My Wife Is Missing(16)

“Hey babe,” Michael said. His voice came out in a scratchy whisper. He downed a gulp of the brown liquid and let the burn linger before swallowing. “I’m not sure you’re getting these messages. Maybe you’re having them forwarded somehow, I don’t know.”

Here he paused, his breathing hitched and shaky. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, Nat, where you’ve gone, why you’ve run, but I need you to call me. I need to hear your voice, okay? I have to hear the kids’ voices, too, so I know that they’re all right. I know you’re not sleeping—that you haven’t been yourself—but it’s okay. Everything is okay, or it can be. We can work this out, but only if you call me.”

Michael felt his throat close up as though he were suffering an allergic reaction. His eyes itched, too, but there was no rubbing away the redness or the sting.

“I’m lost right now,” he said into the phone to no one. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know anything.”

Now, really Michael, I think you know something.

The devil again, perched upon his shoulder. He knew. The past was something Michael carried with him, even when he forgot it was there. His mind flashed on an image sourced from memory, one of blood and gruesome cuts to a body, of eyes open wide but seeing nothing. It wasn’t over. It would never be over.

With a flick of his foot, Michael kicked off his shoes, flopped onto the bed, keeping the phone pressed to his ear. Somehow he landed without spilling his drink.

“Babe, just come back,” he said. “Come back with the kids and we’ll work this out. We’ll work it all out, but please … please don’t leave me like this.”

He ended the call, letting the phone fall from his grasp. It landed on the carpeted floor with barely a thud. He stayed on the bed, eyes glued to the ceiling. Through the thick windows high above Times Square he could hear the sounds of the night, the honks and revving engines, the murmur of a thousand voices rising. People and life all around him, and yet he had never felt so utterly alone and adrift.

Where would she go? he asked himself. Who would she stay with?

One possibility came to him. She’d go home, back to her parents’ place. Natalie could have had the town car that picked her up at the hotel drive her all the way to Massachusetts—Andover, specifically—or maybe to Amtrak, or the bus station. Her father could have collected her there. She’s with them now, he imagined. Talking to them. Telling them everything.

Michael reviewed the day’s events, thinking of Kennett, who had touted the benefits of using two detectives to lessen the chance of missing something important. And there was something important that he hadn’t considered until now. It was Natalie who learned how long the pizza delivery would take, and she’s the one who had suggested Michael go get the food.

A thought came to him, chilling, hard to process, but equally difficult to discount. Was it possible Natalie had done a dry run? Michael envisioned his wife calling that pizza place not from their hotel room but from home, days before they left for vacation. Could it be she wanted to find when delivery would take the longest, and then arranged it so that they would arrive in New York around that time?

The more Michael thought about it, the more it seemed possible. No, make that probable. He had watched the security video. The sedan was waiting for her in the carport. She knew exactly when she was going to be leaving. The timing was impeccable.

Three things, but only two stuck out to him.

I wish I’d done this sooner.

I’m grateful for the truth.

Why leave from New York City to backtrack home? Michael asked himself. The answer seemed obvious enough—she wouldn’t. She wasn’t headed east, back to her parents, Harvey and Lucinda, or even to stay with Tina. If she were going to run, she’d go west, he thought, or maybe south.

He decided then and there not to call her parents. All he’d accomplish by doing that would be to put them in a state of panic. And of course, they’d want to get involved in the search. He knew them well enough to know how they’d react, his father-in-law especially. Harvey was a retired attorney turned middling golfer. He had the time and resources to devote to a search effort, and maybe Michael would enlist his help, but not just yet.

Instead, Michael passed several minutes thinking of friends Natalie had scattered throughout the country, convinced she’d stay with one of them rather than at a motel. He retrieved his phone and accessed the app for their credit card company. The last purchase was the whiskey. If this was well planned, as Michael increasingly believed, it was likely Natalie had obtained a new card.

Hell, maybe she got a new name.

Friends, however, can’t be changed as easily. Unfortunately, Michael’s recall for names and faces was fragmented at best, and Natalie, not Michael, was the Facebook user. Despite this obstacle, Michael managed to jot down several names. Possibilities really. Calls he could make.

Then, since taking action, any action, was helping more than the whiskey, Michael decided to look up the plate information. Dan White had let him jot down the six characters that comprise a New York State license plate. No need to wait for the detectives. A Google search revealed a variety of internet sites offering free license plate lookup, but all were kind of dodgy. It seemed his best bet was to let the police do the work, or hire a PI, which would take time and wouldn’t happen at this late hour anyway.