My Lovely Wife(26)

I said nothing. Instead, I lifted my glass, we toasted, and we drank.

Trista talked about Owen Oliver Riley for almost two hours.

He watched sports. Hockey was one of his favorites, although the closest professional team is hundreds of miles away. Owen always wore jeans. Always, unless he was in the shower, in bed, or near a pool. But he couldn’t swim. Trista suspected he was afraid of the water.

He lived in a house on the north side of town, the same area Millicent and I lived when we first got married. The north side isn’t a bad area, but it is older and more run-down than the southeastern side, where Hidden Oaks is located. Owen had inherited the house when his mother died, and Trista described it as “cute enough, but almost a shack.” This wasn’t surprising. A lot of houses on the north side are small cottages with porches, elaborate woodwork, and little dormer windows. Inside, most are outdated and falling apart. Owen’s was no exception.

The heater didn’t work, the bedroom window was jammed, and the carpet was an obnoxious shade of teal. The bathroom did have a claw-foot tub, which Trista liked, but the faucet dripped and drove her crazy. If she spent the night, she shut the door to the bathroom; otherwise, she would hear the drip down the hall. When they ate at Owen’s, they used his mother’s dishes, with a yellow floral pattern around the edge.

After a while, Trista was too drunk and tired to continue, so I had a driver at the club take her home. I told her if she wanted to talk more about Owen, I would be happy to listen. It was the truth.

She’d provided me with exactly what I needed for the second letter to Josh.





Seventeen




Plans have never been my thing. Not even my trip overseas was planned. I got a call from a friend, and a week later I met up with him at the Orlando airport. When I realized I would never be good enough to play tennis professionally, I didn’t have a plan. The day Millicent told me she was pregnant with Rory, I had no plan to raise a child. When she got pregnant with Jenna, I still didn’t have one. Only the secret I have with Millicent makes me plan.

My game is tennis, not chess. I play, and teach, singles tennis, and usually that is all I see: two sides of the net, two opposing forces, one goal. It isn’t complicated. Yet here I am, designing a plan involving multiple people, like I have something to prove.

The current version of my plan involves three people: Owen, Josh, and Annabelle. Millicent makes it four, and I could even include Trista. Or at least the information Trista gave me.

First, I’ll send another letter to Josh. Not only will it include details about Owen’s real life—specifically his mother’s home—but it will also include the date when another woman will disappear.

This is risky, I know. Maybe even unnecessary. But in one fell swoop, it accomplishes our goal. Yes, Owen is back. Yes, he is responsible for Lindsay and for the next one. No guessing games, no back-and-forth between the police and the media, wondering if he is really back or if there is a copycat. The information Trista gave me will prove to them it’s Owen. No one will have a doubt when the next one disappears.

It will be Annabelle Parson, though I don’t include her name.

The downside is that the entire police department will be waiting for a woman to disappear that night, and they will be searching for her as soon as someone reports her missing.

The upside is that Annabelle has very few friends. No one is going to report her missing until she doesn’t show up for work. It would be easy enough to give us a two-day lead.

We’ll still have to figure out how to snatch Annabelle without being seen by anyone, including a camera, on a night when everyone is expecting a woman to disappear. And while the police are looking for Owen, they will completely miss Millicent.

The plan is so simple it could be brilliant.

I go through it again, starting with the letter to Josh and ending with the disappearance of Annabelle. Along the way, I see a hundred holes, loose ends, and potential problems.

This is why I do not plan. It’s exhausting. Which is also why I do it. I try to put the plan together before telling Millicent about it. Even after all these years, I still want to impress her.

And it’s been a while. Impressing Millicent wasn’t easy when she was young. Now, it almost impossible.

Our relationship is not one-sided, though. There have been plenty of times she has tried to impress me. Millicent was trying to impress me when she decorated our Christmas tree with the oxygen masks. On our fifth anniversary, she put on the same lingerie she wore on our wedding night. And for our tenth anniversary, she planned a little vacation.

With two kids and a bigger house on our wish list, we had no money for a vacation or even a nice dinner. Millicent found a way.

First, she showed up at the tennis courts. Millicent never comes to the tennis courts. If she comes to the club at all, it’s to swim or have lunch with someone, so when she walked onto the court, I thought something was wrong. My wife just wanted to kidnap me.

Millicent drove us out to the middle of nowhere, stopped, and pointed to the woods.

“Walk,” she said.

I did.

A couple hundred yards from the road, we came to a clearing. A tent was already set up, right next to a stone fire pit. A little picnic table was set with plastic plates, glasses, and thick candles.

Millicent took me camping. She is not the outdoorsy type, but, for one night, she pretended to be.