Millicent’s heels click across the floor. She walks over and stands in front of the TV.
Jenna hits the mute button.
“How are we? Are we good?” asks Millicent.
Jenna nods. “We’re good.”
Millicent turns to me. “How long can you stay?”
“All afternoon.”
“I’ll call you later.”
Millicent walks over to Jenna and feels her forehead, first with her hand and then with her lips. “Still no fever. Call if you need anything.”
Her heels click back down the hall. Jenna keeps the TV muted until after the front door closes. We go back to watching the game show. At the commercial break, Jenna mutes the TV again.
“Are you okay?” she says.
“Me? I’m not the one who’s sick.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
I know it’s not. “I’m fine. Just busy.”
“Too busy.”
“Yeah. Too busy.”
She doesn’t ask again.
Millicent calls twice, first interrupting a talk show and then a teenage soap opera. Rory gets home around three, and, after some initial grumbling, he joins our TV marathon.
At five o’clock, I become a father again.
“Homework,” I say.
“I’m sick,” Jenna says.
“Rory, homework.”
“You’re just now remembering I go to school?”
“Homework,” I say again. “You know the rules.”
He rolls his eyes and heads upstairs.
I should have said something earlier. It wasn’t because I forgot; it was because I couldn’t remember the last time I spent time alone with my kids.
Millicent gets home forty-five minutes later. She is brisk with her hellos and then a flurry in the kitchen, getting dinner in the oven before she even changes her clothes. The energy in the house is different when she is here. Everything goes up a notch because expectations are higher.
Tonight, we all eat chicken noodle soup, and no one complains. It’s what we do when someone is sick.
Other rules are relaxed as well. Since Jenna is set up on the couch, Millicent decides that’s where everyone will eat. We all sit in front of the TV with our plates on tray tables. By then, Millicent has changed into sweats, and Rory claims he has finished his homework. We watch a new sitcom that’s terrible, followed by a mediocre police show, and for a couple of hours everything feels normal.
After the kids go to bed, Millicent and I straighten up the family room. Although I have been lying around on a couch all day, I feel exhausted. I sit down at the kitchen table and rub my eyes.
“Did you miss a lot today?” Millicent asks.
She is talking about my real job, which I would have missed anyway, because I had planned on watching Annabelle.
I shrug.
She comes up behind me and starts to rub my shoulders. It feels good.
“I should be rubbing your shoulders,” I say. “You’re the one who worked all day.”
“Taking care of a sick child is more stressful.”
Millicent is right, though Jenna was more under the weather than sick. “She’ll be fine,” I say.
“Of course she will.”
She keeps rubbing. After a minute, she says, “How is everything else?”
“Your surprise is almost ready.”
“Good.”
“It will be.”
Millicent stops rubbing my shoulders. “That sounds like a promise.”
“Maybe it is.”
She takes me by the hand and leads me up to our bedroom.
* * *
• • •
AFTER ROBIN, WE didn’t talk about her. And we didn’t talk about Holly. Millicent and I went back to our lives, our work, our children. The idea of Lindsay—of a third—started a year and a half ago. I didn’t know it at the time, could not imagine choosing, stalking, and killing a woman. It was just a little thing that happened at the mall.
I was there with Millicent, just us. We were buying Christmas presents for the kids. Money was more of a problem than usual. Millicent had been waiting for two houses to close, but both were on hold due to financing issues. A week before Christmas, and we had no presents, no cash, and not much left on the credit cards. We lowered our holiday budget three times. I wasn’t happy about it. We didn’t just have to buy presents for the kids; we also had to buy gifts for our friends, colleagues, and clients.
At the mall, Millicent kept saying no. Everything I picked up was too expensive.
“We’re going to look cheap,” I said.
“You’re being dramatic.”
“I grew up around these people.”
Millicent rolled her eyes. “This again?”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
I put my hand on her arm. She was wearing a long-sleeved shirt but no jacket, because even in December our temperatures were around sixty. “No, what did you mean by that?”
“I mean you’re always going on about ‘these people.’ Hidden Oaks people. You insult them but then brag about being one of them.”
“I do not.”
Millicent did not answer. She was looking at a shelf of candlesticks.
“I don’t do that,” I said.
“What do you think of these?” She held up a pair made of silver. Or something that looked like silver.
I turned up my nose.
She slammed the candlesticks back on the shelf.
I was already irritated. The fatigue hit next. Recently, all we talked about was money. I was tired of hearing we didn’t have it, I couldn’t buy it, I had to pick something cheaper. I couldn’t even get my kids what they wanted for Christmas.
Millicent kept talking, going on and on about the budget and bank accounts. I tuned her out. I couldn’t listen to it anymore, couldn’t think about it—and I needed a distraction.
By chance, one walked right by. Her hair was the color of a roasted chestnut.
“Hello?” Millicent snapped her fingers in front of my face.
“I’m here.”
“Are you sure? Because—”
“She looked kind of like Robin,” I said. “Holly’s friend.”
Millicent turned around and watched the woman disappear into the crowd. When she turned back around, she had one eyebrow raised. “You think so?”
“Yes.”
“How odd.”
It was odd. So was the feeling I got when I replayed Robin’s murder in my head. Every time I did, I thought about how fantastic that day was, how we came together and did what needed to be done to protect ourselves. To protect our family. It was amazing.
And so very sexy.
I started telling my wife just that.
Twenty
ANNABELLE’S WORK SCHEDULE never changes. Monday through Friday, from eight until five, she hands out parking tickets, calls for tow trucks, and gets yelled at for doing her job. People curse at her, make rude gestures, and call her names. Annabelle keeps her cool, but I wonder how she does it. Does she really not care, or does she get help from a substance or two? I wonder what the addiction rate is for meter maids.
Her evenings are not as easy. She is a single woman who likes to go out, but not too much, and as a meter maid, she doesn’t make much money. On Wednesdays, she has dinner with her parents, but other than that, her nights have no set pattern. If I had to pick a night she goes out more often than the others, it’s Friday.
Two weeks from now will be Friday the 13th. It doesn’t get more ridiculously perfect than that. On Friday the 13th, Annabelle will disappear.
I am finally able to put together Owen’s second letter to Josh. It is typed, like the first, only much longer.
Dear Josh,
> I am not sure you believe it is me. Or maybe you do but the police don’t. I am not a copycat or an imposter. It’s me, the same Owen Oliver Riley who used to live at 4233 Cedar Crest Drive, in that little old house with the obnoxious carpet. I didn’t put that in, by the way. That was my mother’s bad choice.
I feel like what we have here is a lack of trust. Completely understandable, given that no one has seen me or spoken to me. Well, except Lindsay. She saw a lot of me. And we spoke many, many times during the year she was mine.
But now I’m alone and you don’t believe me. So I’ll make you a promise. Two weeks from now, another woman will disappear. I’ll even tell you the exact date: Friday the 13th. Cheesy, right? Oh yes, it is. It’s also easy to remember.
And Josh, you may not trust me now, but you’ll learn that I always keep my word.
—Owen
Josh will have the letter by Tuesday. Once again, I spritz it with the musky cowboy cologne before mailing it. The letter will first be examined by the police, and who knows how many discussions must take place until they decide to go public with it. Or at least the part about Friday the 13th.
In the meantime, back to my real life. I’ve canceled too many lessons over the past few weeks. My work schedule is now packed all day, every day, in addition to all the little things that must get done. Picking up the kids, dropping them off, quick runs to the store for whatever we are missing. Burying myself in the minutiae makes my life feel normal. It almost makes that nervous twitch I always feel go away. And if Millicent didn’t keep looking at me, asking so many questions with her eyes, it might have.
Her answers arrive on Thursday evening.
Millicent and I are at the country club, attending a retirement party for someone on the board. Soirees at the club are garish to the point of vulgar. The food is rich, the wine is heavy, and everyone congratulates everyone else on their success.
We go because we should; networking is part of both our jobs. We even have a system. After walking in together, we separate. I go left, she goes right, and we make our way around the room and meet again in the middle. We switch sides, separate again, and come together back at the entrance.
Millicent is wearing a bright yellow gown; with her red hair, she looks like a flame. From my side of the room, I catch glimpses of her as she moves within the crowd, that yellow dress never far from my eye. I see her laugh, smile, show concern or delight. When her lips move, I try to guess what she is saying. She carries a glass of champagne but never drinks it. No one has ever noticed.
Tonight, her eyes are the lightest I’ve seen in a long time, like a brand-new leaf under the sun. They shift up to mine. Millicent sees that I am staring at her.
She winks.
I exhale and move on with my own networking.
Andy and Trista are here, both with full glasses of wine. Andy pats his stomach and says he really needs to start working out or something, which he does. Trista doesn’t say much, but she looks at me a little too long. She must remember our conversation about Owen, or at least parts of it.
Kekona is also at the party. She is with a young man, her latest escort, and she doesn’t bother to introduce him. Instead, she talks about everyone else—who looks good and who doesn’t, who has had work done and who needs it. As one of the wealthiest members of the club, Kekona can say anything she wants and people will still accept her.
Beth, a waitress at the club, passes by with a tray of drinks and offers me one. Her Alabama accent sticks out and makes her always sound perky.
I shake my head. “Not tonight.”
“’Kay,” she says.
I move on to a newer couple, the Rhineharts. Lizzie and Max just moved into Hidden Oaks. My wife sold them their house, and I met them once. Max is a golfer, but Lizzie says she used to play tennis. She thinks she should get back into it. Her husband tires of the topic and changes it to marketing, which is his business. Max thinks he can do great things for the Hidden Oaks Country Club, although he hasn’t officially been hired by anyone.
I move on, telling Lizzie to call if she wants to play tennis again. She promises she will.
Millicent and I meet at the halfway mark. Her glass of champagne is still full. She pours half of it into a plant.
“You okay?” she says.
“I’m fine.”
“Another round, then?”
“Let’s do it.”
We separate a second time, and I move through the other side of the room, greeting everyone I haven’t seen yet. It feels like I am moving in circles, because I am.
The announcement comes before the eleven o’clock news. I don’t know who saw it first or who mentioned it, but I do see people pulling out their phones. Too many of them, all at once.
A woman next to me whispers, “It’s him.”
And then I know.
Someone turns on the TV screens in the bar. We are surrounded by Josh, who is in the middle of his shining moment. He doesn’t look quite as young tonight, and it might be the glasses. They’re new.
“I received this letter earlier in the week. After discussing it with both the police and the owner of the station, we decided that in the interest of public safety, we had no choice but to put it on the air.”
A shot of the letter appears on the screen. We all follow along, reading the typed words as Josh says them out loud. When he gets to the part about a woman disappearing on Friday the 13th, a collective gasp erupts from the party guests.
I look around and find the yellow dress.
Millicent is looking at me, a half smile on her lips and one eyebrow raised, as if she is asking me a question.
I wink.
* * *
• • •
“BRILLIANT,” SHE SAYS. “You are brilliant.”
Millicent is lying on the bed, naked, the yellow gown thrown over a chair.
“You think everyone believes it now?” I know they do. I want her to say it.
“Of course they do. They all believe it.”
I am standing at the foot of the bed, also naked, smiling, and feeling like I captured the flag.
Millicent stretches her arms up, grabbing on to the headboard.
I fall back onto the bed next to her. “They’re all going to be looking for Owen.”
“Yes.”
“They won’t see anything else.”
Millicent touches me on the nose. “Because of you.”
“Stop.”
“It’s true.”
I shake my head. “We have to stop gloating.”
“Tomorrow.”
* * *
• • •
THE NEXT FEW days are as good as it ever was. The way Millicent smiles at me lifts my heart. I even stand up straighter.
She feels it, too. The day after the party, she sends me a text signed Penny. It is the only nickname I ever had for her. I haven’t used it in years.
I first came up with it while we were on a date, before we were officially a couple but after we had slept together. Neither of us had much money, so many of our dates were simple. We took long walks, went to bargain matinees, and took advantage of happy hour buffets. Occasionally, we got more creative. On this particular night, we drove twenty miles to eat cheap pizza and play video games at an old-fashioned arcade. I beat her at the sports games, but she kicked my ass in anything involving guns.
Across the street from the arcade, there was a small park and a fountain. She took out a penny, made a wish, and tossed it in. We watched it sink to the bottom, settling on top of so many others. The water was so clear I could still see the words at the bottom of the coin.
One Cent.
“That’s what I should call you,” I said. “Penny.”
“Penny?”
“Millicent.”
“Oh god.”
“Plus y
ou have red hair,” I said.
“Penny? Are you serious?”
I smiled. “Penny.”
She shook her head at me.
I was in love, fully and undoubtedly, but I hadn’t said the words out loud. Instead, I called her Penny. Eventually, we said the real words and I stopped calling her Penny. Now, she has brought it back, and I don’t want to let it go.
Twenty-one
MONDAY THE 9TH, Annabelle is at work. The day is beautiful—plenty of sunshine but not too hot. Almost brisk. Annabelle has parked her car at the end of the block and walks down the street, scanning license plates and checking meters. Her short hair sticks out from under the cap she wears to shade her eyes. She wears one earbud in her right ear, the white cord snaking down her chest, through her shirt, and into the right front pocket of her pants. Her blue uniform is decidedly unisex.
I watch from down the block, waiting. When she reaches the green car, she starts punching the buttons on her handheld scanner.
I sprint down the block, stopping a few feet away from her. I hold up my hands as if telling her to wait.
Annabelle looks at me like I’m crazy.
I pull out my phone, type, and hand it to her.
Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you! My name is Tobias. I am deaf.
She reads it. Her shoulders relax, and she nods.
I point to the car and then to me.
She points to the expired meter.
I clasp my hands together below my chin, as if I’m begging. Or praying.
She laughs. Annabelle has a nice laugh.
I smile, showing her my dimples.
Annabelle wags her finger at me.
I hand her my phone.
Promise I’ll never do it again . . .
She sighs.
I’ve won. The green car does not get a ticket.
It’s not even my car.
I am not even sure why I spoke to Annabelle. This time, I didn’t have to; I don’t need to know more about her life or where she lives or who might be waiting for her. I already have the answers, but I did it anyway. All part of my process for choosing.
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