My Lovely Wife(85)

They will remember.

Everything will point to me.

My mind fights against this idea. Around in circles I go, mapping out an idea, following it to the end, realizing it will never work. Every path is blocked, every idea already thought of by Millicent. It feels like a giant maze with no exit. I’m not a planner after all, not like my wife.

I pace up and down the length of the car. My head feels like it’s being shocked again and again.

“Millicent, why would you do this?”

She laughs. It sounds like a bite. “Open your trunk.”

“What?”

“Your trunk,” she says. “Open it.”

I hesitate, imagining what could be inside. Wondering how much worse it could get.

“Do it,” she says.

I open the trunk.

Nothing inside except my tennis equipment. Not a single racket out of place. “What are you—”

“The spare tire,” she says.

My phone, the disposable one. The one with messages from Lindsay and Annabelle. I reach inside the rim of the tire, but I don’t find it. Instead, I find something else.

Pixy Stix.

Lindsay.

The first one I slept with.

It happened after that second hike.

You’re cute. That’s what Lindsay had said.

No, you’re the cute one.

Millicent’s voice brings me back to now. “You know, it’s amazing what people will tell you when they’re locked up for a year.”

“What are you—”

“She saw you the night we took her. Lindsay was waking up before you left. She was pretty surprised you weren’t deaf, actually.”

A wave of nausea hits. Because of what I did. Because of what my wife has done.

“The funny thing,” she says, “is that Lindsay thought I was torturing her because she slept with you. I tried to tell her it wasn’t like that, not at first anyway, but I don’t think she ever believed me.”

“Millicent, what have you done?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Millicent says. “You did. You did all of this.”

“I don’t know what you think happened—”

“Do not patronize me with a denial.”

I bite my tongue until I taste blood. “How long have you been planning this?”

“Does it matter?”

No. Not anymore.

“Can I explain?” I ask.

“No.”

“Millicent—”

“What? You’re sorry, it just happened, and it didn’t mean anything?”

I bite my tongue. Literally.

“So what are you going to do?” she says. “Run and hide, or stay and fight?”

Neither. Both. “Please don’t do this.”

“See, this is your problem.”

“What?”

“You always focus on the wrong things.”

I start to ask her about what the wrong things are but stop myself. I am making her point.

She laughs.

The line goes dead.





Sixty-two




I should get sick. I should vomit up whatever is in my stomach, because when my wife of fifteen years has set me up for murdering multiple women, this should make me sick to my stomach. Instead, it feels like my whole body has been injected with Novocain.

Not a bad thing, because I can think instead of feel.

Run and hide. Stay and fight.

Neither is appealing. Nor is prison, the death penalty, lethal injection.

Run.

First, I take stock. Car, half a tank of gas, panini, partial iced coffee, and about two hundred in cash. Credit cards I cannot use, because Millicent will be watching.

I wonder if there is time to make a cash withdrawal at the bank.

Beyond that, my options narrow considerably. Can’t keep the car for long unless I get rid of the license plate, and then there is the issue of where to go. Canada is too far. By the time I make it there, my picture will be all over the news.

Mexico is the only driving option, and even that would be a stretch. It depends on how quickly this all plays out. My name and picture could be out within hours.

I could fly out of the country, but then I would definitely need to use my passport. They would know where I landed. At no time did I prepare for this kind of escape.

Millicent knows this.

Running will get me caught.

It also means leaving my kids. With Millicent.

Now, I get sick. On the side of the road, behind my car, I empty my stomach. I do not stop until there is nothing left.

Run and hide. Stay and Fight.

I start to consider a third option. What if I just walk into a police station and tell them everything?

No. Millicent might be arrested, but so would I. Claiming innocence is not an option, because it is not true.

There has to be a way, though. A way to implicate her instead of me, because I never killed anyone. A deal could be made with the right lawyer, the right prosecutor, the right proof. Except I don’t have any. Unlike Millicent, I have not been setting up my spouse for murder.

You always focus on the wrong things.

Maybe she is right; maybe the why does not matter. But it will. The why is what will haunt me, what I will think about at night when I am lying in bed. If I am in a bed. Maybe it will be a prison cot. She is right about the why. It’s the wrong thing to think about.