Gray whispered, “Be nice,” then grabbed her binder.
Outside, the cool air had a crisp bite. A sweet kiss after this damn hot day.
Her phone vibrated as she crossed the street. It was Ian.
Where are U? Been waiting for 10 min now
Liar.
Gray texted, I’ve been waiting for 15 minutes. Defeat a big lie with a bigger truth.
Ian returned to the security gate. “You should’ve texted me.”
Always someone else’s fault.
He led her to the same blue door she’d discovered minutes ago without his assistance. “That’s a damn long time to stay in your car. Dangerous. It’s rough over here.”
Right now, eucalyptus trees swished in the wind. No trash, broken glass, or cars on blocks at the curbs. Brown-skinned millennials wearing Lululemon wore buds in their ears as they jogged in pairs or biked in groups. Rough.
“You talk to Tea yet?” he asked.
“Just a text so far, but I can tell that she has very strong opinions about you.” Gray paused, then asked, “Oh. Do you know if Isabel took her car when she left?”
“No. It’s out back.”
The red Honda Prelude sat in its carport, locked and dusty.
“You have the key?” Gray asked.
“Nope.”
As they walked back to the front door, Gray asked, “Do you wonder how she left, then?”
“Uber maybe? Or maybe Tea drove her somewhere? Doesn’t matter—she’s gone.” He slipped the key into the lock and pushed open the blue door. Cool, vanilla-scented air rushed toward them as he hit a light switch.
“She’s still paying the utility bills?” Gray asked.
“No, I’m still paying the utility bills. Again: nice guy.” His eyebrows lifted as he watched her take notes. “You have pens that work this time. Good job.”
Gray blushed, then wrote, “JERK.”
The small living room boasted cheap gray carpet, oak furniture, oak cabinets, and white tile. The blueberry-colored couch looked too stiff to be comfortable, and it matched absolutely nothing else in the room. Not even the orange and yellow throw pillows on its cushions.
The clean kitchen sparkled but smelled of chlorine bleach and the bananas on the counter, which were so shriveled and black that not even fruit flies swarmed around them.
“Do you know if she was injured before she left?” Gray asked. “Like, did she have any cuts or bruises? Sprained ankles or…”
Ian shook his head.
“In your opinion—medical, personal—was she … suicidal?”
He rolled his eyes. “Tea concocted this story about Iz taking pills before disappearing.”
“When was that?”
“The Friday night before Memorial Day. Whatever. It’s not true. You just don’t get better through prayer after taking a bunch of Tylenol PMs. I told Tea to lie better, especially about shit like that. Isabel takes a bunch of pills one day and has the energy to leave L.A. two days later without medical intervention? Bullshit. It’s not happening.”
Standing this close, Gray could better study Ian’s face. There were no scars from a woman’s fingernails. No almost-healed bruises beneath his eyes. No cuts on his lips. He was a perfect-looking man with perfect-looking skin.
“This place is tiny, right?” Ian now asked. “It’s two stories and still cramped.”
“Good size if it’s just you.”
“So are coffins.”
A book of word searches had been left on the couch. A pack of Kool menthols sat on the coffee table next to an empty ashtray. No lighter. No matchbook.
“She smoke?” Gray asked.
“Sometimes.” Ian tucked his hands beneath his armpits.
“It’s her birthday tomorrow,” Gray said.
“Whose?”
Gray looked back at him.
Blank face. Eyebrows not even crumpled. Not even trying to figure it out.
She said, “No one’s,” then sighed, her heart breaking a little more for Isabel Lincoln.
The staircase walls were lined with photographs of Isabel and Ian in happier times. Kissing in front of the Eiffel Tower. Embracing in the turquoise waters of the Caribbean.
“I paid for these quick little trips,” Ian said, “and I had more lined up for her. I wanted to show her the world outside of L.A., outside of the U.S. Be her tour guide through life, I suppose. Be there when she saw the Taj Mahal for the first time, or tasted a real Italian pizza—with the egg on top? I treated her like a princess, and this is what she does?”
But something about those pictures in Paris and Saint Martin made Gray nauseous. And the sweet-sticky words Ian was now pouring down her throat … Before today, she’d never swallowed, but, in her effort to “be nice,” she forced those words down and offered a sad smile. “The women at the Alumni Center mentioned that you and Isabel were supposed to go away on that Memorial Day weekend. They say that you didn’t show up. Is that why she took the pills?”
Ian squirmed. “Umm … Again, I don’t think she took those pills.”
“You didn’t mention that trip to me.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“So, what happened?”
He blushed. “I had to work—she refused to accept that. She liked the benefits of dating a doctor but hated me being a doctor. This is Los Angeles and we have a lot of heart patients and sometimes I need to stay and help out, even when I’m supposed to be having downtime.
“I mean, if she needed cardiac care, she wouldn’t want to hear, ‘Oh, the doctor is on vacation, miss, you’re just gonna have to wait, unless you want this second-year putting in your pacemaker.’ I don’t think so.”
Gray said, “I get it,” and this time, she did. She’d never needed a cardiologist, but emergency room doctors had stitched her up lots of times. She’d never thought about their wives or their kids or their postponed trips to Borneo as they treated her. Not once.
The steps groaned as Gray and Ian climbed them to the second level. “According to her coworkers,” she said to Ian over her shoulder, “you were supposed to propose that weekend.”
“Propose? Marriage?”
Gray nodded.
He laughed a laugh as real as Parmesan cheese from a green can. “She always expected me to follow this script in her head about what’s supposed to happen and when. Month anniversaries. Our engagement. How I was supposed to propose. Where I was supposed to propose. I got tired of her micromanagement, to be honest, and so I decided not to obey her and to propose when I wanted. Which would’ve been on July fourth, our one-year anniversary. But of course, she was gone by then.”
They reached the guest room, which was nearly bare except for a pair of battered sneakers and a large pile of clothes on the carpet. The blinds were closed. The room stank of sweat, other body odor, and that dirty laundry.
Gray and Ian entered Isabel’s bedroom. Books, pens, and notepads lay everywhere. The sheets on the full-size bed twisted around an empty gym bag. A thick fuchsia vibrator poked from the linens. Eye shadows, mascara, and lipstick tubes cluttered the nightstand and dresser. Two L’Oréal hair color boxes sat on top of the DVD player.
“Did she color her hair recently?” Gray asked. “On the intake form, it says her hair is a dark golden brown.”