My Wife Is Missing(21)
“He didn’t tell you he was married.”
“Didn’t come up. By the time I found out, it was too late. I don’t know anything about Chris’s family. I didn’t ask … didn’t want to know. Somehow, it made it easier. I know it’s selfish, horrible of me. But we couldn’t get enough of each other. I just … couldn’t let go. You must think I’m awful.”
Audrey looked profoundly guilt-ridden.
“Well, I’m not here to judge. You really owe it to yourself to live your most authentic life, so perhaps you’ll eventually be together again.”
Audrey took in that bit of advice, which had pained Natalie to share, while absently drumming her fingers on the table in a rhythmic pattern—index finger to pinky then back again.
She noticed Natalie staring at her hand.
“Oh, sorry,” Audrey said, pulling her hand to her lap. “Nervous habit I picked up from—Chris.”
A lump sprang to Natalie’s throat, making it hard for her to swallow.
Michael drummed his fingers nonstop whenever he was nervous, and it always made her crazy.
CHAPTER 10
NATALIE
There were three things Natalie counted on happening after she ran. Three things, a slight variation on the family game they played at dinnertime, in another lifetime, it seemed.
One: Michael would call the police. Once he learned they weren’t in the hotel, after he searched high and low, after he texted and called with no response, he’d contact the police. He’d probably think his family had been kidnapped.
Good. He needed to suffer.
Two: security cameras would capture them leaving the hotel, most likely show them getting into the waiting sedan. Upon their arrival, Natalie had surveyed the area, immediately spotting two security cameras in the carport. While Michael was taking a family photo, she noted a third aimed directly at the exit. There was nothing to be done there. She wasn’t a genius computer hacker who could bring down a surveillance system, so she accounted for it in her planning.
Three: the police would run the plate, confirm it was an Uber ride, and they’d probably get the destination. Amtrak.
They (the police/Michael/everyone) would soon be looking for Natalie Hart, who had boarded an Amtrak train to an unknown destination. Only Natalie didn’t get on any train, or a bus for that matter. What she did, as soon as the Uber had dropped her and the children off curbside at Penn Station, was stick out her hand to hail a taxi.
She stood on the corner with Addie and Bryce on either side of her, cars whizzing past, horns honking as if barking at the other drivers. Life here moved with a frenetic energy that reminded Natalie of the jumbled thoughts constantly rumbling through her head as she tossed and turned in bed during those endless sleepless nights.
She found a strange cohesion in the chaos, like a frenetic orchestra playing something wild and untamed yet somehow synchronistic. The city felt dangerous but enticing. For a moment she imagined herself standing on the edge of one of the skyscrapers, readying to make an untethered plunge into the depth of the darkness below. In a way, that’s exactly what she was doing.
The children were unusually quiet—no, make that subdued—perhaps in shock. Natalie guessed their fight-or-flight responses were operating in overdrive, poor darlings, and since there was no place for them to run, and nobody to fight, they’d become somewhat frozen with confusion.
In time, she’d explain. What she was doing was mainly for them, their safety. Her only goal now was to get away from Michael, as far away from him as possible, someplace where she could think and plan. Up until now she’d done so much right. The pizza ruse had worked perfectly, as she knew it would at that hour based on the phone calls she’d made from home. It gave her just enough time to gather their belongings and go. The hasty departure, tense as anything she’d ever done, lingered in her mind.
* * *
“Where are we going?” Addie asked as she stuffed her flower-patterned pajamas back into her suitcase.
Natalie moved about the hotel room as though she were floating on air, going from one spot to another, grabbing all the things the kids had unpacked in a wild frenzy and putting them into various pieces of luggage.
“I’ll tell you later. We have to leave right now.”
She used her stern voice, the one she reserved for times when the kids were really acting up.
“What about Daddy?” Bryce wanted to know.
“Your father is going to meet us,” Natalie said. “There’s been a change in plans and we’re going on a surprise trip. It’s going to be fun, you’ll see.”
Natalie’s stomach tightened like a precursor to a bad cramp. She hated lying to her children, but the truth? Well, that was out of the question. For now.
“I don’t want to go on a surprise trip,” Addie said woefully, her expressive brown eyes brimming. “I want to stay in New York. This hotel is awesome.”
“We’re coming back,” Natalie said, feeling that cramp again, only this time even tighter. “It’ll be at the end of our trip, not the beginning. Okay, loves? But we have to go right now. We have to hurry.”
“But Daddy,” Bryce cried. “He’s bringing the pizza. I’m hungry.”
Natalie gave Bryce a Z Bar, one she knew he’d eat that she had at the ready. She needed everything to work in her favor.