And Now She's Gone

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  Waiting for his response, Gray found a ballpoint pen in the glove compartment. She consulted Isabel Lincoln’s intake form again.

  LAST SEEN: May 27

  Ian O’Donnell responded.

  Gone mid-March and end of May

  Gray updated her blank notepad.

  Isabel had been gone for four days before Ian had … realized it? Or had he realized it but just hadn’t called the cops? According to Farrah Tarrino, Isabel had requested three days off in December—but Ian, just now, hadn’t mentioned her leaving then. And they’d been together in December. Maybe those were just times spent at home?

  Gray listened to her interview with Farrah Tarrino and Beth Sharpe—but her phone had died just before the executive director had started to speak in specifics. Flummoxed, Gray flipped through her two pages of scribbles. “What am I supposed to do now?”

  Omar.

  She found Ian O’Donnell’s text message that had listed contact numbers.

  Had Isabel been stepping out on the nice guy doctor with this Omar dude?

  Or was Omar just a cousin, maybe, or the service advisor at the neighborhood Jiffy Lube?

  Gray dialed the mystery man’s number.

  Ringing …

  “Hey…” A man’s voice. “This is Oz.” Were Oz and Omar the same person? “Leave a message.” Silence, and then: “This mailbox is full. Good-bye.”

  Gray swiped at her limp bangs, then swiped at her phone’s screen until she found the ORO app, from Rader Consulting’s automatic license plate reader contractor.

  Anytime. Anywhere. We see you.

  Their tagline creeped Gray out, but not enough for her to stop using their technology. She’d set up an automatic tracker on a black Range Rover with personalized Nevada plates (VGSKING), and a red Jaguar, also Nevada personalized plates (CAQTINLV). If either car was spotted by an automated license plate reader in Greater Los Angeles, she’d receive an alert and an image of the car.

  Three weeks ago, she’d wondered if ORO’s technology was flawed or if those cars had been sold to new owners—but then her phone had buzzed. A rear license plate from an SUV had been captured near the train station in the middle of the day. And for three days, notifications filled her phone’s screen—Santa Monica, Westwood Village, Culver City.

  Soon, no alerts filled the ORO app’s dashboard. But that Range Rover had roamed the streets of Los Angeles for three days.

  Looking for Natalie Dixon.

  7

  At every intersection she crossed, at every traffic light she heeded, Gray sent her eyes searching for English luxury cars. Sometimes she rolled down the Camry’s window and listened for the boom of a bass line, for the slurred delivery of a lyric. There was Cardi B. There was Jay-Z. And her heavy breathing—there was that, too. But there was no Notorious B.I.G.

  As usual, she made sudden right turns as she drove, pissing off the drivers behind her and forcing the Camry to be more agile than its original design allowed. Gray didn’t care, didn’t want anyone tailing her. What had Nan said? That’s us women: doing what we gotta do to survive. Anything to stay aboveground for one more day.

  Ian’s “love” … It was nice to look at, it could resist some damage, but too many rainy days had caused mold to grow and had caused it to warp. Ian and Isabel had a bamboo kind of love.

  Gray drove south on La Brea Avenue to Baldwin Hills. The fancy black neighborhood at the top enjoyed views of downtown Los Angeles or the Pacific Ocean. The neighborhood at the bottom, originally nicknamed “the Jungle,” but not for Grandpa’s racist reasons, also enjoyed some of those views—that is, if the windows hadn’t been boarded up or covered in aluminum foil.

  There was less congestion in this part of town than the Westside. More brown faces. More Bantu knots and Brazilian blowouts. Barbecue, Baptists, buñuelos y bebidas. More Mickie D’s and Del Tacos tag-teaming in the Diabetes Hypertension Die-Off.

  Isabel Lincoln lived closer to the fancier neighborhood. Here, gray-and-white condominiums on Don Lorenzo Drive sat across from the Stocker Corridor hillside trail. For a so-called white girl, Isabel Lincoln had chosen one of the most colored places to live.

  Gray parked south of the security gate.

  She was fifteen minutes early.

  Her phone chirped: Ian.

  You meet her co-workers?

  Yes, but I won’t have anything to report if I tell you everything now.

  He sent a smile emoji.

  See you at Iz’s condo at five. It’s a little hard to find.

  Be careful it’s rough over there.

  Gray had dated “woke” white boys who thought all black neighborhoods were “rough.” Dealing with this kind of muted racism—“Essence magazine is reverse discrimination,” wah-wah-wah—had been an exhausting journey of tight-lipped hostility mixed with astounding sex.…

  Yeah, she’d do it again.

  She found Isabel Lincoln’s Facebook profile. The missing woman liked “Keep Calm” memes, Grumpy Cat and UCLA Bruins, Friends and Sprinkles cupcakes. The last picture, posted on May 20, had been a tribe photo—Isabel and her friends in a selfie huddle. The missing woman stood in the back of the pack with her eyes hidden by shades. The toughest days are easier with your girls in front of you.

  May 17. The orange tabby, Morris, lounged in a laundry basket. The responses to this post were all sad-face emojis, RIPs, and “So sorry, Izzy.” No condolences, though, from Ian O’Donnell.

  April 6. A group of friends, wine tasting. Glasses of reds, whites, and sparklings. Isabel, not in the shot, had probably taken the picture. When life gives you lemons, drink wine.

  Relationship status … There was no relationship status. Hell, there were no pictures of Ian O’Donnell anywhere.

  Ian O’Donnell’s Facebook page, on the other hand, captured a full-blown romance, mostly with himself and, in second place, with Kenny G. His most recent post: a picture of himself speaking at the California Endowment about building healthy communities. Other posts included shots of him and Isabel at an Adele concert. He and Kenny G. on a sailboat, in a convertible Porsche, and sharing an ice cream cone. There was a picture of a UCLA Medical Center billboard that featured Ian.

  A simple web search pulled up almost five million results for “Isabel Lincoln,” but only two of those—both UCLA-related—could be obviously tied to Gray’s missing woman. She consulted the text filled with Isabel’s friends and family and selected “Tea.” In a text message, Gray told Tea that she was looking into Isabel’s … “situation” and that she’d like to talk with Tea as soon as possible.

  No response from Tea.

  Gray climbed out of the Camry to stretch her legs.

  The sun was still burning trees and hillsides, and sweat sizzled down Gray’s spine. She could taste the air—it tasted like ground black pepper and wood chips.

  Needing to stretch more, she strolled over to the condominium’s gated entry.

  Isabel Lincoln’s porch was just a few feet from the gate. There were no piled-up newspapers or dead leaves blown onto the welcome mat by the wind … unlike the entry gate with its janky lock, now creaking open from the slight breeze. Creaking open just … like … that.

  Gray slipped through the gate, then pulled it until she heard the lock click. Wouldn’t want trespassers sneaking through to start trouble. She strolled to Isabel’s porch as though she belonged there, then knocked on the front door, because she was polite and maybe the missing woman wasn’t missing but was hunkered on the couch with a bottle of pinot noir and a pack of Nutter Butters, streaming Empire on her sixty-inch television and being secretly black.

  “She ain’t there, baby.” An old woman with the wide, freckled face of Maya Angelou and the floral housecoat of old ladies everywhere stood in her open doorway across the breezeway she shared with Isabel Lincoln. Judge Judy’s televised voice—“You picked her”—played from the living room.

  Caught, Gray startled, but then she pushed a smile to her face. “Hi! I’m Maya, one o
f Izzy’s friends.” She nodded to the door. “She’s supposed to be coming back. Her birthday’s tomorrow and we’re planning to surprise her.”

  The old lady grinned, and her clouded eyes twinkled. “Sure makes me happy hearing that she’s okay. She ain’t usually gone this long, just a week or two, but this time…”

  “You are…”

  “Beatrice Tompkins.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Gray cocked her head. “Yes, we were all caught off guard with her leaving this last time. Especially since she left upset.”

  “I can tell when she and her doctor be fighting,” Beatrice Tompkins said. “Sometimes I can hear ’em yelling and carrying on like someone being killed. But then, the next day, he come out as nice as pie. Like butter don’t melt in his mouth, that doctor. I ain’t ever spent more than two minutes with him, but he mean as a snake. I know that like I know day follows night.”

  Gray rolled her eyes with mock exasperation. “We’re not too fond of him, either. We were hoping that she’d finally break up with him for good.” She moved closer to the old woman and glimpsed a living room filled with a sofa, an armchair covered in multicolored crocheted blankets, and a modern-day television with its volume up to eight hundred.

  “Well, that morning, she had her suitcase and whoosh”—Beatrice Tompkins lifted her arms like Superman in flight—“she was gone. Got in that car—”

  “Her car?”

  “No, not her car. Her car is still parked back there.” The woman nodded to her left.

  “So when did she get in this car?”

  “That Monday. Memorial Day. She got in a black truck, not a car, and whoosh…” Another Superman.

  Gray asked, “Did she have Ian’s dog with her?”

  “Dog? I ain’t seen no dog. He don’t seem like the dog type. He treat her like one.”

  “Ha. Not like he treats this dog. He treats Kenny G.—”

  “Kenny what?”

  “Kenny G. Cuz the dog’s hair is curly like the guy who plays the sax?”

  The old lady grunted. “I only started to worry about Isabel when the police came by and asked me some questions. But if you’re here and she’s supposed to be home soon, that means I ain’t gotta worry no more.”

  “What did the cops ask?”

  “Oh … wasn’t nothing about her.” She tilted her head and squinted into the distance. “They asked about somebody named … oh … my memory … Lisa, I think they said. If a Lisa lived in the complex. Asked if people I didn’t know was hanging around. I told ’em that I didn’t know no Lisa and can’t nobody get past them gates without a key or a code.”

  Gray had gotten in without either a key or a code.

  “Okay, I’m wrong,” the old lady said. “This one man, he was more of a giant than a man, he kept knocking at the gate. One time, somebody let him in, and he knocked on Isabel’s door. He knocked on mine, too, but I didn’t answer.”

  “Black guy? White guy?”

  “Okay, I’m wrong,” Mrs. Tompkins said. “There were two men. One was black—he came by last month. And then there was a white man. He looked I-talian. He started coming by last week. I didn’t answer my door for him, either.”

  “Well, she’s supposed to come home tomorrow, but she’s being very unpredictable right now.” Gray narrowed her eyes. “Did you see the person driving the black truck?”

  Beatrice Tompkins pooched her lips. “No. The sun was high. Couldn’t see cuz of the shadow. But I ain’t never seen that truck before. Other cars, yes, but not that truck. It was one of them ugly-looking things with the big wheels and the metal bars and the loud engine that go bup-bup-bup? I was still hearing it ten miles away.”

  Gray glanced back at Isabel’s front door. “I don’t see any water bottles or newspapers out. Have any of her other friends…”

  Beatrice Tompkins laughed. “Ain’t nobody else come round here. Not that I can remember. I got a key to her place, so I’ve been taking everything in. I used to take care of Morris sometimes. You know, feed him, clean his litter box, keep him company whenever she was out of town.”

  “Poor kitty,” Gray said. “She loved that cat.”

  “Oh yes she did. I can let you in, if you need. She left a message on my machine a few days after she left. She said that you’d be coming by to pick up some mail and her key.”

  Gray’s skin tightened. “Huh?”

  But the old lady had already shuffled back into her home. “Took you a long time to come round. Hold on.”

  Panic exploded near Gray’s heart. She said that you’d be coming by. What did that mean? “She?” Who? “You?” Who?

  “I found the key,” Beatrice Tompkins shouted.

  A camel-colored man with broad shoulders and a crew cut strolled in from the entry gate. He wore army fatigues and clean boots. As broad as a linebacker, he was several inches taller than Gray, six feet at least. “May I help you?” he asked.

  “Kevin,” the old lady called out, “that you?”

  He kept his gaze on Gray, and shouted, “Yes, Mom. It’s me.”

  Gray offered her hand. “Hi. I’m Maya.” She pointed to Isabel’s door. “Her friend.” The lie made Gray buoyant and light as a balloon. So far, lying was her favorite part of the job.

  The old lady returned to the breezeway with three keys on a pink ribbon. To her son, she said, “How you doing, baby?”

  Kevin kissed the top of his mother’s snowy head. “Mom, you should be resting.”

  She waved her hand at that. “What you think I been doing all day?”

  He frowned. “Just because your hip feels like it’s healed, doesn’t mean—”

  “Boy, hush now.” She touched the soldier’s chest, then turned to Gray. “I’ll let you in.”

  Kevin glared at Gray and shook his head.

  Gray’s stomach wobbled, and her open mouth popped closed, then opened again to say, “That’s okay, Mrs. Tompkins. Really. Kevin’s right—you should be resting.”

  Her phone wiggled in her hand and she glanced at the screen. Tea!

  “You sure?” Mrs. Tompkins asked.

  Gray met Kevin’s eyes—hard, dark, resolved—and glanced at her phone again. “I’m positive.” She offered the old woman a reassuring smile. “Thanks so much for helping Izzy. You’re incredibly kind.”

  “I can’t wait to see her,” Beatrice Tompkins said. “Maybe she’ll have dinner with my Kevin. He’s been in the army going on fifteen years. He’s a sergeant now. He likes fishing and photography and he’s the most generous man she’ll ever meet. And he’s handsome, too.”

  Kevin almost smiled. “Okay, Mom.” To Gray, he said, “Nice meeting you, Maya.”

  Gray hurried back to her car, praying that Tea Christopher’s message would bring her one step closer to Isabel Lincoln.

  8

  Back in the Camry, Gray read Tea Christopher’s text message.

  Did Ian hire you? I have nothing to say

  Frustration, anger, distrust—each emotion bristled from those nine words.

  I don’t want her to come back. If you met him you’d know how awful he is.

  Gray had met him, and now she wanted to drive back to UCLA and yell in Ian O’Donnell’s face, Just leave her the fuck alone! This was so unfair, so unnecessary, and she was pissed that Nick had given her this case.

  I told her to move on but now he wants her to come back and I don’t so NO I’M NOT TALKING TO YOU. BE blessed.

  Gray laughed—Be blessed—and that relieved some of the tension in her shoulders.

  If Ian was truly an abuser, as Beth had suggested, Tea was probably the frustrated BFF who had stayed up late at night consoling her distraught friend. Tea had probably cried, I’ll do anything for you, Izzy, I don’t care. Let’s just go. You can’t let him do this. Words that all concerned friends said out of desperation. Words that ultimately fell on deaf ears. Words like:

  Well, when is the right time to leave?

  Do you hear yourself?

  What kind of l
ife is this?

  But words? Just distinct elements of speech used with other elements to make a sentence or to form a thought. As concrete as air.

  Gray paused before responding, and her fingers hovered over the phone’s keyboard. Her body hot again, she watched a hawk circle the sky as she waited for her pulse to slow.

  3 minutes, 3 questions. Then you’ll never have to hear from me again.

  Back at the condos, Kevin was pushing a trash bin to the curbside. Dressed in those fatigues, he looked heroic, strong, like America back in its heyday, America before the Nazis and the anthem and the uranium and the wall and the treason and the porn stars.

  Another text, from an unknown number.

  Gray read words—distinct elements as concrete as air—that stole breath from her chest. Words that screamed at her from the seven-inch screen.

  PLEASE LET ME BE MISSING!

  9

  Please let me be missing!

  Not typical for a missing woman to respond with text messages. One didn’t need to be a cop to know that missing women usually communicated via left-behind femurs or ragged fingernails crammed with the scraped skin of their murderers. Not Isabel Lincoln. She was one of a kind.

  And now Gray had proof in her hands.

  Isabel Lincoln was alive!

  Excitement bounced around her chest—she was talking with her target! And doing it on the first day of the investigation!

  The text message had been sent from a phone with a 702 area code. Las Vegas.

  I promise I will let you stay missing but you have to help me first.

  Day was dying in the west, and the dying sun had tinted the sky carnival pink. It was hot in the Camry, and it smelled of yesterday’s In-N-Out burger and cold French fries.

  Gray saved the 702 number in the “Lincoln case” contacts list, then sent a message to Clarissa, her coworker at Rader Consulting: Please find out more re: this number ASAP origin, IP, whatever, thanks!

  And how would Isabel Lincoln respond? The missing woman wasn’t Gray’s client—Isabel’s jerky boyfriend was. Also? How had Isabel found Gray’s unlisted number, created just hours ago on a Burner account? Had Tea given it to Isabel?