He said nothing.
“I’m not giving up, all right? He will not win.”
“Natalie—Grayson. Shit.”
“I know. This is … I know.” And I’m sorry.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I’ll let you know.” She forced herself to smile and take in the city lights before her. “I hear Tahiti’s nice. We can open up a little bookstore and a coffee shop.”
He said, “Sure.”
Tears burned her eyes as she thought of returning to Monterey Bay and watching that ocean, drinking wine while reading a big book about Antarctica or the space race as fog slid off the ocean and settled around the hills. Doing that by herself—that was good. Doing that with Nick—that was good, too. But if she succeeded in doing what she’d planned to do, she couldn’t return to that house on the bay.
Nick didn’t ask if she was okay, probably because he knew that she’d have to be okay, or else. He also knew that she had a gun and would use it if needed.
“I still have your biscuits,” Gray said now. “But they’re cold and hard.” Just like my heart at this very moment.
He said, “Yeah. Thanks.”
“So, what’s this update you have about the Lincoln case?”
Trash bag in hand, she trekked to the kitchen, shoved the bag into the waste can, then pulled open the freezer door. She grabbed the icy bottle of vodka. Right then, she didn’t need olives or vermouth or a glass. Take that shit straight, that’s what Mom Twyla had always said before chugging from the bottle of Smirnoff. An elf with a gut, that had been Mom Twyla. All of her drinking and fried chicken and cheese had made her bloated and puffy. She’d squeezed into her clothes only to have the middle part of her whoopie pie beyond the shirttail and waistband. And she’d offer her foster daughter a sip of Smirnoff only after the bottle was nearly empty. Li’l Bit’s belly had burned as the vodka hit it, and little Natalie Kittridge liked how Mom Twyla would smile at her and say, “That shit’s tight, huh?” Li’l Bit would smile back at her and say, “Yeah.” Then she’d try to read the Vibe article about LL Cool J or Al B. Sure!, but her mind would keep flopping.
Now, so many years later, Natalie Kittridge Grayson Dixon, aka Grayson Sykes, wanted her mind to flop, and she wanted her belly to warm.
But not tonight. Or on any night that she remained prey to Sean’s predator.
“Hassan did something nice for you,” Nick said. Hassan was their hacker for hire and guide to all things dark web. His name wasn’t Hassan, and Gray wasn’t even sure he was a he.
“He got into the Lincoln woman’s Facebook account.”
Bottle tipped over the sink, Gray said, “That’s illegal, you know.” The icy liquid swirled into the drain and the fumes nearly made her explode all over the kitchen. A good way to go.
“Yeah, yeah,” Nick said. “You want the password or not?”
She grabbed a pen from the utility drawer and tore off a paper towel. “Password.”
“Lower case g, r, o, capital O, lower case v, y, followed by the number one.”
groOvy1. “Not a secret words mastermind, is she?” Gray dumped the empty vodka bottle in the trash can and hurried into her bedroom. She pulled the beaded cords of her window to push the blinds aside for an unspoiled city view and then settled at her desk. She brought up Isabel Lincoln’s Facebook page on her laptop computer.
Nothing had changed since Gray’s last visit. Just those wine country posts, the dead cat Morris posts, and—She stopped scrolling. That same wine tasting picture hung on the walls along the staircase at Isabel’s condo. The Benetton crew picture, too. No one had been tagged, even though there were fifteen Likes.
Who had Liked it? Cindy Eshelman, Jude Valdes, Beth Sharpe …
She said, “There’s not one Like from the women in the pictures, who were also the same crew in the snow picture, beside the Jeep.”
Nick said, “Strange.”
Gray brought up Google Images to match faces in the digital world. She uploaded the wine tasting picture, and in less than 0.016 seconds the search engine found a result.
She said, “Oh.”
Nick said, “What?”
She uploaded the second picture. “Shit.”
“What?”
“Diverse. Friends. Young women. Road trip.”
“Those are words.”
“Yeah, and they’re also tags. Tags that Getty Images uses to catalog the pictures that I’m now looking at, which came from Isabel Lincoln’s Facebook page.”
“Huh?”
“The women in the pictures are real. But they’re models. Stock photography models. The pictures on Isabel’s page and hanging in her condo? Those are stock photographs.”
She could tell by the silence on the other end of the phone that Nick was gawking at her.
“Morris the cat? His pictures are real, not stock. But the girlfriend shots?” Gray was now grinning as she uploaded each picture from Isabel Lincoln’s timeline—the foam star in the latte, the sunrise in Yosemite, the sand castle. Each had come from Getty Images.
Nick said, “You sound delighted.”
“Oh, I’m not delighted, but this is pretty good.” She moved the cursor to the top of the screen and clicked the down-arrow next to the quick help icon. There was another account profile listed. That second account …
“Elyse Miller,” she said.
“The name we saw on the mail, and on the résumé, diploma, and Social Security card up in Idyllwild.”
“And the woman married or not married to Omar Neville.” Gray’s pulse revved as though she’d drunk fifteen cups of espresso between snorting twenty lines of cocaine. She clicked on the account for Elyse Miller.
The last comments on that timeline had been posted three years before, on March 27. “Beautiful day…” along with a shot of the beach and a puffy-clouded sky.
Where u at, posted by Essence Tucker.
Miss ya girl!! From Val Hutchins.
UR a strait BICH and I hop Ur DEAD!!! From Myracle Hampton.
If Willy Wonka had a black half sister from Oakland, Myracle would be that woman. Red licorice whip hair. Lemonhead-yellow nails. Abba Zaba skin. Hot Tamales lipstick. Terrific contrast to hoping someone—a “bich”—was dead.
Elyse Miller had 378 friends, and none of those posted pictures belonged to Getty Images.
That wasn’t shocking.
What was shocking: the woman in the pictures was the woman Gray had known as Isabel Lincoln. On this timeline she was younger, a bottle blonde, with multipierced ears and a pierced nose. She liked Hpnotiq and Quarter Pounders and drove a slate-blue Impala on rims.
“This is not a woman who dates doctors,” Nick pointed out.
“Just a guess, but I’d say she dates street pharmacists.”
Gray’s throat tightened, and she forced herself to breathe. Hard to do as she read entries posted by her missing Mary Jane, showing her smoking blunts as thick as sausages and flashing crisp hundred-dollar bills. Gray clicked on the Messenger bubble icon.
Myracle Hampton, the woman who had called Elyse Miller a “bich,” had continued her screed in a private message.
WHO DO U THINK U R??? I NEW U WAS A SHADY BICH & I TOLD TOMMY U WAS NO GOOD. DON’T TRUSS HER. HE DIDN’T LISSEN 2 ME AND NOW LOOK. U COM BACK HEAR AND IMA KICK YOUR ASS UNTILL THEIR NOTHING LEFT. TEST ME BICH KEEP RUNNING.
Gray clicked on Myracle’s page. Still actively posting. Still actively misspelling.
GUN VIOLINS WAAAY NOT NESSESARY!!! HELP US LORD
GOOD MORNING FBF!
Gray clicked back into Messenger and found a conversation between Elyse and Tommy Hampton, a heavy-lidded, amber-skinned Oakland Raiders fan who looked like he smelled of hot sauce and maple syrup.
-sometimes I feel so stupid and get emotional when it comes 2 u Tommyboy
-You’re special to me.
-ur special 2 me E 2
-when r we gonna meet?
-Maybe this picture will help.
&nbs
p; -I want more.
-let’s meet up. I want to see u f2f!
-when?
-tonight
-Best Western on Embarcadero 9:00
-I’m ready for our first time
-keycard at the lobby
The messages between Elyse Miller and Tommy Hampton stopped on March 26, a day before the puffy-cloud, “Beautiful day” beach post on March 27. There were no indications that they’d met at the Best Western in Oakland.
“Guess they finally slept together and got it out of their systems,” Nick said.
“You sound bored,” Gray said, still scrolling through the messages.
“Desk work. At the Bureau, I always hated the desk work. That’s why I hired you and twenty other people.”
“Well, go chase somebody down an alley, then. I’ll catch you later.”
“Natalie—”
“I’ll be careful, Dom. Gun’s right here, and I’m completely sober.” “Completely sober” also meant no oxycodone and no Percocet. “Trust that I’ll call you if shit goes sideways.”
He sighed, then said, “Good night.”
Gray rose to close the blinds, and pain crackled around her navel. She sat back down and closed her eyes. Waited for the pain to stop.
Beyond her bedroom, the refrigerator coughed and rattled.
She said, “There, there, fridge,” as she plucked the ibuprofen bottle from her bag. She popped four, then waited … waited … inhaled … exhaled … until …
With her body at peace again, she clicked over to Tommy Hampton’s Facebook page.
There was a picture of Tommy and a little girl who wore beaded cornrows and had her father’s heavy-lidded eyes. There was a page header: “Remembering Thomas Hampton. We hope people who loved Tommy find comfort in visiting his profile to remember and celebrate his life.”
The last message had been posted just months ago, on March 26, three years after Elyse and Tommy had agreed to meet at the Best Western.
You are missed.
Before that, countless posts:
man, I remember how we …
Praying for your family and friends …
Thinking of you bro …
You’re an angel now …
Day of remembrance …
I won’t rest until I get justice for my brother. I know who did it!!!!!
Tommy Hampton was dead.
There were only two short articles on the internet that told of a hotel maid finding Tommy Hampton on the floor of room 321 at the Best Western. A pair of boxers had been shoved into his mouth, a pillow had been dropped on his face, and there had been bullet holes in both the pillow and his forehead. The toxicology report had shown ketamine in his system. Also known as a date-rape drug, Special K, ketamine, made you immobile.
Tommy Hampton couldn’t even fight back before he was killed.
Had Elyse Miller killed him?
And if she had killed him, then maybe she murdered Omar Neville, too.
Gray searched for any recent news on the most recent dead man, but she found nothing more than the article she’d read days ago.
Myracle Hampton, Tommy’s sister, had accused Elyse of killing—
No. She had accused Isabel Lincoln—
Isabel … Elyse … They were the same woman.
45
The morning’s rhythmic thump-thump-thump of helicopter music made Gray open her eyes. She lay in bed, curled into a fetal position, a prim protective ball now being warmed by a V-shaped shaft of light. She blinked and her eyes crunched.
The bedroom smelled like burning forests and car exhaust—after this summer of fire, her apartment’s air filters would resemble a honeycomb that had been buried in a mine shaft.
Her phone buzzed from a place within the twisted bed linens. She pawed the comforter and top sheet until she hit something hard and rectangular.
Fucking the help now?
The picture: a selfie of a smiling Hank, with her asleep in his arms.
He sent this last week, piece of shit trying to make me jealous
Gray’s breath left her lungs.
Angry tears made those words twist, and she shoved her face into a pillow.
How could Hank betray her like this? How could he—
I told him he could have your fat ass
remember how U hated doing this back in the day
The next picture showed her standing at a gas pump, blocks from Rader Consulting.
Ants crawled over her skin. More tears—hotter, angrier ones—rolled down her cheeks and dropped into the comforter. She swiped at those tears with the bedsheet, then tapped a message on the digital keyboard.
You got me. You found me. I’m here. Now what?
Fucker.
Grayson Sykes wasn’t the same woman she’d been five years ago, fake-grimacing at the thought of touching gas pumps, even though she’d grown up touching roach husks and rat corpses. Faking her disgust had made Sean feel manlier, though, and so …
No. She wasn’t the same woman he had scared with his violence, a woman made meek by isolation. If he wanted her, he could come get her, and he’d die in his attempt to drag her to Vegas or to hell or both. Sean knew Natalie Dixon and had put too much trust in that outdated intel.
To force him fully into the light, Gray typed, we can meet and u can threaten me to my face just like the old days. U know where I am
With trembling hands, she burned that “Dating” number and every other number except the one Nick used and the one for Isabel Lincoln’s case. She also burned her work number and would give Jennifer, Clarissa, and Zadie a temporary one to use, along with some wack explanation about the need to change it.
Maybe tell them about the breakup with Hank?
Yeah, they’d get that, and they’d understand the need to find another cantina.
Gray kicked away the tangled bed linens and stood on new legs like a wobbly doe. Her mouth tasted funky and metallic, like old blood, and sound danced in her head like Ginger Rogers wearing tap shoes turned up to MAX VOL. She plopped back on the bed and whispered, “Gimme a second, will ya?” and waited for the dancing to stop.
No booze. No narcotics. Yet she still felt like crap.
Gray whispered, “Okay. Now,” and then stood without wobbling. One small step for woman …
After brushing her teeth and washing her face, she pulled on black slacks and a black shirt, then settled at her home desk.
First, she called Farrah Tarrino at UCLA.
“Is Isabel back yet?” Farrah Tarrino asked.
“No, but I’m hoping you have some news that can help me.”
“Maybe. Did I mention that Isabel applied for a job to work directly with the students?”
“You did.”
“Did I mention that this role required additional background checks and fingerprinting?”
“You did not.”
“Isabel got her prints taken a few days before she left for the Memorial Day weekend.”
“Have the prints returned?”
“A while ago, but they’ve been kicked back to us, and that’s why I’m glad you called. I’m going to send you the results.”
Farrah’s email arrived.
Hello, Ms. Sykes. Here you go. It’s strange but the woman in HR told me that these were the correct results.
Gray clicked the attached PDF of the Live Scan report.
… in response to your record check … As of the date of this letter, the fingerprints submitted by applicant ISABEL LINCOLN identified as those fingerprints belonging to …
Elyse Miller.
She started to type a thanks to Farrah Tarrino, but her phone buzzed again.
An alert from her video doorbell app.
A white guy was standing at her door. He was heroin skinny with dirty-blond hair pulled into a ponytail. His black Metallica T-shirt hung over the waistband of too-big jeans. He looked dead, and Gray could smell him from her bedroom.
She reached beneath her pillow and touched the gun s
he’d only shot at a range.
She should never have found her way to Sam Jose’s.
She’d been so careful for so long. No mail sent where she lived. No long-lasting relationships. No history. Forsaking vodka and nose rings and her name. Not visiting her parents’ graves. No attachments to anything she couldn’t leave behind in five seconds.
Had Sean been searching for her all this time? Or had it been dumb luck that Hank had recognized her and had called him?
It was time to disappear. To become someone else again.
Her mind bristled with the thought of starting over. Since birth, her life had been one big do-over and she was tired of it. At three days old, Baby Girl Natalie had already been grinding. She’d had new starts with every new family or agency that had taken her in. Back then, the only thing she’d kept that hadn’t been attached to her by muscle and bone had been her first name. Nothing else had stuck.
And now Grayson Sykes thought of disappearing to her house off the Pacific. She’d never told Sean that she owned anything other than that Jeep—that secret, about the house, she’d kept. A part of her had known …
Back then, Sean had told her, had promised her, that he’d never leave her alone.
Nearly a decade later, he was keeping that promise. Until death.
Out in the kitchen, the refrigerator grumbled.
Out in the hallway, the white guy looked at his phone, shook his head, then shuffled away from Gray’s apartment. He knocked on the hipsters’ door across the hall. Conner answered and said, “Took you forever, man.”
Gray’s shoulders slumped with relief. Dude had the wrong address.
She slipped the gun back beneath the pillow.
Shaky.
And sober.
SHE FACED THE DRAGON
46
It was one hundred ten degrees in Las Vegas and the sky was a dirty white. The sidewalks were crammed with lobster-red and burned-toast-skinned visitors wearing baseball caps and sun visors. They clutched margaritas in neon plastic sippy cups, beer cozies, and Big Gulps. Cars were everywhere, and where there were no cars, there were busses and trollies.
The town Gray had escaped five years ago hadn’t changed.
And Now She's Gone Page 25
