Our dinner is roast turkey with chorizo and sweet potatoes. Rory glosses over the grade on his history quiz by telling an exciting story about a kid who was caught smoking and made a run for it before anyone could identify him. Jenna had heard the same story, but a friend of a friend said the guy was the vice principal’s son and that was why he ran.
“False,” Rory says. “I heard it’s Chet.”
Jenna turns up her nose. “He’s a jerk.”
“Chet Allison?” Millicent says. “I sold the Allisons their house.”
“No. Chet Madigan.”
“You have two Chets at school?” she says.
“Three,” Jenna says.
There is a lull in the conversation. I ponder the abundance of Chets while sneaking a look at Millicent’s plate. She has a thick slice of turkey, a scoop of chorizo, and a tiny sweet potato. For her, it is a normal-size dinner. Dessert is fruit and gingersnap cookies. No ice cream.
All of a sudden, I find myself fascinated by my wife’s eating habits. I wonder if her lunch always determines what we eat for dinner, dessert, or both.
I watch the blue dot again the next day.
Millicent drops off the kids, but I pick them up, and during that time she is at a house in the Willow Park gated community. Today, she goes to the office, but she does not stop for lunch. Again, she stays within a small radius, concentrated in the areas and subdivisions where she sells the most houses.
In contrast, the police have widened their search. At night, after Millicent is asleep, I watch the news on my phone in the bathroom, because if I go into the garage, my son will think I am still cheating on his mother.
Josh now starts his reports with the number of days that have passed since Naomi has disappeared. He calls it “The Count,” and it is at twenty-two. Twenty-two days have passed since Friday the 13th, and Josh is still following the police around to abandoned buildings, sheds, and bunkers. An expert says this is probably futile, because Owen is watching the news, and therefore Naomi would not be kept in an empty building, shed, or bunker. Besides, a woman can be held anywhere. A single room, a storage container. A closet.
The report is over in just a few minutes. It used to take up half the evening news. The story is starting to fade, because nothing new has happened and Naomi is no longer the girl next door. She is tainted. The viewers have grown restless.
And I have become mesmerized by the blue dot. In all my years of marriage, I have never wondered how much time it takes Millicent to show a house, or how long of a lunch she takes, or how many houses per day she sees. Now that I am tracking her, all of this has become intriguing.
I check the app every chance I get. Before and after tennis lessons, when I am in my car, in the clubhouse, in the locker room. There is no sign of Naomi. Millicent visits no unusual buildings or abandoned businesses, and the houses are all on the market. She goes to the store, to the school, and to the bank for a closing. After four days, I start to wonder if Naomi is already dead.
As disturbing as it is, I think this may be the best-case scenario.
If she is gone, never to be heard from or found, Owen may fade away with her. When he is gone from the news, it will be like he’d never come back.
Trista will still be gone. Nothing can be done about that. But Jenna will stop being scared. She will stop thinking about Owen Oliver.
Then, a year from now, Owen will be back on the news. The anniversary of the event will be marked with documentaries, specials, and dramatic re-creations, but there will be nothing new to report. We will hear about Naomi and the men in shadows with the garbled voices.
Once again, Owen will fade away. Naomi will go with him.
Jenna will be a year older and talking about boys. Her hair will be long again, and she will not have a knife under her mattress.
As the days go on, I start to think it is all happening. Naomi is no longer alive, and Millicent is not torturing her, not visiting her. The police still have nothing. Everything, all that we have done, will just fade away until everyone forgets.
With a smile, I watch the blue dot. Millicent goes home in the afternoon, drops the kids off, and then heads back out. She stops at a coffee shop, and I know she is getting a vanilla latte. Maybe with an extra shot, but it’s hard to tell from just the dot on the map.
I am so busy watching Millicent that I miss the breaking news. A woman claims Owen Oliver Riley attacked her.
Forty
I first hear about this woman when I’m at the EZ-Go. A TV screen is mounted above the soda machine, visible to everyone in the store, including in the security mirrors. The breaking-news banner is everywhere, but I pay no attention until Josh is on the screen. His says a woman has come forward to claim she was attacked by Owen Oliver Riley.
She doesn’t appear on TV, not even in shadows. For now, she is just a report filed with the police. The text appears on the screen, and a female reporter reads it:
On Tuesday night, I became Owen Oliver Riley’s latest victim, but by the grace of God I got away from him. I am a hairdresser, and after work we all went across the street for a drink. Later that night, I was at a bar out on Mercer Road but I decided to leave, because I had to work the next day. This was right around 11 p.m., and I remember because someone said it and I thought I better get home soon, so I decided to leave. I was parked in the back lot, and it isn’t even dark back there because of the lights, and the moon was real bright—maybe it was a full moon, but I didn’t check. It was light enough to walk by myself, so I did. Honestly, I didn’t even think about Owen. He never crossed my mind.
I was a couple feet from my car when I felt a tug. Felt like my bag got caught on something, the strap. It wasn’t hard, didn’t scare me. I just stopped and tugged, and it was definitely caught on something. So I turned around.
He was just standing there, holding on to the strap of my bag. That’s what it was caught on. Owen’s hand.
I knew it was him, even though he had a cap pulled down so low it covered half his face. I could still see his mouth, though. His smile. Everyone knows that smile—it’s all over the news because he smiled in that old mug shot, and that’s how I know it was definitely him. And that’s why I let go of the bag and ran.
Didn’t get far before he tackled me. That’s where I got all these scrapes, trying to get out from under him. But I couldn’t, because he was just so strong, and every time I tried to move, his grip got tighter.
I’m only alive because of my phone. My brother called, and I knew it was him because of the ring. I personalize all my rings because I like to know who’s calling, right? My brother’s ring sounds like an explosion, because that’s kind of what he’s like—a big explosion. His life always seems to be blowing up, and when it does he calls me. But I can’t complain anymore, because his life and that ring is why I’m still here. The exploding sound was so loud it made Owen jump. His head whipped around, and I think he believed something had really blown up.
I scrambled to get up and ran straight back to the bar, and he didn’t follow me.
I don’t think he realized nothing blew up. Maybe he still thinks something did.
That is the end of the statement, or at least the only part read on the news. The words disappear, and Josh is back. He is standing in the parking lot behind that bar on Mercer. I haven’t been to that bar since I was about twenty. Back then, they were known for not carding.