My Lovely Wife

I should have said something earlier. It wasn’t because I forgot; it was because I couldn’t remember the last time I spent time alone with my kids.

Millicent gets home forty-five minutes later. She is brisk with her hellos and then a flurry in the kitchen, getting dinner in the oven before she even changes her clothes. The energy in the house is different when she is here. Everything goes up a notch because expectations are higher.

Tonight, we all eat chicken noodle soup, and no one complains. It’s what we do when someone is sick.

Other rules are relaxed as well. Since Jenna is set up on the couch, Millicent decides that’s where everyone will eat. We all sit in front of the TV with our plates on tray tables. By then, Millicent has changed into sweats, and Rory claims he has finished his homework. We watch a new sitcom that’s terrible, followed by a mediocre police show, and for a couple of hours everything feels normal.

After the kids go to bed, Millicent and I straighten up the family room. Although I have been lying around on a couch all day, I feel exhausted. I sit down at the kitchen table and rub my eyes.

“Did you miss a lot today?” Millicent asks.

She is talking about my real job, which I would have missed anyway, because I had planned on watching Annabelle.

I shrug.

She comes up behind me and starts to rub my shoulders. It feels good.

“I should be rubbing your shoulders,” I say. “You’re the one who worked all day.”

“Taking care of a sick child is more stressful.”

Millicent is right, though Jenna was more under the weather than sick. “She’ll be fine,” I say.

“Of course she will.”

She keeps rubbing. After a minute, she says, “How is everything else?”

“Your surprise is almost ready.”

“Good.”

“It will be.”

Millicent stops rubbing my shoulders. “That sounds like a promise.”

“Maybe it is.”

She takes me by the hand and leads me up to our bedroom.

* * *

• • •

After Robin, we didn’t talk about her. And we didn’t talk about Holly. Millicent and I went back to our lives, our work, our children. The idea of Lindsay—of a third—started a year and half ago. I didn’t know it at the time, could not imagine choosing, stalking, and killing a woman. It was just a little thing that happened at the mall.

I was there with Millicent, just us. We were buying Christmas presents for the kids. Money was more of a problem than usual. Millicent had been waiting for two houses to close, but both were on hold due to financing issues. A week before Christmas, and we had no presents, no cash, and not much left on the credit cards. We lowered our holiday budget three times. I wasn’t happy about it. We didn’t just have to buy presents for the kids; we also had to buy gifts for our friends, colleagues, and clients.

At the mall, Millicent kept saying no. Everything I picked up was too expensive.

“We’re going to look cheap,” I said.

“You’re being dramatic.”

“I grew up around these people.”

Millicent rolled her eyes. “This again?”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

I put my hand on her arm. She was wearing a long-sleeved shirt but no jacket, because even in December our temperatures were around sixty. “No, what did you mean by that?”

“I mean you’re always going on about ‘these people.’ Hidden Oaks people. You insult them but then brag about being one of them.”

“I do not.”

Millicent did not answer. She was looking at a shelf of candlesticks.

“I don’t do that,” I said.

“What do you think of these?” She held up a pair made of silver. Or something that looked like silver.

I turned up my nose.

She slammed the candlesticks back on the shelf.

I was already irritated. The fatigue hit next. Recently, all we talked about was money. I was tired of hearing we didn’t have it, I couldn’t buy it, I had to pick something cheaper. I couldn’t even get my kids what they wanted for Christmas.

Millicent kept talking, going on and on about the budget and bank accounts. I tuned her out. I couldn’t listen to it anymore, couldn’t think about it—and I needed a distraction.

By chance, one walked right by. Her hair was the color of a roasted chestnut.

“Hello?” Millicent snapped her fingers in front of my face.

“I’m here.”

“Are you sure? Because—”

“She looked kind of like Robin,” I said. “Holly’s friend.”

Millicent turned around and watched the woman disappear into the crowd. When she turned back around, she had one eyebrow raised. “You think so?”

“Yes.”

“How odd.”

It was odd. So was the feeling I got when I replayed Robin’s murder in my head. Every time I did, I thought about how fantastic that day was, how we came together and did what needed to be done to protect ourselves. To protect our family. It was amazing.

And so very sexy.

I started telling my wife just that.

Twenty

Annabelle’s work schedule never changes. Monday through Friday, from eight until five, she hands out parking tickets, calls for tow trucks, and gets yelled at for doing her job. People curse at her, make rude gestures, and call her names. Annabelle keeps her cool, but I wonder how she does it. Does she really not care, or does she get help from a substance or two? I wonder what the addiction rate is for meter maids.

Her evenings are not as easy. She is a single woman who likes to go out, but not too much, and as a meter maid, she doesn’t make much money. On Wednesdays, she has dinner with her parents, but other than that, her nights have no set pattern. If I had to pick a night she goes out more often than the others, it’s Friday.

Two weeks from now will be Friday the 13th. It doesn’t get more ridiculously perfect than that. On Friday the 13th, Annabelle will disappear.

I am finally able to put together Owen’s second letter to Josh. It is typed, like the first, only much longer.

Dear Josh,

I am not sure you believe it is me. Or maybe you do but the police don’t. I am not a copycat or an imposter. It’s me, the same Owen Oliver Riley who used to live at 4233 Cedar Crest Drive, in that little old house with the obnoxious carpet. I didn’t put that in, by the way. That was my mother’s bad choice.

I feel like what we have here is a lack of trust. Completely understandable, given that no one has seen me or spoken to me. Well, except Lindsay. She saw a lot of me. And we spoke many, many times during the year she was mine.

But now I’m alone and you don’t believe me. So I’ll make you a promise. Two weeks from now, another woman will disappear. I’ll even tell you the exact date: Friday the 13th. Cheesy, right? Oh yes, it is. It’s also easy to remember.

And Josh, you may not trust me now, but you’ll learn that I always keep my word.

—Owen

Josh will have the letter by Tuesday. Once again, I spritz it with the musky cowboy cologne before mailing it. The letter will first be examined by the police, and who knows how many discussions must take place until they decide to go public with it. Or at least the part about Friday the 13th.