My Lovely Wife(67)

Now, he is energetic, all full of innuendo and speculation, because not many real facts have been released. All we really know is that a dead woman who looks like the missing Naomi was found in the Dumpster when it was being emptied by a waste disposal company. The police were called, the whole area was blocked off, and a press conference may or may not happen tonight, but he thinks it will.

The one thing that does not come up is Naomi’s past. Now that she is dead instead of missing, it would be unkind to say bad things about her.

Josh does note that it has been weeks since he last heard from Owen Oliver Riley.

I smile.

The letter is addressed to the TV station, and it is marked Personal and Confidential for Josh. I imagine that when it arrives, the look on his face will be orgasmic, though he will not be happy to learn that this is his final letter from Owen. The letters have made Josh a star, at least locally, and there is a rumor he has been approached by a cable station. He would do well on a station like that. He is so serious and earnest it is hard not to believe him.

Josh is one of the few who will have a better life because of this.

Trista will not.

Poor, dead Trista will never even be recognized as victim. And she was, even if she did take her own life. I do feel bad about her, mainly because she felt so bad about the others. It is hard to dislike someone so empathetic.

The best we can do now is to prevent it from happening again.

I go downstairs, where the kids are arguing about what to watch next. Millicent threatens to send them upstairs to read if they don’t agree on something, and suddenly the room goes quiet. The opening music of a teenage drama starts; it’s Jenna’s favorite, and somehow Rory manages not to groan. I suspect this is also because of the little blonde. She probably watches the same shows as Jenna.

Millicent motions to me, and we walk through the kitchen, into the formal dining room that we use only for holidays and dinner parties.

“They found her?” she whispers.

I nod. “They did. Waiting for official confirmation.”

“Now you—”

“I’ll mail it tomorrow.”

“Perfect.”

I smile. She kisses me on the tip of my nose.

We go back into the family room and join the kids, but since we are watching live TV, we cannot help but hear about Naomi. The news is announced during a commercial break, and it is so quick there is no time to turn the channel.

Rory’s phone lights up. He picks it up and starts texting.

Jenna does not react. She stares at the TV as if she were still watching her show, not news about a dead woman.

“Who wants ice cream?” Millicent says.

Rory raises a finger. “Me.”

“Jenna?”

“Sure.”

“One scoop?”

“Three.”

“Sure, honey,” I say, getting up from the couch.

Millicent raises her eyebrow at me and follows me into the kitchen. I get four bowls, and everyone gets three scoops. She starts to say something, and I cut her off.

“Let’s not talk about sugar content tonight. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.” And it’s true. Naomi will be on the news every night, and they will go over every detail of how she was found and how she was killed. It will get even worse when Josh receives my letter, because then they will spend hours debating if Owen is really gone or if he is just waiting for all of us to get complacent again.

Eventually, it will fade. Something else will take its place, and Owen will be gone for good.

But until then, three scoops of ice cream.

We go back into the family room, and the teenage drama has ended. Rory changes the channel, and we watch the end of one show in anticipation of the next. In between, there is a newsbreak. Before Millicent has a chance to grab the remote, Josh is on our TV. He repeats the same information we heard on the other channel.

When he is done talking about the discovery of Naomi’s body, Rory turns to his sister. “You think she was tortured?”

“Yeah.”

“More or less than the last one?”

“Hey,” I say. Because I do not know what else to say.

“More,” Jenna says.

“Wanna bet?”

She shrugs. They shake on it.

Millicent gets up and leaves the room.

I take my ice-cream bowl into the kitchen. My phone is about to die, and I root through our junk drawer in search of a charger. They’re always lying around, but never when I need one, and there isn’t one in the drawer. Next, I try the pantry, because weird things end up in there. When Jenna was younger, I used to find her stuffed animals sitting around the cookies, protecting them. Now, I find electronic gadgets.

Tonight, I don’t. But on the bottom shelf, behind some cans of soup, I find a small bottle of eye drops.

The kind Millicent is allergic to.





Forty-eight




When I see the eye drops, I think of Rory. If Millicent used them to cover up the fact that she was stoned, then surely other teenagers have thought of the same idea. Maybe that’s what he does when he sneaks out at night. Maybe he and his little girlfriend smoke weed.

There are worse things. Much worse things.

The pantry is not a logical place for eye drops, but I imagine he just stashed them there. Perhaps he had come home high and put them in at the last minute. Or maybe he thought no one would look on the bottom shelf behind the soup.