My Lovely Wife(75)

Josh is standing in front of the Lancaster Hotel, where Jennifer Riley is staying. He talks about the press conference, then cuts to the video.

“I haven’t seen this,” Millicent says.

“No?”

“No. I saw the story online.”

I turn up the volume. They show snippets from the press conference, including every time someone said the word dead. No one said Owen had passed away, not even his sister.

When Denise comes on the screen, I look at Millicent.

She tilts her head to the side.

I wait.

When the clip ends, she says, “That’s weird.”

“What’s weird?”

“I know that woman. She’s a client.”

“Really?”

“She owns a deli. A pretty successful one, too. She’s looking for a house.”

Millicent walks back into the bathroom.

Inside, I exhale. Denise is a client. It had never occurred to me that she’d have enough money to buy a house—at least not the kind of houses Millicent sells—and yet she does.

I am so stupid.

Though I am relieved to know this has all been a weird coincidence, wholly caused by my own spying, our problem has not gone away. It’s worse. Owen is dead, and the police are looking for the real killer.

The chief said a new detective has been assigned to the case. The detective is coming in from another precinct and will review the whole case with fresh eyes. I should have looked at Denise with fresh eyes.

When Millicent comes out of the bathroom, the TV and lights are off. She gets into bed, and I turn over to face her, even though it’s too dark to see anything.

“I don’t want to move away,” she says.

“I know.”

She slips her hand into mine. “I’m worried.”

“About Jenna? Or about the police?”

“Both.”

“What if we go out of town?” I say.

“But I just said—”

“I mean take a vacation.”

She is quiet. In my mind, I run through all the reasons we cannot go. The kids would miss school. We don’t have extra money. She has several deals pending. I should not cancel on my clients again. The same reasons must be running through her mind.

“I’ll think about it,” she says. “Let’s see how things go.”

“Okay.”

“Good.”

“The chicken pho was great,” I say.

“You’re silly.”

“Even if we don’t go on vacation now, we should when this is all over.”

“We will.”

“Promise.”

“I promise,” she says. “Now go to sleep.”





Fifty-four




The new detective is a woman. Her full name is Claire Wellington, a name that sounds like her family dates back to the Mayflower, but I bet it doesn’t. Not that it matters.

Claire is a severe-looking woman with short brown hair, pale skin, and brown lipstick. She wears no-nonsense pantsuits, all in dark colors, and never smiles. I know this because she is on TV all the time. Her idea of detective work is asking the public for help.

“I know someone in this community saw something, even if they don’t realize it. Maybe it was the night Naomi disappeared. Everyone was on guard that night, and everyone knew something was going to happen. Or maybe it was when Naomi George’s body was dumped behind the Lancaster Hotel. Please, think back to that night, think about what you were doing, who you were with, and what you saw. You may have seen something and not even realized it.”

A website has been set up for people to send in information. Or they can stay anonymous and call a special tip line for anything related to Lindsay and Naomi.

I do not like this development. All sorts of new information might be dredged up because of Claire’s public relations tour on TV. Josh is already reporting that the police have dozens of new leads.

“The police have also made use of an innovative computer program developed at UF Sarasota, where students have written an algorithm that can sort through the tips and match words used repeatedly. The tips are then ranked in order from the most useful to the least.”

This all happens within days of Claire’s arrival. It is bad enough that I have to see her on television. All. The. Time. Now I also have to listen about how innovative and effective she is. Even at home she is unavoidable. Millicent has been insisting that we don’t watch TV in the evenings, because Claire always pops up during the commercials. The local stations have started running public service announcements about the tip line.

Instead of TV, we play games together. Millicent digs up a deck of cards and a rack of plastic chips, and we teach the kids how to play poker, because this is preferable to watching Claire.

Rory already knows how to play. He has a poker app on his phone.

Jenna picks it up fast, because she picks up everything fast. She also has the best poker face. I think it’s even better than Millicent’s.

My poker face is terrible, and I lose every hand.

While we are playing, Rory mentions that there will be an assembly at school tomorrow. Millicent furrows her brow and then unfurrows it. She is trying to furrow less because of wrinkles.

“I didn’t get a notice about an assembly,” she says.