My Wife Is Missing(24)
“Avis Rental Car on Twenty-eighth and Broadway,” Natalie said.
She heard the trunk latch come undone. The cabbie opened his car door, got out, and loaded the luggage into the back.
Natalie ushered her children into the backseat, got in herself, and closed the rear door behind her.
A few seconds later, Penn Station was no longer in sight.
Soon New York would be far behind them, but Natalie knew she couldn’t relax. Michael would come looking for them, and he wouldn’t stop until they were found.
CHAPTER 11
MICHAEL
Michael kept the radio on for company while he wound his way through heavy traffic out of the city. Sports talk. Mindless stuff. He had his phone on the dash in a holder, Waze there to guide him. When traffic came to a stop, he’d drum his fingers restlessly against his leg. Sweat collected under his thick leather watchband.
It made him nauseated to think he was headed away from his family. They were on a train, heading south or west, to a destination unknown. Soon as the traffic thinned out he made a phone call to Amtrak, one that he should have made from the hotel but he’d been too eager to leave. Navigating a hellish phone tree while driving wasn’t optimal, but he managed.
Eventually, after enduring a lengthy bit of Muzak, someone came on the line.
He knew from the gruff greeting that his “ask” was going to go nowhere. Still, he had to try. He explained the situation to the woman on the other end of the phone.
“My wife is missing…”
“Kids with her…”
“Took an Uber to Penn Station…”
And, finally, “Can you look up her name and give me a destination on the ticket?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but that’s against our privacy policy,” the Amtrak employee replied.
“But this is an emergency,” Michael answered, putting in a little extra effort to make sure his desperation came through. “She has my children.” His voice cracked slightly. That was authentic.
“Yeah, I got that. But I’m sorry. We don’t give out rider information. I suggest you—”
Michael ended the call before she could finish. He didn’t need to hear her say the word “police.” It would push him to the edge of insanity.
The rest of the drive passed in a blur, something akin to blackout time. One minute he was somewhere in New York and the next he was pulling into his driveway in Lexington, with only the thrumming of his caffeine-addled brain and his exhausted muscles to show for the trip. The tidy blue colonial gave him none of the warm feelings he usually associated with coming home. The porch lights were on, along with a single light in the kitchen, but really it was the alarm system—advertised with an ADT lawn sign—that kept the burglars out.
Michael parked the car, leaving his luggage in the trunk but taking the whiskey. He entered through the front door, silencing the beep of the alarm with the push of a few buttons. He headed to the kitchen, hating the quiet. On the built-in desk stood a mini-mountain of toys and kids’ knickknacks. Sadness tore through him at seeing the faces of his children peering out at him from the artsy black-and-white family photographs that Natalie had framed and hung on a nearby wall. The pain inspired him to try again, one more call, and once more he got pushed to voicemail.
In a daze, Michael made his way to Natalie’s first-floor office, located off the kitchen. She’d taken her computer with her. “Emails,” she’d said when he asked why she felt the need to bring her laptop on vacation. “I can’t do emails on my phone, and I’m in the middle of a big project.”
She was always in the middle of a big project, so Michael thought nothing of it—until now.
What did she have on that computer? Something she might not want him to see? Something that could potentially explain what she’d done? Natalie’s desk was spartan. The drawers contained a hodgepodge of office supplies, but nothing of consequence. Still, he sifted through every scrap of paper in that desk, and even dumped out the brown grocery bags destined for the recycle bin. Nothing. It was all just trash.
Her office, like the kitchen, featured framed pictures of the family hanging on the walls. Smiles and loveable expressions gazed back at him, echoing the past. In a moment of raw clarity, Michael saw something else: the fragility of it all. This house, sturdy as could be; a marriage lasting well over a decade; children; the bond, the glue that strengthened the foundation of their lives—all of it was an illusion. It was like a building on a movie set—realistic from the outside, but pass through a doorway and you’d see the struts holding a two-dimensional shell upright. Over the course of a day, Michael made thousands of decisions, but now he understood to his core how it took only one decision, one choice, one action, to dismantle an existence, one mistake to undo it all. That wasn’t security; it was living life on a tightrope.
Michael had had enough. There was nothing here. No clue. No insight to be gleaned. Two minutes later, he was pacing between the kitchen and his wife’s office, on hold with the Lexington police department.
Lexington was a bedroom community of Boston, but police business didn’t adhere to a nine-to-five schedule. Getting a detective to pick up his call dragged on for a few minutes, affording Michael a chance to think some more about his kids. Was Natalie with it enough to give Addie her inhaler? Could she pay proper attention to the children while on the run? Running from him, of all people, their father. Stress can easily exacerbate asthma symptoms. If Natalie wasn’t careful, if she didn’t watch for the triggers, Addie could be in serious danger.