Dear Wife(23)

But we’ve already established that I am a bitter, bitter man.

“Well then, Trevor, I feel obliged to tell you that this woman you cherish so much? Your soul mate?” The fur bag sniffs at my shoe, and I push it away with a foot. “She’s missing.”

Trevor makes a face like I punched him in his perfectly sculpted abs. “What do you mean, Sabine is missing? Missing, missing?”

I nod. “She had a showing last night—”

“With Corey Porter and his family, I know.”

The doctor stops, waiting for me to continue, but I’m still processing the fact that he knows more about my wife’s business than I do, than even Ingrid does. As much as I’d love to leave him hanging, I need to know what he knows. I fix him with a defiant stare. “She never came home.”

“She never...” He swallows the rest, but his expression is screaming the words.

“Came home. Sabine never came home. She didn’t show up, and neither did her car.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s think about this logically. I mean, she was pretty sure Corey would pull the trigger on the house. Maybe he did. Maybe they went out after to celebrate.”

“Maybe. But now it’s the next day.”

“Did you call her?”

I sigh. Roll my eyes.

“Of course you called her. But, but...” Trevor runs a shaking hand through his hair. “What about Ingrid—did you call her? Did you call the police?”

“Yes to both. Ingrid was at my house when the detective got there. He was going to check out the show house, see if he saw anything out of the ordinary. That was hours ago.”

Trevor’s eyes go wide with fear, with horror. “Oh my God. Oh my God.” He stumbles into the kitchen, and I follow behind. I step on one of the dog’s squeaky toys, and the beast comes running.

Trevor leans against the kitchen counter, tapping numbers into a cordless phone with his thumb. He presses the phone to his ear, muttering, “Come on, come on, come on.” And then his shoulders slump, and he curses. “Babe, it’s me. Jeffrey’s here, and he said you never came home last night. Wherever you are, please call me, okay? The very second you get this. I need to know you’re okay, that you’re... I’m scared shitless. I love you. Call me.”

He hangs up, and I almost feel sorry for the bastard.

He begins pacing, his bare feet slapping the hardwood floor. “Now what?” Under the kitchen can lights, his face is green and shiny, sweating despite the air-conditioning. “What are we going to do now?”

I shake my head, battling a rush of disgust at his use of the word we. “You and I are not on the same team here. We do not share Sabine. She’s my wife. She’s nothing to you.”

He stops, takes a long, slow breath. “When is the last time you talked to your wife?”

“Yesterday morning. And then she texted me later in the day that she had a showing but she’d be home by nine. When’s the last time you talked to my wife?”

“Has anybody confirmed that she actually made it to the showing? Did she meet Corey and his wife at the house?”

I shrug. “Like I said, I haven’t heard anything from the detective, so I’m guessing so. What time—”

“Did anybody call Corey to ask?”

“You’re the first person I’ve talked to who knows who the showing was with. The most I could tell the detective was the name of Sabine’s boss.”

He turns and races from the room, his footsteps crashing up the stairs. While he’s gone, I take a look around, try to see the place like Sabine would, like she did when she showed it to her soon-to-be lover. I picture her leading him through the empty house, pointing out all the features. Open, rambling rooms with French doors and generous windows. A spacious kitchen with new stainless appliances. Custom molding and hardwood floors throughout. Was their first kiss under the arched doorway? Did he push her up against these granite countertops? The visions burn like acid in my eyes, and I rub them away.

The floor creaks above my head.

I open the fridge and study the contents. Definitely a doctor’s refrigerator. Milk, fruit, yogurt, enough vegetables to stock a produce department. Nothing even remotely unhealthy except a lone IPA, shoved to the very back behind a container of organic pineapple. I’m digging it out when Trevor returns with a shirt, thank God, and his cell.

“Corey’s not answering his phone,” he tells me, “and neither is Lisa.”

I shut the refrigerator and wave the beer in the air by my head. “Where do you keep your opener?”

Trevor ignores me, staring at the phone in his hand.

The first drawer I try is stuffed with pencils and Post-its, so I close it and keep going, moving down the island, opening and closing the drawers in search of a bottle opener. On the third try, I find one, a golf-themed piece of plastic that makes a cheering sound when I open the cap. I toss it back into the drawer mid-hurrah.

“You never answered my question,” I say. “When is the last time you talked to Sabine?”

He looks up, and his eyes are liquid. “She came by the hospital yesterday afternoon. She wasn’t there very long, only fifteen minutes or so. She left around one thirty.”

I stare at him across the island. At one thirty yesterday afternoon, I was in Little Rock, fretting about the canyon that’s cracked down the middle of my marriage and plotting the steps I can take to win my wife back, oblivious to the fact that she was more than likely being fucked by her lover in a hospital supply closet.