And Now She's Gone

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  “Like you, I want the words coming out of both of our mouths to be clear. What you’re telling me is … explosive.”

  “I know.”

  “When did he hit her?”

  “The last time was in April.”

  “Did she take pictures afterward?”

  “Maybe. Probably.” Calm, Tea folded her hands atop the table. “You saw him today?”

  Gray nodded.

  “On Valentine’s Day, Isabel cooked for him, since it was their first Valentine’s together. She bought this special outfit and everything. Decorated the condo. Totally romantic. He was supposed to come over at seven that night, but he didn’t show up. Eight o’clock and still no Ian. He called her at ten, claiming that he had to take his mother to the emergency room.”

  “Was he lying?”

  “He said that he had called Isabel and had left messages…”

  “But?”

  “But Isabel was so upset that she didn’t hear her phone ring. Knowing Ian, though, he probably lied and didn’t leave any messages but then blamed her for not picking them up. He did stuff like that all the time. Make her think that she was the crazy one.”

  Sadie returned to their booth, holding a tray filled with dinner plates. To Gray, she said, “This is for you. From Hank.” She set down a margarita and a note scribbled on a napkin.

  “You licked it so it’s yours.”

  Gray’s face warmed, and she didn’t dare look over at him, out of fear she’d kaboom! and leave pieces of herself all over the piñatas and sombreros.

  Across from her, Isabel’s best friend was whispering a blessing over her meal. Then Tea grabbed the bottle of Cholula and dumped about thirty cups of it onto her torta. “Did he tell you about Memorial Day weekend?”

  “A little, but her coworkers told me that she was upset on that Friday.”

  “You went to the Alumni Center?” Tea asked, eyes big.

  “Yeah. They were very helpful.”

  “Isabel and Ian had been arguing all week. They were supposed to go out of town that Friday night. He didn’t show up, though. So, remembering what he did on Valentine’s Day, Isabel drove to his house. He lives over by the Farmers Market, off Fairfax.” Tea took a big bite of torta and meat tumbled from the bun to the plate. “Anyway, she knocked, because he never gave her a key, even though he has keys to her mailbox and to her front door. So he answered but wouldn’t let her in. That’s when she saw one of his nurses—”

  “Blonde?” Gray asked. “Pretty? Looks like Michelle Pfeiffer?”

  “Uh-huh. You meet her?”

  “No. She popped in his office while we were talking.”

  “Well,” Tea continued, “Isabel saw her—her name’s Trinity—standing in his bedroom door and—” Tears shimmered in Tea’s eyes and beaded on those magnificent eyelashes. “She was so upset, cuz she knew for sure now that he was cheating on her. She shouted at him, and he slapped her, right there, in front of his other woman, then kicked Isabel out.

  “She called me around ten, eleven o’clock that night, and I’m listening to her, and I’m saying to myself, She doesn’t sound right. She was talking slow and strange. I drove over to her place, and the door was unlocked, and so I went in, and there she was, on the bathroom floor, and there were pills…” Tea covered her mouth with her hand to tamp back a sob. “Pills everywhere.”

  Gray’s ears warmed and she put a shaky hand atop Tea’s trembling wrist. “So, she tried to commit suicide? Ian says—”

  “I know what Ian says,” Tea snapped. “She wouldn’t let me call nine-one-one. She wouldn’t let me take her to the doctor—especially since he probably knew all the emergency room docs in L.A. She told me that if God wanted her to live, she’d live. So I just sat there with her, and I prayed that He’d save her, and I prayed and hoped that she hadn’t taken enough pills.

  “She made it through Friday night. Was sick, though, all Saturday and Sunday. It was God’s will that she survived.”

  “And then she left on Monday?”

  Tea nodded.

  According to Mrs. Tompkins, Isabel had climbed into a black truck that Monday morning.

  “What about her family?” Gray asked. “What did they say?”

  “She didn’t tell her parents,” Tea said, nibbling shredded lettuce. “She knew that they’d write her out of their will or something if she didn’t get therapy, go to rehab, or do whatever happens after suicide attempts. So we kept it secret.”

  “And her other friends—did they know?”

  “What other friends?”

  “The ones I see on her Facebook page. Wine tasting in Temecula and brunch—”

  “Oh. Them. They’re not her real friends,” Tea said, chin high. “They’re more for show. For drinking—cuz I don’t drink. I don’t know them and I don’t want to know them. They want her to stay with Ian. For his money and for his status, for all of the material things he gives her. Isabel could never admit to them … to women like that … that she’s … that Ian’s…”

  Gray nodded, understanding. “Do they know that she’s gone?”

  Tea shrugged.

  “You haven’t told them?”

  “No. They’re not worried about her, either. They don’t miss her. Not one of them has reached out to me and she’s been gone all of June, most of July, and her birthday is tomorrow, and they’re busy drinking and smoking weed and sleeping around. They’re partly responsible for Isabel’s depression. She was becoming like them—her soul was conflicted.”

  “So, you told Ian that Isabel tried to kill herself. And he said…”

  “He said, ‘She can’t even die right.’”

  “You heard him say that?”

  “No. That’s what he texted.”

  “To you?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Like, a few days after everything happened.”

  “Isabel was long gone by then.”

  Tea nodded.

  “You were still in contact with her.”

  Tea nodded again.

  “But Ian didn’t think anything was wrong…”

  “Until around June first. That’s when he contacted the police. He tried calling her, but she wouldn’t answer. He went to her place, but she was gone. Then he claimed that she stole Kenny G. That’s why he hired you. He doesn’t care about her—he just wants his damned dog.”

  “Speaking of the dog…”

  “Isabel always took care of him, cuz of Ian’s schedule. He’s as much her dog as his.”

  “But he bought the dog, Tea. He probably pays the license for the dog, and I think you’re right—he cares more about the dog than about her. But she has to give him back. I can arrange for a swap. Or you can retrieve him and bring him back.”

  “I’ll ask Isabel, but don’t hold your breath.” A tear tumbled down Tea’s cheek and she dabbed it with a knuckle. “She knew that he didn’t care. She knew that he wanted her dead, and she decided to leave—for good this time.”

  Gray’s insides were pinballing. Wanted her dead? “He told me that she’s left before.”

  “And he’d always sweet talk her into coming back. And when the sweet talk failed, he threatened her into coming back.”

  “How did he threaten her?” Gray fought back tears. Maybe Nick had been right. Maybe it was too soon for her to work a case like this.

  “He said…” Tea traced her finger through the lettuce and cheese debris on the table. She was overheating in that sweater set and perspiration trickled down her temple. “He said that he’d hurt somebody she loved. At first she didn’t believe him, but then he poisoned her cat.”

  Gray’s lungs tightened. Ian had denied any involvement in Morris’s death. “How?”

  “The vet found rat poison in Morris’s system. Isabel had no choice but to euthanize him.”

  “How do you know that Ian … I mean, cats always get into shit. Morris could’ve found…” She stopped speaking, since Tea kept shaking her head. “Okay
, so he maybe killed the cat.”

  “We know that he killed the cat.”

  Gray sipped the margarita, not really tasting it. A good thing, since she hated tequila. She loved martinis—dirty, pink, Gibsons, and vespers. But she’d abandoned that life, and those cocktails.

  “Listen, Tea. I understand everything you’ve just told me, and I’m so sorry that Isabel’s in this situation. But I can’t just tell Ian that she’s fine, that Kenny G. is fine, and that he should just move on. I’m gonna need proof.”

  Tea squinted at Gray. “What kind of proof?”

  “Specifically, a picture of Isabel holding tomorrow’s newspaper, a picture of her left thigh, a handwritten statement that says she’s okay, along with answers to three security questions. And I need Kenny G. to be in the newspaper picture.”

  On a napkin, Gray jotted down these instructions, along with her email address. “Quick question: Did you give Isabel my phone number?”

  Tea folded the napkin into a small square. “I did. I thought she should know that he was trying to find her, and that he hired you.”

  The Corona sign threw weak gold and blue light over the empty plates. This case reminded Gray of the shredded cheese and lettuce scattered all around the table. She wanted to ask Tea about the black truck and the early-morning ride—and she wanted to ask about Omar, especially—but her gut told her to wait.

  “So, do you know where she is?” Gray asked instead. “Does she need anything? Money or a plane ticket…”

  Tea shook her head. “Everything about Ian is a lie. He didn’t love her. He was never in love with her. And if she ever comes back, she’s gonna tell the California Medical Board everything, about every punch and kick she took from him. They’re gonna revoke his license.”

  “The police—”

  “We never called the police. Calling the police would’ve made Ian angrier.”

  In some cases, restraining orders fed the beast instead of tamed it. Sometimes, restraining orders offered a sense of false security when it was only a paper shield. As though an asshole who had shoved, kicked, beaten, and strangled his lover would follow and respect the law. And then there was this: violating a restraining order was a misdemeanor. A bug bite, not even from a Zika-infested mosquito. What rhinoceros was scared of a common mosquito?

  Isabel not going to the law for protection?

  Gray understood that more than anything.

  “Isabel’s fine,” Tea said. “She has money, she has a gun, and she has … me.”

  Isabel had a gun?

  Shit.

  Nick thought Ian O’Donnell didn’t seem violent enough to warrant a weapon, but Gray also knew better than that. They never seemed violent enough … until it was too late and their knuckles were already dripping with blood.

  EIGHT YEARS AGO

  UNFORGETTABLE

  It was their first anniversary, and for the third time that night, Sean danced with Georgina, the Brit with bad bangs who was over corporate accounts at SD Promotions. And now Mrs. Dixon knew that she’d have to say something, and she knew that he’d glare at her like he’d glared at her on the day after her birthday, just two weeks before—the birthday he’d forgotten.

  An argument on their first freaking anniversary.

  Back in their suite, Mrs. Dixon set on the bed a bucket of quarters that she’d won from playing slots. She’d played alone. Her nerves were tight by then, snake-in-the-grass tight, monster-in-the-closet tight. “Was I supposed to tell him, No, thanks, I’ll pass on taking two hundred fifty dollars?” she finally asked her husband. “What should I have done?”

  Sean didn’t respond. He cracked open a can of Coke from the bar, then poured that and two mini bottles of Jack Daniel’s into a glass. He swirled the mixture with his pinkie and kept his hard eyes on the window overlooking the Strip.

  “Sean,” Mrs. Dixon pleaded, “please answer me and stop pouting.” Her resolve to be “right” had folded over and it was hard for her to breathe and plead at the same time.

  But she knew now: even though this moment hadn’t been Indecent Proposal, that’s exactly what she should have done. No one had offered Sean a million dollars—and she never would have slept with the Texan anyway. Still, she apologized. “I’ll never do it again, okay? Sean. It was harmless fun, I would’ve—”

  He rushed toward her, veered at the last moment, and slapped the bucket on the bed. Quarters exploded like tiny grenades around the room. “How do you think it made me feel,” he shouted, “seeing my wife whore herself out like that?”

  She stepped to him, the daughter of a Bureau man who had told her to never take shit from anybody. Nostrils flared, Mrs. Dixon shouted, “Who the hell are you calling a whore?”

  Sean growled, “I know you better step the hell away from me, bitch.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Or what?” That was the daughter of a public school teacher, who’d told her that bullies didn’t like to be challenged and would pull back if they were.

  But Sean didn’t retreat. He grabbed her arm, grabbed it so hard that she gagged from surprise. She tried to pull free from his grip, but his fingers only tightened. He reached with his other hand and clutched her throat and she could barely let out a cry of surprise. Then he shoved her and she flipped back over the couch and splashed into the Jacuzzi, coming to a stop with a bone-breaking bang.

  That moment was like … like … one of those tornadoes spouting over Illinois, randomly dropping, all dark, mean, and sudden.

  Sean didn’t speak. He just gaped at his wife, a wet mess now, struggling and slipping out onto the carpet. And then, he … left the room. No “Good-bye,” no “I’ll be back.” He just … left.

  The fall hadn’t broken any of her bones, but it had broken plenty of other things.

  Mrs. Dixon cried as the city beyond those floor-to-ceiling windows shimmered and sparkled. Magic! Loose slots! Girls! Lobster! She spent the night searching for quarters, a diversion from the sudden mess in her life. She winced with every pull of breath into her lungs. Pain ricocheted from her eyes to her tailbone to the web of skin and cartilage around her ankles.

  She had no one to contact. Her friends hated Sean, and over the year, Mrs. Dixon had stopped calling Avery, Zoe, and Jay. She’d still been invited to birthday parties, cookouts, and Zoe’s engagement dinner, but her friends’ lives were so … different from hers. Avery and Zoe still lived in Northern California, and Jay lived in North Vegas, twelve miles away from Mrs. Dixon’s home in Summerlin. It had become the longest twelve miles in the history of the earth.

  Cleave to your husband. Faye had, even after Victor’s death, which led to her own death.

  Mrs. Dixon’s mind worked frantically until it found memories of Faye and Victor, rest their souls. Victor had been an FBI agent in San Francisco’s field office, and Faye had been his public school teacher wife. They hadn’t been violent toward each other, not ever. A stable and loving environment. Black excellence. It’s what we expect from you. That’s what Faye and Victor always told her.

  But this—sprawled out on a chaise longue in tears? This wasn’t black excellence.

  Do something. That’s what Dad would have told her. Mom would have folded her arms, cocked an eyebrow, and said, “Well?”

  Mrs. Dixon crept down to the closest coin collector in the casino and converted those quarters into cash—another seventy-five dollars for her rainy-day fund.

  Back in the room, she wrote the first entry in the Tiffany leather journal that Sean had just given her to celebrate their first anniversary: The night did not go well. She could still smell her fear, his breath, and those quarters. Tears slapped at the words on the page as she chronicled the push, the cut that resulted from biting her lip during the tumble, and Sean’s disappearance. The pain from all over her body gathered in her right hand as she wrote in great detail, preserving the moment like a lepidopterist pinning down a Sapho longwing butterfly. As Dr. Underhill had told her throughout her therapy, journaling relieved t
he pressure, caused her thinking to slow, squeezed at the fear. And soon she had filled those pages with her fears, along with dates, descriptions of how Sean had hurt her, and the threats that he’d made.

  Any time she wrote in that journal, she’d hide it in the secret pockets of her designer handbags or beneath the false bottom of the waste can in her bathroom. She’d think, This is ridiculous, but she never stopped hiding it. All day she’d write, since she had no job—he didn’t want her to work. She scavenged and saved any money she found in his clothes, in the washing machine and dryer. Sometimes the money jingled. Sometimes, if she lucked out, the money folded. And the rings—she always had Faye’s rings and her rings just in case.…

  But on this night, just a year married, she hadn’t thought that far ahead, and only one page of that fancy leather journal had been filled.

  Around three in the morning, Sean returned to their suite.

  She pretended to be asleep.

  He didn’t breach the bedroom’s doorway. No, he just stood there, his shadow growing loud and long. Finally, he retreated, and then … music. Luther Vandross on the stereo. The hell?

  Mrs. Dixon lay with one foot on the ground as Luther sang about the time when she played her sweet guitar. She didn’t know what to think. Sean wasn’t like that. Obviously angry, cartoonishly possessive. He hadn’t been drunk, which would have made sense. She’d seen that sort of anger before. She’d been slapped, pushed, pinched in those hard times. Always on display, that kind of violence. And she cried in bed as Luther Vandross, her favorite crooner, sang strange-sounding love songs from the other room.

  This couldn’t be Sean.

  No.

  That’s what she told herself the next morning as she stood, puffy-eyed, in front of the bathroom mirror with light that, just the day before, had made her look glamorous. That light now made the cut on her lip, the tender purple bruise around her right bicep, and the matching bruise at her kidney appear uglier and meaner than they were. Yeah, the light did that.

  Sean came into the bathroom and stood behind her. He met her eyes in the mirror’s reflection. “We got a little carried away, huh?” He wore 501s and his favorite V-neck sweater over a white T-shirt. Nice Guy uniform. He swiped his hand across his beautiful face.