My Lovely Wife(88)

There could be another way. Maybe. But only if I can convince someone to help me.

I spend half the morning wondering if it is better to ask now, before my face is all over the news, or after I am a wanted man. I try to imagine someone coming to me for help, someone who may or may not be a psychopath. Would I help them, or slam the door and call the police?

The answer is the same. It depends.

And my options are limited. My friends are Millicent’s friends; we share them. I have many clients, but most are just that. Just one possibility comes to mind—the only person who might be both willing and able to help.

If Andy will agree.





Sixty-four




The Golden Wok is a Chinese buffet thirty minutes outside Hidden Oaks. I have been there once, on my way to somewhere else, and it is like every other Chinese buffet I’ve seen. I arrive early and fill up my plate with Mongolian beef, sweet-and-sour pork, chicken chow mein, and fried spring rolls. Halfway through the meal, Andy Preston walks in and joins me.

I stand up and offer my hand. He pushes it aside and gives me a hug.

Andy is not the same man I knew before Trista killed herself. He is not even the same man I saw at her funeral. The extra weight he carried is gone; now he is almost too thin. Not healthy. I tell him to grab a plate.

The Chinese buffet was his choice. He left Hidden Oaks after Trista died, and Kekona told me he quit his job and spends his days on the Internet, encouraging strangers not to kill themselves. I believe it.

Andy sits down at the table and gives me a smile. It looks hollow.

“So what’s going on?” I say. “How are you?”

“Not great, but it could be worse. It could always be worse.”

I nod, impressed he can say something like that after what has happened to him. “You’re right, it can.”

“What about you? How’s Millicent?”

I clear my throat.

“Uh-oh,” he says.

“I need help.”

He nods. Doesn’t ask a single question—because he is still my friend, even if I haven’t been much of one to him.

All morning, I have gone back and forth about how much to tell Andy about my situation. First, the tablet. I take it out of my gym bag and slide it across the laminate table. “Can you help me get into this? It has a PIN code, and I have no idea what it is.”

Andy looks at the tablet and then at me. His eyes look a bit more alert. “Any eight-year-old could get into this thing.”

“I can’t ask my kids to do it.”

“So this is Millicent’s.”

I nod. “But it’s not what you think.”

“No?”

“No.” I gesture to his plate. “Finish eating. Then I’ll tell you everything.”

I say “everything,” but I do not mean it.

After we are done, we go sit in his truck. It’s an old pickup and nothing like the sports car he used to drive.

“What did you do?” he says.

“What makes you think I’ve done something?”

He side-eyes me. “You look like hell, you have a new phone number, and you want to get into your wife’s computer.”

As much as I want to tell someone everything, I cannot. No matter how far we go back, there are limits to friendship. Murder is one of them. So is keeping secrets about a friend’s wife.

“I cheated on Millicent,” I say.

He does not look surprised. “Not a good move, I’m guessing.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“So she kicked you out and wants everything? The house, the 401(k), the kids’ college fund?”

I wish that was all she wanted. “Not exactly,” I say. “Millicent wants more than that.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised.” He pauses for a second, shaking his head. “Now that you’ve gone and screwed it all up, I can tell you the truth.”

“What truth?”

“I never liked Millicent. She’s always seemed a little cold.”

I feel the urge to laugh, but that seems inappropriate. “She’s setting me up me for things I didn’t do. Some very bad things.”

“Illegal things?” he says.

“Yes. Very much yes.”

He holds up a hand, as if to stop me from saying more. “So I was right. She is cold.”

“You were right.”

He doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. He runs his hand around the steering wheel, the type of thing someone does without thinking, because they’re too busy thinking. It’s all I can do to keep my mouth shut, to let him decide how insane I am.

“If all you needed was to into that tablet, why tell me the rest?” he says.

“Because you and I go way back. I owe you the truth.”

“And?”

“And because I’ll probably be in the news soon.”

“The news? What the hell is she doing to you?”

“You’re the first one who has seen me since yesterday,” I say. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

He stares out the window, at the neon Golden Wok sign. “I don’t want to know more, do I?”

I shake my head no.

“That’s the real favor then,” he says. “Keep my mouth shut.”