We are hit by headlights as a car comes around the corner of the mall. As it comes closer, I see it is not a car at all. The security vehicles for the mall are golf carts, and this one is driven by a middle-aged woman. She stops and asks us if everything is all right.
Millicent waves to her. “Everything’s fine. My husband and I are just discussing our son’s grades.”
“Oh, I understand that. Got three of my own.”
“Then you get it.”
The guard nods. She and my wife smile at each other as some motherly understanding passes between them.
“Best move along, though. The mall is closed.”
“Thanks. We’ll get going,” Millicent says.
The guard waits as we get into the car and drive away. When we stop at a red light, Millicent puts her hand on my arm. “I was thinking we should enroll Jenna in a self-defense class. I think it would help her confidence.”
“That’s a good idea.” And it is.
“I’ll look into it tomorrow.”
* * *
• • •
Millicent’s stop at Joe’s Deli is not a one-time event. She goes again the next day, at lunchtime, and she stays for forty minutes before going to show another house. None of her other stops are out of the ordinary. She even looks at two different martial arts schools for Jenna and tells me about them after dinner, when we are alone in the bedroom.
“One of the schools teaches competitive tae kwon do. They have meets and teams, and compete for ribbons. But there’s another one downtown for Krav Maga. It’s a little more expensive but more geared toward self-defense.”
“She could try out both, let her pick which one she likes.”
Millicent comes over and kisses me on the nose. “You are so smart.”
I roll my eyes. She giggles.
She does not mention the sandwich shop or the plump blond woman with the big smile. I try to think of a way to bring up what she ate for lunch without asking, “What did you have for lunch today?” out of the blue. But I am not as smart as Millicent says, because when I start rambling about how good my own lunch was, she does not reciprocate. She just nods and smiles while getting ready for bed, acting interested in my long monologue about a fictitious lunch. We go to bed without discussing Joe’s Deli.
In the middle of the night, I get up and go down to the library. We call it the library because we filled it with shelves and books and a big mahogany desk, but the only thing we use it for is private phone calls. I have also started using it to surf the Internet in private.
Joe’s Deli opened twenty-two years ago. The business has had two owners, not related to one another, and the deli has always been in the same building. Rented, not owned. No trouble other than a slip-and-fall lawsuit filed by a man who claimed the floor was wet. It was settled out of court. No other crime, lawsuits, or serious health code violations. Joe’s Deli is exactly as it appears: a run-of-the-mill deli. The fact that it is so normal makes the whole thing suspicious. Millicent had no reason to go there once, let alone twice.
The satellite maps of the area show a freestanding building on what used to be a much busier road. Across the street, there is a small used-car lot. Next to that, a plumbing supply store, then a watch repair shop.
If she had stopped there only once, it could have been a fluke. An out-of-the-way place that someone had told her about and she decided to try but quickly realized it wasn’t her kind of place. I would even be willing to believe she stopped because she was thirsty and Joe’s was the only place around, even though it was miles from her usual area. I would believe just about any one-off reason for her to stop at Joe’s. Except that two days later, she went back.
She has another reason for going to Joe’s. At first, I think it’s Naomi—perhaps she was being held in that area—but Millicent didn’t stop anywhere else. There are no empty buildings or shuttered businesses in the area, no place she could walk to from the parking lot at Joe’s.
It doesn’t make any sense. Not unless she has developed a taste for unhealthy, nonorganic sandwiches.
And I know that hasn’t happened.
Forty-three
After Holly, it never occurred to me there would be another. Not until Robin showed up at our door threatening to ruin everything unless I paid her.
After Robin, it never occurred to me there would be another. Not until I wanted to do it again.
The idea had been floating around for a while, first at the New Year’s Eve party when Millicent and I talked about the other women. The conversation continued over the next few months, to the point that we looked up women online. The activity became our aphrodisiac.
We talked about how we would kill them and how we would get away with it, and those nights always ended with amazing sex. Wild sex. In every place we could, provided the kids weren’t around. If they were in the house, we struggled to be quiet.
It was almost as if we were climbing a ladder. We joked about it, talked about it, picked out women, and planned it. Every time we escalated to one rung, we stepped up to another. Then someone suggested we do it for real. It was me.
I said it while we were in the kitchen. It was late morning, and we were naked on the cold tile. We had just found Lindsay online. Both of us agreed she was perfect.
“We should just do it,” I said.
Millicent giggled. “I think we did just do it.”
“Not that. Well, yes, that, but it’s not what I meant.”
“You meant we should kill Lindsay.”
I paused. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
Millicent looked at me with a mixture of surprise and something else. At the time, I wasn’t sure. Now, I think it was interest. Or intrigue. But not revulsion. “Did I marry a psychopath?” she said.
I laughed. So did she.
The decision was made.
Millicent has never reminded me about that night, never said it was my idea. Never said it was my fault. But I know it is. If it weren’t for me, there would be no Lindsay, no Naomi, and Owen would not be back. Our daughter would still have long, shiny hair, and she wouldn’t have a knife under her mattress.
Or maybe it had been Millicent. Maybe she led me there all along.
I don’t know anymore.
But a few days later, I am once again reminded of that decision. And the unintended consequences of it.
The martial arts studios let Jenna sit in on a beginners’ class to see if she liked it. First, we went to tae kwon do. Half an hour later, Jenna shook her head at me and we left. She does not want to be in competitions, nor does she want to win ribbons and trophies. Jenna wants to fight off Owen.
The following afternoon we went to Krav Maga. Unlike tae kwon do, the Krav Maga school does not require uniforms or belts, which Jenna liked a lot better than the white gi everyone at tae kwon do had to wear. Jenna preferred to wear her sweatpants and T-shirt.
It never occurred to me that she would hurt the boy who was trying to teach her something, much less try to knock him out.
The whole thing happened so fast no one saw it. Not even me, and I had been watching Jenna from a row of chairs designated for parents. One minute, they were both standing up and the boy was showing Jenna how to form a proper punch. The next minute, he fell to the floor and screamed in pain.