My Lovely Wife

“The kids will.”

She smiles. “If you say so.”

I take that as a yes.

On a break between lessons, I stop by the shelter. A nice woman gives me a tour while I explain what we are looking for. She recommends a few different dogs, and one is the rottweiler-boxer mix. His name is Digger. She checks the paperwork and says he would be a good family dog, but the kids have to come to the shelter and meet him before they’ll allow us to adopt. I promise the woman I will be back.

The dog makes me feel a little optimistic.

I stop at a drive-through for an iced coffee and a panini. As I sit at the pickup window waiting for my lunch, the TV inside is visible. Claire Wellington is having another press conference. The words at the bottom of the screen make my heart jump:

ADDITIONAL BODIES DISCOVERED IN CHURCH

When the cashier slides the window open to hand me the food, I hear Claire’s voice.

“… the bodies of three young women have been found buried in the basement.”

I listen to the rest of the press conference in the parking lot, on my car radio.

Three women. All were murdered recently.

The police have to be wrong about the timing. There is no way someone buried bodies while Lindsay was—

“At least two of the three were recent enough for investigators to identify how they were murdered. Like the others, they were strangled. There are also signs of torture.”

I cannot catch my breath because Claire does not stop talking.

“We also found words written on the wall of the basement, behind a shelf. While we do not have the DNA tests back yet, the blood type matches Naomi’s.”

When Claire says the words on the wall, my heart stops.

Tobias.

Deaf.

Sixty-one

Naomi could not have written Tobias’s name. She had never met him.

I turn this over in my mind, trying to figure out how it happened. Lindsay knew Tobias. She knew he was deaf.

But her body was found before Naomi disappeared. They could not have spoken, could not have exchanged information like that.

Millicent was the only one.

It does not make sense. None of this does.

As I get my food and drive out, I turn on the radio to hear the end of the press conference. When it’s over, the announcers keep talking. They say those words on the wall again and again.

Tobias.

Deaf.

Naomi didn’t know about Tobias.

Lindsay did.

And Millicent.

I pull over to the side of the road. My mind is so muddled I cannot think and drive at the same time.

Tobias.

Deaf.

I turn the radio off and close my eyes. All I see is Naomi in the basement of the church, chained up on that wall. I try to force it from my mind, to think clearly. But I still see her, huddled in a corner, dirty and covered in blood.

It makes me sick. Bile rises in my throat; I taste it in my mouth. I step out of the car, feeling nauseous, and the phone rings.

Millicent.

She is already talking when I answer the call.

“Flat tire?” she says.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re sitting on the side of the road.”

I look up, as if a drone or a camera is looking down on me, but the sky is clear. Not even a bird. “How do you know where I am?”

She sighs. A big, exasperated sigh, and I hate when she does that. “Look under the car,” she says.

“What?”

“Under. The. Car.”

I kneel down and look. A tracker. Just like the one I’d put on her car.

That’s why I never knew about the church.

She knew I was tracking her.

* * *

• • •

The realization of what is happening explodes like a bomb in my head.

There is only one person who could have written that message using Naomi’s blood. I knew this when I heard about it—I’ve just been looking for another explanation.

There isn’t one.

“You set me up,” I say. “For all of them. Lindsay, Naomi—”

“And the other three. Don’t forget about them.”

My mind is flooded with images of Millicent killing women alone, framing me for the murders.

Now, I know what she has been doing while I was at home with Jenna all those days and nights when she was sick.

The future rolls out in front of me like a bloody red carpet.

I pull over to the side of the road. Close my eyes, lean my head back, and think of all the ways Millicent could set me up. All the DNA she has access to. Everything she could plant, could give to the police. That does not even include the people who knew me as a deaf man named Tobias.

Annabelle. Petra. Even the bartenders.

They will remember.

Everything will point to me.

My mind fights against this idea. Around in circles I go, mapping out an idea, following it to the end, realizing it will never work. Every path is blocked, every idea already thought of by Millicent. It feels like a giant maze with no exit. I’m not a planner after all, not like my wife.

I pace up and down the length of the car. My head feels like it’s being shocked again and again.

“Millicent, why would you do this?”

She laughs. It sounds like a bite. “Open your trunk.”

“What?”

“Your trunk,” she says. “Open it.”

I hesitate, imagining what could be inside. Wondering how much worse it could get.

“Do it,” she says.

I open the trunk.

Nothing inside except my tennis equipment. Not a single racket out of place. “What are you—”

“The spare tire,” she says.

My phone, the disposable one. The one with messages from Lindsay and Annabelle. I reach inside the rim of the tire, but I don’t find it. Instead, I find something else.

Pixy Stix.

Lindsay.

The first one I slept with.

It happened after that second hike.

You’re cute. That’s what Lindsay had said.

No, you’re the cute one.

Millicent’s voice brings me back to now. “You know, it’s amazing what people will tell you when they’re locked up for a year.”

“What are you—”

“She saw you the night we took her. Lindsay was waking up before you left. She was pretty surprised you weren’t deaf, actually.”

A wave of nausea hits. Because of what I did. Because of what my wife has done.

“The funny thing,” she says, “is that Lindsay thought I was torturing her because she slept with you. I tried to tell her it wasn’t like that, not at first anyway, but I don’t think she ever believed me.”

“Millicent, what have you done?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Millicent says. “You did. You did all of this.”

“I don’t know what you think happened—”

“Do not patronize me with a denial.”

I bite my tongue until I taste blood. “How long have you been planning this?”

“Does it matter?”

No. Not anymore.

“Can I explain?” I ask.

“No.”

“Millicent—”

“What? You’re sorry, it just happened, and it didn’t mean anything?”