And Now She's Gone

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  And if she could prove it was necessary, Nick would help Isabel Lincoln start a new life, too.

  HE HAD TO STOP HER

  12

  Gray made her way to Sam Jose’s, just a mile west, heading away from that copper sun drifting down to the horizon. “I’m a P.I.,” she said, smiling at her reflection in the rearview mirror. She was now a helper. No longer a runner, not anymore.

  Tonight, Jennifer drove a metallic-turquoise BMW—it was the brightest, slickest car in the Sam Jose’s parking lot. Her third husband, Reynaldo, owned a car rental business near the airport, and Jennifer often drove the exotics as advertising. With that paint job and tricked-out engine, the car cost more than $100,000, but any Joe with a decent credit rating could rent it for $699. The red banner plastered to the passenger window screamed, “ASK ME!”

  Gray didn’t spot Zadie’s battered Subaru or Clarissa’s tiny Fiat—they’d probably carpooled for the short drive from the office.

  Sam Jose’s doubled as the archive for all Mexican kitsch in Los Angeles, the “starting over again” place if an asteroid struck Olvera Street. Gray couldn’t see her three coworkers past the glares of neon beer signs, multicolored Christmas lights, or dangling maracas. Dia de los Muertos this, Lucha libre that, sombreros and piñatas in every empty space.

  Hank Wexler was shaking a martini at the bar.

  Aware that she was sweaty, stained, and wrinkled, Gray hunched to make herself smaller as she slunk across the cantina’s tiled floor.

  Hank saw her and paused midshake, ruining what would have been a pretty swell cocktail.

  Gray tossed him a bashful wave and mouthed, Hey.

  Hank tossed her a smile and a “Hey.”

  “We’re over here!” Jennifer’s words were slurred—blame the tall glass of Long Island Iced Tea in her hand. “You look like you rode a goat here or something.”

  “I did. Billy says, ‘Yo.’” Gray slid into the booth beside Zadie and studied the fallen margarita waiting on her place setting. “It’s damn near melted.”

  “Next time,” Zadie growled, “get here quicker.”

  Clarissa tugged at her pink-streaked ponytail. “Dude, I’ll drink it if you, like, don’t want it. I’m not driving—Irving’s picking me up.” The Chinese American millennial reached for the margarita, but Gray slapped at her hand.

  Irving Hwang and Clarissa planned to marry in mid-August. Despite their digging, Clarissa and Jennifer couldn’t find one obviously malicious thing about the skinny Taiwanese accountant who now worked in the United States on a visa and loved everything American, including blondes, burgers, and, oh yeah, Clarissa.

  “Hank over there says our first round is on the house.” Zadie drained her gin fizz, then added, “That man’s got it bad for you.”

  “Just like my bae has it bad for me,” Clarissa chirped.

  Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. I’ve met Irving—he is not a ‘bae.’” She pointed at Gray. “Don’t you have another outfit?”

  Gray said, “I didn’t have time to change.”

  Jennifer pounded the table. “Make time. You wanna look your sexiest, right? And I saw how you tried to sneak in, hoping he didn’t see you. So. Next time. Some wipes. Something black, something flattering. More effort, Grayson.”

  Gray had nothing except, “You’re a boozy fount of drunken wisdom, Jen.”

  “Glad you finally recognize that.” Jennifer sucked down more of her cocktail. “I ordered you a salad. No tacos.”

  “What?”

  “No gassy foods, remember?” Clarissa said. “You’re literally still recovering.”

  “Remember how you thought you were dying,” Jennifer said, “and you collapsed in the bathroom and I came in and found you and it’s all because you ate that burrito?”

  Gray remembered that delicious burrito she’d eaten two weeks after her appendectomy, and, more than that, she remembered the incapacitating pain that came afterward. She’d gone to a clinic—they said it was just gas. Worse, that same clinic had a data breach days later and thousands of patient names and credit card data had been stolen. That delicious burrito hadn’t been worth the trouble.

  Zadie swirled the ice in her glass. “Jankowski was looking for you. Something about your W-2 form, now that you’re full-time.”

  Gray tried to stir the margarita back to life. “I haven’t filled one out.”

  Jankowski wouldn’t pay her directly anyway. Instead, Rader Consulting paid Renata Dawn LLC, Gray’s DBA. She’d asked Nick to explain the setup to Jankowski and guessed he hadn’t. Paperwork. Nick hated paperwork.

  “So, your first case, right?” Clarissa said. “Somebody, like, lost their keys?”

  “Did you read the text I sent you about two hours ago?” Gray asked.

  “You sent me a text?” Clarissa swiped around her phone. “Didn’t know that I should be paying attention. You’re actually on a case case.”

  Gray squinted at her. “I am.”

  “I’ll take care of it tonight. Oh. Good news: he’s safe.”

  “Who’s safe?”

  “Hank the bartender,” Clarissa said. “I literally ran a background check on him. He bought this place four years ago. Honorable discharge from the Marines ten years ago, after a couple of tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. No kids. Had a wife but they got divorced a year later. He owns a cabin up in Big Bear and a duplex not far from here. He gives money to vets, animals, and cancer research. Two credit cards, a car note, no priors, no college degree, a new refrigerator, and a Husky named Sir. He’s, like, literally the perfect man.” She sat back in the booth and grinned. “I say go for it. Netflix and chill.”

  Gray cocked her head. “You did all of this and yet you didn’t see my text message?”

  Jennifer looked over her shoulder at the proprietor of the best cantina in Culver City. “And if you won’t get with him, I will.”

  Clarissa gasped. “You’re married.”

  “You’ll understand one day,” Jennifer said. “Marriage is hard. Right, Zadie?”

  The old woman snorted. “You know what my husband did.”

  Jennifer sipped from her glass. “Neither you nor Gray understand just how much compromise is needed in a marriage.”

  “You’ve been married three times,” Gray pointed out, eyebrow cocked.

  “That’s three more times than you,” Jennifer said. “That’s because I go for it. What’s the saying? Don’t talk about it, be about it.”

  Gray chuckled. “You learned a lot of black shit from husband number two, didn’t you? And anyway, I plan to ‘be about it’ with Mr. Wexler over there.”

  “When?” the trio asked.

  Gray blushed. “Tonight. Maybe.”

  Jennifer and Clarissa high-fived.

  “So, what’s your case about?” Clarissa asked.

  “No, no, no, no, no.” Jennifer flapped her hands. “No shop talk. It’s time for tacos and sex talk and margaritas.”

  The four women said nothing for a moment.

  Finally, Gray said, “A guy lost his girlfriend, who stole his dog.”

  Clarissa asked, “Was he cheating?”

  “Not sure yet, but I suspect so. I told the girlfriend’s pal to meet me here tonight.” Gray’s eyes skipped around the cantina, looking for anyone resembling a “Tea.”

  There was a guy with bad facial hair, studying the menu as though it were the Torah.

  There were four Golden Girls types nursing glasses of white wine.

  Other customers watched the Dodgers game on the television over at the bar.

  “You told her to come here?” Zadie asked.

  “That”—Jennifer raised a finger—“is a big no-no. Don’t ever mix business with pleasure. This place? This place is your safe place. Where you can be all that you can be. Cuz what if this Tea likes it and comes back and you can’t chill here anymore? So: bad girl.” She tapped Gray’s hand. “Bad.”

  “You’re right,” Gray said. “Stupid idea. Too late now.”


  “Anyway,” Jennifer said, “your client hit her and then she left.”

  “He hit her,” Zadie said, “cheated on her, hit her again, and then she left.”

  “Dude killed her,” Clarissa said. “They always do, you know. Like the nut who totally showed up at that lady’s school and literally shot up her classroom.”

  “Or the nut who showed up to the house wearing a Santa suit,” Zadie added.

  Jennifer squinted. “The one with the flamethrower?”

  Zadie frowned. “Where the hell do you buy a flamethrower?”

  “Amazon,” Gray said. “And this woman’s alive. She asked that I stop looking for her.”

  Clarissa canted her head. “You sure that was her?”

  Gray’s face burned. “I … just assumed … Shit.”

  Zadie said, “Don’t ever assume anyone is telling you the truth. No need to stress about it now—you’re gonna make mistakes.”

  Clarissa eased an ice cube from her glass, into her mouth. “If that was her, and she is alive, then she’s, like, totally stupid.”

  Gray clenched the thick stem of the margarita glass. “I wouldn’t use that word to describe her—if it is her.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Clarissa said, chomping ice. “She’s literally stupid, cuz, like, why is she texting the fucking hunter? We, like, literally use all kinds of voodoo shit to, like, find people.”

  “It could be him,” Jennifer said. “The boyfriend, trying to throw you off the scent. Okay, say he has her phone and he cut her thumbs off to unlock her phone. He boards the dog and now he’s pretending to be her. He hires you so that people will think that he cares. And there you go, into the wild blue yonder, talking to her friends and to her family.

  “Meanwhile, she’s in his basement without any thumbs, and cuz he’s a doctor he knows how to cut the rest of her up, and then he’ll use his buddy’s yacht to throw pieces of her into the Pacific, cuz in Hermosa Beach right now there are some great whites swimming around, and so she’s eaten by the sharks but he’s still, ‘Where did she go and where’s my dog, blahblahblah.’”

  Gray shook her head. “I didn’t think of that. Again, you’re a fount of wisdom, Jen.”

  Ernesto, the waiter, dropped off their platters of food: tacos for everyone except Gray, who would enjoy a Mexican Caesar salad drowning in dressing.

  “You know,” Clarissa said, “the missing lady, like, needs to get a nose job, a boob job, and then fly to Machu Picchu or wherever, cuz you’re literally gonna find her once I look at her phone number. Sorry I didn’t see your text. My personal trainer is being such a brat and—”

  “What does your personal trainer have to do with you not doing your job?” Gray glanced over at Hank.

  He beckoned her to come over.

  The last time Hank had called Gray over, he’d offered her a sip of fifty-year-old Remy Martin. Afterward, they’d slipped into his office and onto his suede couch. For a cool ten minutes they made out like teenagers, with Gray’s hand shoved beneath his boxers and his hand shoved beneath her bra. Just as her other hand unbuttoned the fly of his 501s, Alex, the backup bartender, knocked on the office door and shouted that a bunch of college boys from Loyola Marymount had just arrived. Hank had kissed her nose and whispered, “Later?” Gray had nibbled his bottom lip. “Um-hmm.”

  Yeah, Hank was a Republican, but he kissed like a Democrat, and “later” was “now,” and who was she to ignore his efforts to put country before party?

  And now, Gray said, “Pardon me, ladies,” then eased out of the booth, with her margarita. Wrinkled linen pants and chocolate-stained shirt be damned.

  Clarissa shouted, “Be back in time for my bachelorette party.”

  Gray said, “Ha! Maybe,” even though she hadn’t planned to attend, because Clarissa’s party was in Las Vegas. She hated that place and had sworn never to return.

  Over at the bar, she slid her dying cocktail toward Hank’s enormous hands. “I’d like a refund, please. I like ’em strong.”

  “Oh, yeah?” His eyes twinkled with neon light.

  “I need it to work me over. Get me shook, you know?”

  His smile, those eyes—all of him made Gray dizzy and excited and a little disoriented. Like she had murdered the former Baptist-Catholic-atheist schoolgirl inside of her and now the slutty twin had taken her place, wearing Saturday panties on Tuesday.

  “How about … something now, and then something later?” Hank asked.

  “You’re so generous. So … dedicated to your craft.” She traced those Hebrew letters on his forearm, now tinted by the jeweled reds, yellows, and blues of Lucha Libre and Dos Equis.

  L’Shana Tova, Hava Nagila, olé.

  “Your friends are looking over here,” Hank said.

  “Let them look.” Her finger traced gimel and resh, letters that did, in fact, start her name.

  “No. Seriously.”

  She glanced back over her shoulder.

  A woman stood at the booth. Clarissa was now pointing at Gray.

  “New friend?” Hank asked.

  “Don’t know her.” Gray backed away from the former marine, not wanting to look away but knowing that, eventually, she had to. “Text me later?”

  He flashed that smile, and those eyes danced as he slid over to take a customer’s order.

  The visitor at Gray’s booth had skin the color of almonds. She smelled like bacon, which wasn’t the worst quality in a person. Except for poufy bangs, the visitor’s hair lived in long braids. A big girl, she stood about five nine, with shoulders slouching into her arms like a slug. She was melting in her turquoise sweater set.

  Gray said, “Hi.”

  The woman said, “Hello.”

  They looked at each other for a moment. “Are you Gray?”

  “Last time I checked, yeah.”

  “Isabel told me to tell you … She said to tell you … Fuck off.”

  13

  Fuck off.

  “Is that an exact quote?” Zadie asked.

  Gray said, “And you’re … who again?”

  “Tea Christopher.” The woman blinked at the quartet, through her thick-lensed, horn-rimmed glasses. “I don’t mean to curse, but I didn’t wanna water down what Isabel told me to say. She said it was very important that you knew it was her speaking and not me.”

  But Gray didn’t know Isabel, and she sure as hell didn’t know this woman, who smelled like breakfast. “Just to confirm: You’re Tea Tea?” she asked. “Isabel’s friend Tea?” Isabel with the Vogue cheekbones and the long ponytail? The Mary Ann with the hotshot doctor boyfriend?

  The woman said, “Not just her friend. Her best friend.”

  Clarissa said hi and then introduced herself, as though all of this was normal.

  “You’re not hot in that sweater?” Zadie asked.

  “I’m fine. Thank you.”

  Gray had pictured Tea as a tall, willowy blonde wearing Valentino slacks and a crisp blazer. Or the black Tea, with long dreadlocks, an R & B voice, and soulful brown eyes. Behind those bottle-bottom eyeglasses, this Tea had thick, gorgeous eyelashes like a cow’s. But there was dried blood around her torn cuticle, she was tall but not willowy, and the sweater set was more “way in the back of TJ Maxx” than anywhere at Neiman Marcus.

  The two women slid into the banquette.

  “Want a drink?” Gray asked.

  The young woman nibbled the hangnail on her thumb. “A Sprite?”

  “Sure.” Gray scanned the restaurant—no servers anywhere. Even Hank had disappeared. “Someone will be out in a minute. In the meantime, thanks for coming to see me. I know this must be difficult for you.”

  “I’d do anything for Isabel.” Tea went back to nibbling that hangnail.

  Gray smiled, hoping that Tea would see she had nothing to fear. “So, how long have you and Isabel been friends?”

  “For about three years. I knocked on her door to offer Bible study with my church. Mount Gethsemane over on Crenshaw, by Dulan’s? I was surpr
ised when she let me in, and we talked—about the Bible, about her life. The good and the bad. Mostly the bad. She’s so beautiful, but she needed more than someone saying how pretty she was. So we prayed, and then I picked her up for church that next Sunday and that was that. We’ve been inseparable ever since. Until now.” She glanced around the restaurant. “Is there food?”

  Gray wanted to say, Nope, no food at a Mexican restaurant. Only sombreros and empty piñatas. Instead, she said, “Umm…” and finally spotted a waitress near the kitchen.

  Tea ordered that Sprite, along with a flauta, a chimichanga, and a beef torta. “I haven’t eaten all day. And then, after work—”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a communications associate at a theater arts nonprofit. We put on plays and readings, teach makeup arts, that kind of thing. I’m responsible for newsletters and the blog.”

  This young woman was so well-spoken. Not a “like” or a “yup” or a “I can’t even” in the five minutes they’d spent together.

  “After work,” Tea continued, “I had to stop at church, and then I came here, so I haven’t eaten dinner yet.”

  Gray waved a hand. “It’s no problem.”

  “Is Grayson your real name?”

  Scalp tight and smile frozen in place, Gray nodded.

  Tea closed her eyes and whispered. After ending her prayer with “Amen,” the woman took a deep breath, slowly exhaled, then opened her eyes. “I just want the Holy Spirit to guide me, cuz the words that are about to come out of my mouth are mine, not Isabel’s. And I also prayed for you, Miss Sykes, that you do the right thing, that God guides your investigation. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “There are a lot of reasons Isabel left, and Ian is the cause for all of them. He hurt her so bad—physically hurt her—that she can’t even move her arm all the way—”

  Gray held up a hand. “Dr. O’Donnell abused her?” Just like she’d thought.

  Tea blinked her cow lashes. “Am I speaking Greek?”