My Wife Is Missing(35)

Until Tina had pointed it out, Natalie didn’t think of her behavior as harassment. Clearly though, what she was doing now crossed a line. She could feel it like an insect bite on her neck, a tiny bump growing in size. That’s what obsession felt like—a bite she couldn’t scratch away.

Natalie followed the Kia onto I-95, and drove five miles south until Audrey flicked her blinker, bringing them both into a rest area with a McDonald’s right off the highway.

The parking lot was half full, but Audrey settled on a vacant spot some distance from the entrance to the McDonald’s. Was Audrey here for a bite to eat, or to meet somebody? Natalie drove her car into a spot a few rows behind the Kia. A light rain began to fall, a steady pattering on the windshield that left what looked like teardrops on the glass. Natalie kept the wipers off, allowing the rain to accumulate, making it harder for her to see and be seen.

Audrey stayed inside her car. Why? She had to be meeting someone. What other reason could there be?

She’d picked a good night to tail her coworker because Michael had texted to inform her that he, too, was working late. He smartly—or so he thought—offered assurances that it was work he’d be doing.

I know how you think these days. Don’t get any wrong ideas. Ok? I love you.



He added two heart emojis after his message for emphasis.

Natalie’s BS meter ticked up a few notches higher. Guilty hearts, she thought. Perhaps she’d be seeing her husband soon if she was right in thinking it was Michael that Audrey had come to meet. As the minutes passed and nobody showed up to rendezvous, doubt started creeping in.

You imagined it all, Natalie told herself. The look on Audrey’s face, then the one on Michael’s, it’s all in your head.

Go home, Nat, that same voice urged. Go back to the kids.

Let the nanny go home.

Let this craziness go.

You’re doing it to yourself.

Natalie’s eyes burned with fatigue. She was tired. So damn tired all the time.

Again, she felt her eyelids growing heavy.

Don’t.

Not now.

Audrey’s here to meet someone. I can feel it in my bones. I know it in my heart. Something is going to happen.

But after so much time open, her eyes had other ideas. The patter of rain bouncing off the car roof made a gentle, rhythmic sound as the droplets hit the windshield, and its hypnotic quality eased her serenely into the place she wanted to go … but not now. Anytime but now.

Natalie fought as best she could, but it was no use. She heard Tina’s voice ringing in her head: you’re going to lose your damn job!

Next came Michael’s.

Stop doubting me.

Then nothing, there was nothing at all, but a blissful darkness. But from somewhere in that emptiness, Natalie felt a tug, not unlike the one Tina had given her arm some hours ago. This one, however, came from within, like a pull toward consciousness. As the sensation grew more imperative, Natalie forced open her eyes, allowing sips of light to hit her corneas. It took a moment for her vision to focus and when it did, she saw the taillights of Audrey’s Kia on the move.

She had no idea how long she’d been sleeping. It could have been a minute or an hour. When she checked the clock on the car dashboard, she calculated that she’d been asleep for twenty minutes. What had happened while she was out?

Natalie snapped wide-awake. She got her finger on the button to start up her car engine. But before she could give it a push, something else caught her eye. A black Audi A8 had pulled directly behind the Kia as if the two vehicles were departing at the same time. Something about the rear of the car drew Natalie’s gaze. Her vision was still slightly out of focus and the rain made it difficult to see, but Natalie could make out a dent on the right side of the Audi’s back bumper.

She put her car in drive, then stopped short as a car she hadn’t seen sped in front of her blaring its horn. She suddenly felt woozy, and wasn’t sure she could maneuver her vehicle safely. Both cars faded from view, but not before she had made two observations:

Michael drives an Audi A8.

And his car has a large dent in the right rear bumper.





CHAPTER 16





NATALIE


The motel was the kind Natalie would never have stopped at, the sort she’d expect to see on a Dateline episode, a place where the body had been found. The white clapboard siding had plenty of chipped paint, some of the shutters hung askew, and the grass, if it could be called such, looked like their lawn after they’d left it for two weeks in the heat of summer without setting the sprinkler. Still, the place had plenty of vacancies, it was cheap, and it happened to be directly off the highway, making Natalie’s getaway much easier should the need arise.

She couldn’t imagine how Michael would track her and the kids to this shabby place in the middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania, but he was nothing if not resourceful. She found it easy to envision how the “reunion” might go should his efforts prove successful.

There’d be news coverage, of course. A father reunited with his missing kids was good for ratings. She had no doubt Michael would be all smiles and gratitude under the glare of the camera lights. He’d ooze his praise for the first responder types who had aided him in his desperate search. In the next breath, he’d tearfully express empathy for his poor, poor wife, who had such terrible insomnia that she’d suffered delusions, causing her to lose control and act impulsively. Once the cameras were off, however, Natalie was certain the real Michael would emerge.