* * *
• • •
The alarm on my phone wakes me up at five. I jump up, gather my things, and get into my car. Trying to sleep on a courtside bench gave me plenty of time to come up with a plan. The Internet on my phone helped make it a good one. Turns out there are dozens of websites that explain how to disappear, how to go off the grid, how to elude the police, your boss, or your angry wife. Everyone wants to escape something.
I drive out of town, down the interstate, and do not stop for at least an hour. Eventually, I pull into a gas station, turn on the GPS tracker, and attach it to the bottom of a semi. After taking the battery out of my phone, I stop at a convenience store and buy a cheap disposable.
Then I head back to Hidden Oaks.
The Internet does not recommend this part, but the Internet does not have children. If I didn’t, I would keep driving, change the license plate on my car or get rid of it altogether. Take a Greyhound from state to state and eventually end up in Mexico.
Not an option. Not when Jenna and Rory are still with my wife.
Halfway back, I stop and buy a trunk full of groceries. I check all the papers, looking for my own face, but I do not see it anywhere. The headlines are just those two words.
TOBIAS DEAF
As I drive back toward home, I wonder if I am being stupid all over again.
* * *
• • •
There are two gates at the Oaks. The front gate is where the guards are; you have pass them to get in.
But Hidden Oaks is quite large, given that is has an entire golf course as well as hundreds of homes, so there is a back gate. Or rather, two of them. One requires a code; the second, an opener like the kind used for a garage, but there are no guards. This is where I enter.
Once inside, I drive past the less expensive homes, through the midrange development, and finally arrive at a house twice as large as mine. It has six bedrooms, at least that many bathrooms, and a pool in the back. Kekona’s house is empty, because she is still in Hawaii.
This is the most brilliant part of my plan. Or the stupidest. I will not know until I try to get in.
This is where Lily lived. On that Halloween night, she became my first girlfriend. So many nights, I snuck out of my house and into hers. Just like my son does with his girlfriend now.
It has been many years since I have done it, and the house has been repainted, remodeled, and updated. The locks have probably changed several times. But that’s the thing about real estate. People always change the locks on the front and back doors. I am betting the lock on the French doors around back, on the second-story widow’s walk, has never been changed. The lock on those doors never closed properly. It did not need a key.
Climbing up is not as easy at my age as it was back then, but I am not worried about being seen. Kekona’s house is deep in the middle of the Oaks, in the expensive area where everyone has more land than they need. The closest neighbors are barely visible from the front, let alone the back.
Somehow, I make it up without falling, and, sure enough, I know before I even try. The doors have been painted, maybe even resealed, but the lock is the same. I smile for the first time in twenty-four hours.
Minutes later, I am inside and then back out through the garage. Kekona has one car, an SUV, which leaves an extra space in her garage for mine.
I bring in the groceries, take a shower, and get settled. For the first time, I feel like I have a chance. A chance at what, I am not sure, but at least I am no longer sleeping on a tennis court.
When I open my laptop, problem number one hits:
The wireless password.
Kekona has removed the code sticker from the bottom of the modem, so the password does not come easily. It takes me far too long to realize the sticker is right on the refrigerator door.
Once online, I search for a way into Millicent’s tablet. It requires a four-digit PIN. I know without trying that she would never use a generic birth date or anniversary. I need a better way.
On the news, they won’t stop talking about the press conference, about Tobias, and about the three women in the basement.
I try to figure out who they are, who Millicent would have chosen. Women from our list? Women I had rejected, like Annabelle or Petra? I hope it is not Annabelle. She didn’t do anything to deserve Millicent.
No, that wouldn’t make sense. Someone has to be alive to identify a deaf man named Tobias. She couldn’t have killed everyone who has seen him.
Maybe Millicent chose strangers, women I have never even seen or spoken to. Or maybe that would be too random for her.
I tell myself to stop. My mind is going in circles and getting nowhere.
I keep working on the tablet, hoping to find answers. By the time the sun goes down, I am no closer to getting into it.
It is six o’clock, and I should be at home eating dinner. Tonight is movie night, and I am not there. If my text didn’t let Rory and Jenna know something is wrong, my absence will.
* * *
• • •
I wake up thinking I am at home. I listen for Millicent downstairs, back from her run, making breakfast. Today’s schedule runs through my mind; my first lesson is at nine. I roll over and hit the floor with a thud.
Not at home. I slept on the couch in Kekona’s great room. Her seafoam green sectional is huge, but I still roll right off it. Reality hits with the wood floor.
The TV goes on, the single-serve coffee brews, the computer boots up. I spent the previous night making lists. What I know, what I don’t know, what I need to know. How to get the info I need. The last list is a little short, because I am neither a hacker nor a detective. What I do know is that there are two ways to go about this: prove she killed those women or prove I didn’t kill them. Ideally both.
On the night Naomi went missing, I went home and stayed with the kids, leaving Millicent alone with her. Same with Lindsay; I was with Jenna, because she was sick. The kids are my alibi, and they’re not a good one. Once they were asleep, they cannot verify anything.
But can I prove Millicent did it? Not any more than I can prove I didn’t.
Millicent’s tablet is a larger problem than I thought. Although there is software available to reset a PIN, it can be done only if I am signed into the e-mail address on the tablet. Another password I do not have and can’t even guess. In the middle of the night, I resorted to reading hacker message boards populated by teenagers looking for the same thing I was.
There could be another way. Maybe. But only if I can convince someone to help me.
I spend half the morning wondering if it is better to ask now, before my face is all over the news, or after I am a wanted man. I try to imagine someone coming to me for help, someone who may or may not be a psychopath. Would I help them, or slam the door and call the police?
The answer is the same. It depends.
And my options are limited. My friends are Millicent’s friends; we share them. I have many clients, but most are just that. Just one possibility comes to mind—the only person who might be both willing and able to help.
If Andy will agree.
Sixty-four
The Golden Wok is a Chinese buffet thirty minutes outside Hidden Oaks. I have been there once, on my way to somewhere else, and it is like every other Chinese buffet I’ve seen. I arrive early and fill up my plate with Mongolian beef, sweet-and-sour pork, chicken chow mein, and fried spring rolls. Halfway through the meal, Andy Preston walks in and joins me.