And I find nothing.
She looked at how long it takes for a sprained wrist to heal. She also searched for a variety of information about upset stomachs—what caused them and what to do about them.
That was it.
Nothing about torture, nothing helpful. I should have known better.
I shove the tablet away, and it skids. My immediate reaction is to check and see if I scratched Kekona’s dining room table. As if it matters, but I do it anyway. I stand up and look straight down at it, running my finger across the wood, when something on the tablet screen catches my eye.
It is still on the page about upset stomachs. On the right-hand side, there is a list of possible causes. One of them is purple instead of blue, because the link has been clicked.
Eye drops.
Sixty-eight
TETRAHYDROZOLINE IS THE active ingredient in eye drops that gets rid of red eyes. Swallowing a large amount can cause serious problems. The drops lower blood pressure and can put someone into a coma. Or kill them.
But swallowing a small amount causes an upset stomach and vomiting. No fever.
The eye drops belong to Millicent.
She has been giving them to Jenna.
No.
Impossible.
The thought makes me physically ill. Jenna is our child, our daughter. She is not Lindsay or Naomi. She is not someone to torture.
Or maybe she is. Maybe Jenna is no different. Not to Millicent.
My daughter does not have a recurring stomach problem.
She has a mother who is poisoning her.
* * *
• • •
I WANT TO kill Millicent. I want to go to my house, kill my wife, and be done with it. I am that angry.
This feeling is different. Before, I never actually thought, “I want to kill a woman” or even “I want to kill this particular woman.” My desire wasn’t that clear, that succinct. It was about Millicent, about the two of us, and what I wanted out of it was more complex.
Now it is simple. I want my wife to die.
I head for the front door without a hat or a disguise or a weapon of any kind. I am angry and disgusted, and I do not care if I have a plan. My hand is on the doorknob when I realize how stupid I am. How stupid I always am.
I could probably get across Hidden Oaks without being spotted. Most think I’m on the run, not hiding in my own neighborhood. And once I did get all the way to my house, I could get inside, because I have a key. That’s assuming it’s not under surveillance.
On the other side, my wife. Who I now know is a monster.
Just like the real Owen.
Also, my kids. They are in the house, and both believe it is me, not her. I am the monster. And now all I can see is their reaction when I kill their mother.
I do not open the door.
And I do not just need a plan. I need evidence. Because on TV, evidence of me is everywhere.
My DNA. Though it should not be a surprise, Millicent still astonishes me. I have been saying that since I met her.
She managed to get my DNA all over the Bread of Life Christian Church. My sweat is found on the door handle out front, on the lock down to the basement, even on the stair railing. It is like she had a vial of my sweat and dabbed it everywhere.
A spot of my blood is found on the shelves against the wall.
More sweat on the handcuffs.
Blood on the chains and dirt.
She makes it look as if I mostly cleaned up but missed a few spots.
Claire has a midday press conference to announce all of this. I am officially upgraded from person of interest to suspect. The only suspect.
She even says I am “probably armed and definitely dangerous.”
After hours of watching the experts, reporters, and former friends crucify me, I finally leave the house. I drive right out of Hidden Oaks and out into the world, where someone may or may not recognize me.
Across town, I drive by the EZ-Go where I used to get coffee. Instead of stopping, I drive ten miles down the interstate to another EZ-Go, which has the same self-serve machine. With the baseball cap on my head and almost a full week’s growth of facial hair, I go in and get myself a coffee.
The young guy behind the counter barely looks up from his phone. It is almost anticlimactic.
It also emboldens me a little. Every person in the world is not looking for me. I could probably eat in a restaurant, shop at the mall, and see a movie before someone recognizes me. I just don’t want to do any of those things.
Once I am in Hidden Oaks, something makes me drive by my house. The lawn is clear of toys, and the welcome sign on the door is gone. The shades are drawn, and the curtains are closed.
I wonder if Millicent has bought another bottle of eye drops. Or if she even looked for the old one.
I also wonder if Jenna is the only one she poisoned.
I have been sick a few times as well. If Millicent can make her own daughter sick, she is capable of doing it to anyone.
But I do not go inside the house. Not yet. I go back to Kekona’s. The police are not waiting for me, nor have I been followed. Everything inside looks the same.
I almost leave the TV off, to take a break, but I can’t.
Just about everyone is talking about the DNA, and the only exception is Josh. He is back to being a reporter, and he is interviewing a criminal pathologist. This man’s voice is not as irritating, but he is a little boring, like a professor, at least until he gets to the paper cuts on Naomi.
“The locations of the paper cuts are important to determining what caused them. We say ‘paper’ because of the type of cut, but there are also different types of paper. For instance, Naomi had shallow paper cuts on tougher skin, like the bottoms of the feet, and deeper cuts in softer areas, like the underside of the upper arm. That indicates that the same item was used, but it couldn’t have been a regular piece of paper. It had to be something that would cut through the heel of a foot.”
I jump off the couch like I’ve been shocked. And in a way, I have. I know what Millicent used to make those cuts.
Sixty-nine
RARELY DOES MILLICENT do something by accident. She has a reason for everything, even if it’s to amuse herself.
This is one of those times.
It began so many years ago, when she asked me how I would protect her from assholes on planes who try to pick her up.
I would force them into the center seat, hog the armrests, and give them paper cuts with the emergency information card.
The emergency information card. The one I gave to her on the first Christmas we spent together. She has always kept it.
In her old apartment, it was taped to the mirror in her bathroom.
Our first place together was the small house, a rental, and the card was stuck to the fridge with a googly-eyed face magnet.
When we bought our first house, she slipped it inside the frame of our full-length mirror.
And in our bigger, more expensive house, we have two kids who do not appreciate the emergency-card joke. They think it’s corny. Millicent carries the card with her, stuck inside the visor in her car. When the sun is in her eyes and she flips it down, the card makes her laugh.
The card is what she used to make all those paper cuts. I am as sure of this as I have been about anything.
* * *
• • •
HIDDEN OAKS IS not an easy place in which to hide. People notice new cars, especially the ones that just show up and park. They do not notice runners or walkers. People are always starting and stopping exercise programs, so on any given day there could be ten people out or none. A few are always out, like Millicent, but most come and go.
With the same baseball cap, more facial hair, baggy sweatpants, and a big T-shirt—thanks to Kekona, who owns an extraordi
nary amount of oversize clothing—I leave out the back door of her house, jump the fence, and jog out to the road.
It has been only a week since I disappeared, and the press is still everywhere. It would be impossible for Millicent and the kids to live normal lives right now. She can’t go to work and the kids can’t go to school, but I want to know if Millicent ever leaves the house. It would be a lot easier to get that emergency card if she takes the car out of the garage and parks it somewhere I can access.
Just about anything can go wrong with this idea. Maybe she has thoroughly cleaned that card, so there’s no DNA on it at all—not from her or any of the women. Or maybe she got rid of it, threw it away or burned it up.
For my sake, I hope not.
I may not know everything she does, or everything she has done, but I know who she is on the inside. She keeps that card to remind her of us. And to remind herself of what she did to those women. Millicent enjoys it. I know that now.
Will the police believe me if I bring them that card? If it has DNA from one or more of the dead women and from Millicent, but not mine? Probably not.
Will they believe me if I also tell them about the building Millicent bought with three LLCs, about Denise and Owen’s sister, and if I showed them my schedule when all of these women disappeared? I was always home. And I have no idea what the kids will say about those nights.
No, they wouldn’t believe me. With my DNA in the basement and multiple people identifying me as Tobias, not to mention Millicent’s performance, they won’t believe I’m innocent for a second. But they might believe Millicent and I killed those women together, which would keep my children safe.
It’s the only chance I have. Not just to save myself but to put her where she belongs—in jail or in hell. Either one works for me, as long as it is nowhere near my children.
I jog down the block parallel to my house, watching for Millicent’s car through the paths between the houses. On my second pass, I jog down the street she would turn on to go toward the school.
As expected, I never see her car.
Throughout the day, I check back but never see her leave. I just can’t be sure. It would be so much easier if I had left the tracker on her car. Still, I try, because I have to. Jogging and walking have become my new hobby. Too bad I couldn’t adopt that dog at the shelter. It would be handy to have one right now.
I call Andy. He sounds surprised to hear from me. Maybe surprised I am alive.
“I just have a question,” I say.
“Hit me.”
I ask if Millicent ever leaves the house. “I assume she isn’t even going to work,” I say.
He hesitates before answering. “I don’t think so. Neighbors have been bringing food by every day. It’s all over the place. I think they’re hunkered down, avoiding the media.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“Why?” he says.
“Doesn’t matter. Thanks again. You have no idea how much I appreciate this.”
He clears his throat.
“What?” I say.
“I have to ask you not to call again.” When I say nothing, he keeps talking. “It’s the DNA. This whole thing has just become so much bigger than—”
“I understand. Don’t worry about it.”
“I do believe you,” he says. “I just can’t keep—”
“I know. I won’t call again.”
He hangs up.
The only surprise is that he stayed by me as long as he did. I didn’t deserve his friendship. Not after Trista.
The sun has started to set, and I decide to make one last pass by the house before trying to go in. All I have to do is get into the garage, to her car, but it has to be after Millicent is asleep.
And I have keys.
* * *
• • •
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, I pass by on the parallel block and look for anything unusual. Like an unmarked police car because they are waiting for me to do exactly what I am about to do. Nothing. No unusual cars, no work trucks. There is nothing I don’t recognize in the neighborhood. Except me, the bearded guy who jogs too much. It’s surprising no one has stopped me yet.
I head back to Kekona’s using different streets. It’s the long way, but I used the short way earlier. By the time I make it to the edge of the circular drive up to her house, I stop dead.
A town car is in front.
The driver pulls a suitcase out of the trunk.
I hear her voice. Kekona is home.
Seventy
SHE’LL KNOW. THEY will all know.
It will take Kekona seconds to realize someone has been staying in her house. The police will know it is me within another few seconds. My car is in the garage. My fingerprints are everywhere. So is my DNA, and Millicent’s tablet is right on the kitchen table.
Oh, and my wallet. I did not take it with me on the jog. It’s also on the kitchen table.
I go back the way I came and jog all the way out to the least expensive houses in the Oaks. Here, there is a small greenspace, away from the children’s park, where I stop near a group of trees and pretend to stretch.
I’ve got nowhere to go. No Andy to call or phone to call him with. No money, no friends, and almost a total lack of hope. But I do have keys. They are the only thing in my pocket.
Tonight was going to be the night anyway, the night I go into the garage to get the emergency card. In that respect, nothing has changed. What has changed is that I need a place to hide until Millicent is asleep.
My first thought is the club. Plenty of small rooms and closets to hang out in until well after dark. Getting in and out is the problem. Too many cameras.
The golf course is empty at night, but it’s filled with wide-open spaces visible from the road.
I’ll never find an unlocked car, not in Hidden Oaks. Here, everyone has modern, expensive cars, the kind with computers that do everything, including lock the doors.
For a moment, I consider hiding under a car. I’m just afraid someone will get in and start it.
In the distance, sirens. They are coming this way, but not to me. To Kekona’s.
My options are dwindling, and I have to move. I can’t just stay in this little greenspace forever. Not unless I bury myself.
I even consider hiding in my own backyard. And then, I do.
* * *
• • •
EVERYTHING LOOKS DIFFERENT from above. The neighborhood, the cars, the sky. My house. My kitchen, where the light is on.
Millicent.
She is the one who convinced me to climb a tree. It was not something I thought I would do again, but here I am, hidden within the big oak tree at the back of our yard. Far enough from the house that no one heard the leaves rustling as I climbed up it.
Millicent is cleaning up in the kitchen. She is too far away for me to see any details other than her red hair and black clothing. I bet she wears black all the time these days, especially when the police come by. Mourning those women, her husband, and the breakup of her family.
I am both impressed and sickened.
Rory walks into the kitchen and goes straight to the refrigerator. He doesn’t move his right arm, I assume because the sling is still on it. He grabs something and stays there for a few minutes, talking to Millicent.
Jenna never comes into the kitchen, but I have to believe she is okay. Not sick. Millicent has no reason to poison her today.
My legs start to cramp up, and I adjust a little, although there isn’t anywhere to go. The kitchen light goes off, but the bedroom lights are on. Still too early for sleep.
Around me, the neighborhood goes quiet as everyone settles in. Very few cars are on the road. It’s a Tuesday night, not a popular one for big outings. I lean my head back against the tree trunk and wait.
By ten o’clock, everyone should
be in bed. At eleven, I almost climb down, but then I let another thirty minutes pass. At half past, I climb down and walk along the edge of the yard, next to the fence, all the way to the house.
As I head to the side door into the garage, I look up.
Rory’s light is out, window closed.
We almost never use the side door to the garage. I am exposed a little, because it is in front of the backyard gate. I slip the key into the lock and click it open. The noise sounds much louder than it probably is, and I freeze for a second before stepping inside.
I stand in the garage, next to the door, and wait for my eyes to adjust so I don’t have to turn on a light.
The outline of Millicent’s car comes into focus. Her luxury crossover is parked in the center of the garage. No need to make room for me anymore. I walk around to the driver’s side, thankful that the window is open. I don’t even have to open the door. I just reach up and flip down the visor. Something falls out onto the seat.
I feel around but find no emergency card, nor anything that feels like one. I open the car door. All at once, the light comes on, and I see something lying on the beige leather seat.
A blue glass earring.
Petra.
She knew. Millicent knew about both of the women I slept with.
Rory never told Jenna. He told his mother.
* * *
• • •
I FALL TO my knees. Defeat does not describe it. Done. I am just done.
Eventually, I end up lying down on the cement floor, curled into the fetal position. No will to get up, much less run. It’s easier to stay here and wait for them to find me.
I close my eyes. The ground feels so cool, almost cold, and the air is a combination of dust, oil, and a little exhaust. Not comforting, not pleasant. Still, I do not move.
My Lovely Wife Page 30