She’d seen her in court, over a year and a half earlier, during Nelson’s trial, but the woman hadn’t been sitting at the back like gangster-suit man had. She hadn’t been part of the audience either. The woman standing across the hallway from Mary had been a witness. In fact, she’d been ‘the’ witness – the Prosecution’s Secret Weapon, brought in right at the last minute to completely collapse Nelson’s defense.
Mary took a deep breath, trying desperately to keep her heart from exploding. She knew that she wasn’t drunk enough to be seeing things, so this had to be true.
The woman looked a little different – a few pounds lighter… her hair longer and wavier, perhaps – but there was no doubt in Mary’s mind that right there, inside the entrance hallway of her apartment building in Bayview, San Francisco, Mary was staring at Candice Logan – Nelson’s lover – the woman who had testified that she had ended her eleven-month affair with Nelson because she couldn’t take the beatings anymore.
‘How…? Why…?’ The sentence choked in Mary’s throat and in a millisecond, fear swapped sides with anger. She decided to go with ‘what’. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
Candice finally allowed the door to shut behind her before walking over to where Mary was.
Mary didn’t move, as she seemed to be paralyzed to the spot at the bottom of that stairwell. Her hand stayed inside her handbag, but her fingers loosened their grip around the pepper spray canister.
Candice stopped right in front of her, both women gazing deeply into each other’s eyes.
‘You really want to know what the fuck I’m doing here?’ she finally asked, her tone firm and angry in equal measures.
Mary held Candice’s stare for two seconds too long before she finally smiled.
Candice smiled back, her arms wide. ‘It’s nice to see you again, sis. I missed you.’
Mary simply walked into the hug. ‘I missed you too.’
Fifty-Nine
‘I really love what you did with your hair,’ the woman said, using the tips of her fingers to tuck a loose strand of hair behind Mary’s right ear. ‘It really suits you.’
They were sitting in Mary’s living room, sharing a bottle of Château Haut-Brion.
‘I like yours too,’ Mary said back. ‘I’ve always loved you with long hair.’
‘I prefer it long as well,’ the woman agreed, hooking her hair with her hand and throwing it over her left shoulder, mermaid style. ‘But it desperately needs a trim. Can you see the split ends?’
Mary leaned closer to have a better look. ‘Barely, but I can easily do that for you. I’m great with hair – you know that.’
‘I do.’ The woman smiled. ‘That’s why I mentioned it.’
Mary’s stare stayed on the woman for several unblinking seconds before refocusing on a neutral spot on the ceiling.
The woman was quick to notice the change.
‘OK, sis, what’s wrong?’ she asked.
Mary’s eyes went back to her, the look in them dead serious. ‘What’s wrong?’ She broadly gestured at the two of them sitting side-by-side in her living room. ‘This, Julia… what the fuck are you doing here?’
Julia, which was the woman’s real name, not Candice, looked back at Mary with the same serious expression. ‘First of all, youknow I hate it when you call me Julia. My mother called me Julia, and I hate that bitch.’
‘OK, so what name are you using now, Jules?’ Mary asked.
Mary used to call her ‘Jules’… when they were kids… back in England.
‘Denise,’ Julia replied. ‘Denise Johnson.’
Mary pursed her lips as she nodded. ‘Denise Johnson… I like it.’
‘So do I.’
‘OK,’ Mary continued. ‘So let me repeat the question, Denise – what the fuck are you doing here?’
‘What do you mean…Grace?’ Denise gave it back as good as she got.
