And she’d never be satisfied, because stolen identities never settled in like a new nose or a nip/tuck around the neck. Deanna Kelly was Cerberus, except that people didn’t know they should be careful around her. Those who hadn’t been careful paid with ruined credit and misdemeanors on their previously clean records. Others had paid with their lives. Like Tommy Hampton. Like Xavier Vargas. Like Omar Neville.

  Deanna Kelly was a grifter, a thug, a liar, and a thief.

  Worse …

  Deanna Kelly was a serial killer.

  And this case was now bigger than ever and needed to be taken over by the police.

  On the plane, Gray found her draft email to Yvonne Reeves.

  Dear Yvonne.

  I was born Natalie Kittridge in Oakland on April 25, 1980 and given up for adoption. Since then, I’ve never met members of my biological family—but now I see your name listed as a second cousin. And with this test only analyzing maternal DNA, you must be my birth mother’s first cousin. Would you be open to talking to me?

  Gray pressed Send before she changed her mind.

  By the time Gray’s plane landed in Los Angeles, Detective Jake Days in Oakland had called and left a voice mail on her phone. She could barely hear his message over the roar of Los Angeles: “Something, something, Myracle Hampton hope we can close this once and for all Tommy Hampton something something.”

  Gray had answered almost every question she’d come up with at the start of this case, except the original: Where had Deanna Kelly taken the damned dog? That made her heart ache, because her first thought was this: Kenny G. was dead. Deanna didn’t care about humans, so why would she care about her ex-boyfriend’s Labradoodle?

  It was late, but Gray called Ian O’Donnell from the back seat of her cab. “She’s worse than we thought. Nothing about her is real. Not the name you knew. Not the name she had before that name. She’s not in her thirties. She didn’t graduate from UCLA, and she may have murdered—well, she probably murdered three ex-boyfriends. If identity theft was her only crime, I would’ve been thrilled, but yeah … She’s much worse, and until the police find her, you should watch your back.”

  Ian O’Donnell said nothing.

  “And I still don’t know where she took Kenny G. We looked for recent trips taken by Elyse Miller and didn’t find anything. Not sure yet about Deanna Kelly.”

  Ian said, “I received a call from the medical board and … I haven’t talked to them, but I’m sure my career is over. I know it. I paid Nick a lot of money for you to stop her and you didn’t—you failed. We’ll handle that later, but … the police are involved. That’s good, I guess. At least I know they’ll stop her.”

  “Like they stopped her back in the nineties? Like they stopped her years ago? Like they stopped her two weeks ago?” She would’ve chomped Ian in half if he were standing in front of her.

  She took a deep breath, then said, “I understand your frustration. You may complain to Nick about my
failure to keep your shenanigans in the dark.”

  She called Nick next.

  “You’re home,” he said. “Mike said there was no sign of Sean.”

  “The cops in Mobile are still looking for him.”

  “I’ll keep an ear out.”

  “I still haven’t found the dog. Nor have I found her.” And she told him about meeting Deanna Kelly’s mother and cousin.

  “What’s her long game?” Nick asked.

  “There’s a mortician down in Belize willing to sell her a body—a car accident victim—for five thousand dollars. Comes with a death certificate and mourners, too. He’ll cremate the body and Deanna’s hair and nail samples will prove that the body is Isabel Lincoln.”

  “And then Deanna collects the insurance as Tea Christopher.”

  “Right,” Gray said. “Tea told me that she’s joining Deanna in Belize, and I’m thinking Deanna’s planning to kill Tea, too.”

  “For insurance?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But who’s the beneficiary on Tea’s policy?”

  “Don’t know,” Gray admitted. “Some other stolen identity that I haven’t found yet.”

  “Classic death fraud. Anything else?” Nick asked.

  “I have a second cousin in Sacramento and—” Her throat closed.

  “You gonna introduce yourself?” Nick asked.

  “I emailed her.”

  “You okay?”

  “Kinda feels like I’m betraying them.”

  He was silent again, but then he said, “Victor always told us, ‘The truth is rarely pure and never simple.’”

  “Oscar Wilde.” She let her forehead rest on the window. “I miss them so much.”

  “Want me to come over?”

  “Oh, how I’d like to say yes, but…”

  “You’re tired.”

  “Exhausted.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Please?”

  “Thai?”

  “And martinis.”

  “Dessert?”

  She blushed. “Depends.”

  Like the city, her phone had been buzzing since she’d lumbered off the plane. Text messages from Tea Christopher.

  Where are you?

  I need to talk to you ASAP!

  Please call!! My car’s broken down and so I can’t drive.

  Every message Tea had sent since Saturday night—sixteen—had been similar.

  Saturday. Gray had been in Vegas, drinking and hooting. Felt like thirty moons ago.

  Gray texted, Just got home. Coming over to you. Don’t let anybody into the house. NO ONE EXCEPT ME! See you soon.

  Gray’s apartment was dark, and the light from the living room danced across the couch and carpet. The refrigerator rumbled its usual hello and, as usual, Gray yelped, startled by the sudden booming gruffness made by a simple appliance. Nothing had changed since she’d been gone. The lights, the fridge, the empty vodka bottle in the freezer, the knives, the Mace in the medicine cabinet … same as it ever was.

  Gray didn’t want to sit, didn’t want to change clothes. Just go and be done. She slipped the knife and Mace into her back pockets and the gun into her battered Liz Claiborne purse.

  Maybe she could now convince Tea that she was being had by a con artist.

  Maybe Tea Christopher would finally end her carping for Isabel, once she heard the truth.

  The truth, though, was rarely pure, and never simple.

  59

  Tea’s raggedy green Altima was parked in the driveway of the Christopher house. Every bulb burned bright in that rambling ranch, and television light glowed in between the breaks of the closed living room shutters. Gray rang the doorbell, then slumped against the porch railing. Her head and back ached from fighting a crazy man in a greasy spoon down in Alabama.

  Why wasn’t Tea answering the door?

  Had she fallen asleep? Had she let Deanna Kelly in and found herself tied up in a bedroom?

  On the other side of midnight, surfing the last molecules of Percocet, Gray’s mind couldn’t help but come up with terrifying ends for the con’s biggest mark.

  Gray knocked on the door again.

  No answer.

  She banged on the door.

  Barks came from inside the Christopher house.

  Tea never mentioned having a dog. Was that—

  “Kenny G.?” Gray squeezed the door’s brass handle.

  Unlocked.

  She pushed open the door.

  The smell was more than rot; it was more than trash; it was heavier than shit.

  “Oh my…” Gray’s stomach lurched, and she covered her mouth with the crook of her elbow to block that smell. It was like … like … She couldn’t figure out what she was smelling.

  “Tea,” she shouted, “you here?”

  Everybody Loves Raymond played on the television, but no one sat on the white couch.

  She scanned the living room.

  Fireplace mantel crammed with framed pictures.

  Coffee table covered with empty food containers.

  Filthy white carpet.

  Rotting foot peeking from beneath a green blanket.

  “Oh shit.” Gray flailed backwards, eyes no longer seeing.

  The dog started barking again.

  That foot was as black as night.

  Dead—that’s what she was smelling.

  Near that foot, beneath the coffee table …

  A tortoiseshell stem from a pair of glasses.

  A small cylinder of burnished gold.

  “A bullet casing,” Gray whispered.

  Tea!

  But it couldn’t be. She’d just texted Gray less than an hour ago. That foot—and the rest of that person—had been beneath the coffee table for weeks.

  Gray swiped her mouth as her stomach rocked, as the liquified fat from this poor soul settled into her nostrils.

  The dog was barking, frantic now.

  Get the dog and get the fuck out of here.

  The barking got louder as she tiptoed down the bright hallway. Gray peeked into the first bedroom she reached. The curtains were drawn, and the stink of dog shit hung on still air. A large dog crate sat in the middle of the room. A big dog with matted chocolate-blond hair pawed at the cage, pawed for release, whined for freedom and to be loved again.

  Gray smiled. “Kenny G. Ohmigod, you’re still alive.”

  She slipped over to the cage.

  The dog hopped, whined, and circled.

  A lock hung from the gate latch.

  Shit.

  “I need to find a key,” Gray cooed. She stuck her hand between the grates to pet the dog. “I’ll be back, okay. You’re a good, good boy, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

  “He is the best boy,” a woman’s voice said behind her. “The bestest.”

  60

  Gray pulled the can of Mace from her back pocket and whirled around.

  Tea Christopher stood in the doorway.

  “You scared me,” Gray shouted.

  Tea said, “Sorry.” She wore that tired lavender tracksuit, and her frizzy bangs looked as dusty as her grungy braids.

  “Who is that?” Gray whispered, pointing to the living room. “The foot. Who?”

  Tea clenched her hands. Her eyes looked bloodshot behind those thick lenses. “Something’s happened and I … I don’t know where to go. Please, Miss Sykes. I need your help. Kenny G.… he needs you, too.”

  Gray held up a hand. “You knew where this dog was. It’s obvious that he’s been here—”

  “I can explain everything.” Tea took a step into the room. She smelled sweaty, swampy, like she’d run to Westchester via the Los Angeles River.

  “Why didn’t you give me the dog?” Gray’s voice had pitched toward the heavens. “And why is there a fucking bullet casing—”

  “It’s Isabel. Not on the floor out there, but she … she…”

  “She what?” Gray moved toward Tea.

  Kenny G. whined, a plea not to be left alone.

/>   “Isabel’s here, in L.A.,” Tea whispered, “and she’s not who she says she is.”

  Gray said nothing.

  “You know that,” Tea said, eyes wide. “That Isabel’s lying.”

  “We need to call the—”

  “Who else knows?”

  Gray bit her lip and decided not to tell Tea about Oakland Police Detective Jake Days or her conversations with Myracle Hampton or Deanna Kelly’s mother and cousin.

  “Noelle knows,” Tea said, nodding. “I don’t know where she is now. I think Bobby beat her up to keep her quiet. Did you tell Ian that you think Isabel’s lying?”

  “Not yet,” Gray lied. “I’m still trying to prove it. I’m still trying to connect some things. It’s all one big ball of tangled bullshit after another big ball of tangled bullshit.”

  Tea slowly exhaled. “I just want it to be over. I just want to breathe again.” She slipped off her glasses, then rubbed her eyes. “Don’t you?”

  She pulled at her hair, and those braids and bangs were now in her hand. Her ponytail—sapphire black and darker than the darkest night—was now free to swing past her shoulders. She dropped the wig and the glasses to the carpet, then pulled off the track jacket and the two sweatshirts she’d worn beneath it. She kicked off her Skechers and tugged off the track pants. She tossed those, and the cushions she’d stuffed around her thighs, onto the heap of clothes.

  A new woman stood there, muscled, tattooed, in a white tank top and black leggings. It was the dog thief. The ex-girlfriend. The Mary Ann. She’d hidden a knife with a serrated blade in her discarded disguise and she clutched it now.

  Gray took wobbly steps back until she backed against the dog crate. She still clutched a can of Mace, and she prayed that it was ready to spray.

  “You…” Deanna Kelly pointed the knife at Gray. “You are pretty good. You’re still alive. If you were a man, you’d be dead by now.”

  Instinct kept Gray’s tears from tumbling down her cheeks. “Deanna Kelly?”

  Deanna’s eyes widened, and her lips twisted into a sick grin. “Again, leave it to another woman to get shit done. Same can be said about me. I’m about to do what your psycho ex-husband couldn’t do.”