Unmissing(57)



“Yes, actually.” He studies me with such intensity he doesn’t blink. Perhaps he’s trying to gauge my madness. Or maybe he’s wrapping his head around a version of his wife he hasn’t seen in years.

Years ago, I retired my ball-busting side in favor of a peaceful marriage, one built for the long haul. In retrospect, that appears to have been a mistake. Never give a horse too much rein lest he think he’s the one leading the excursion.

“And you didn’t think to maybe keep me in the loop before cleaning me out?” I could punch him—and I’m not a violent person. I’ve never hurt another human being in my life, but I’m willing to make an exception in his case. “I couldn’t even buy groceries.”

“She was extorting us,” he says, “with that bullshit assistant manager position. A thousand bucks a day or she was going to turn me in. I had no choice.”

“You were paying her a thousand dollars a day?” I clamp a hand over my nose and force a breath. No wonder he kept that from me—it probably would’ve sent me into an even earlier labor.

“I was giving her what she wanted so she’d leave us alone—and to buy us some time.”

“Time to do what? Come up with another one of your brilliant ideas?”

I’ve never spoken to my husband with this tone of voice before—then again, I’ve never needed to. He’s always been docile, agreeable . . . compliant. He knew how to give me what I wanted. And in return, I gave him what he wanted—a pretty little unopinionated housewife with a healthy sex drive and a promise to be loyal, faithful, and true come what may.

We were playing roles, he and I.

A well-oiled marital machine.

I’d always thought anyone else would be so lucky to have what we had—mutual respect, an understanding, a desperate want for the same things in life . . . financial security, love, a family.

I lean against the peeling floral wallpaper behind me, biting a defiant cuticle and taking a break from having to stare at a face that infuriates me more with every passing second.

A face I created, I might add.

He didn’t look like this when we first met. He was my next-door neighbor—a greasy, unkempt diner busboy. A wallflower of a man with no friends, lacking a thread of charisma or social skills. But I saw something in him no one else did—untapped potential.

All the man needed was a haircut, a gym membership, a new wardrobe, and a vote of confidence. It was like watering a dying plant and shoving it in the sunlight. With a little time and a careful hand, I could bring this man to life. Make him a better version of himself . . . the version he was always meant to be.

Luca was perfect for what I needed. The only problem was, he was broke. Ramen noodle, rusted muffler broke.

I was picking him up from work one night when I spotted him awkwardly chatting it up with a mousy little thing outside the back door who clearly wanted nothing to do with him.

That’s when Lydia Glass landed on my radar.

With nothing better to do, I dug into her past, nosed into her present, and gifted her with a future. The entire plan was my idea. The wooing. The whirlwind relationship. The quickie marriage in Vegas. Relocating to Bent Creek. The insurance policy. All of it.

The girl had no one. No friends, no family, no roommate. No life beyond waiting tables and bingeing Netflix shows in her shitty studio apartment above some sex offender’s garage. Everything about her screamed that she hated her life anyway. I could see it in those shit-brown eyes, the way she was waiting for someone to put her out of her misery.

If Luca was my moldable, pliable clay, Lydia was my low-hanging fruit. And together, they formed an illuminated path to the handcrafted, enviable life I deserved.

After their marriage and subsequent move to Bent Creek, I waited patiently for three months. While the two of them settled into “married life,” I settled for secret rendezvous with Luca, ensuring he knew I’d be waiting for him in the wings when all this was over. And when the opportunity to take Lydia finally presented itself, I had to lie low for another year as he played the part of the grieving husband searching for his missing wife. There couldn’t be another woman in the picture—at all. Armchair investigators and police alike would’ve been all over that.

“You know, no one told you to keep her alive for nine years . . .” I sigh. While I’ll never admit it out loud, I blame myself for allowing it. Luca has demons. I’ve known that since several months into our relationship, when I stumbled across his collection of torture porn and the Polaroids of disfigured animals.

Most women would’ve run screaming in the other direction, but I’d already made progress with the man, and our plan was in motion. If I left him, he could’ve turned me in for plotting Lydia’s kidnapping and murder. I had too much to lose by leaving and the entire world to gain by staying.

It was easier to move forward with my plan, to continue molding Luca into his ideal self. He could have his drowned-rat plaything if it meant I got the best parts of him. And if it hadn’t been her, it would’ve been some other girl. Or girls. Plural. At least this way, we minimized his risk of getting caught.

Regardless, what’s done is done. We can’t change what he did or didn’t do.

“We had a plan.” I lift a hand to my head, forming the nozzle of a gun. We were three months along with Everett when I told him he needed to end it. It was time for him to bury his darkness and be a full-time family man. No more weekly visits to the cabin. No more pretending that side of him didn’t exist—we needed to burn that part of him to the ground. “All you had to do was stick to it.”

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