My Wife Is Missing(40)
Seeing the Audi (or believing she saw it—damn brain, damn insomnia) all but confirmed Natalie’s worst fears. How men believed they could openly carry on an affair and get away with it was mind-boggling. Did Michael honestly think she was stupid, or that she paid no attention to the little details of their lives? She’d learned from experience that routines were quite adept at carving grooves into everyday life, laying down tracks for the day’s events to follow. Anything that jumps the rails, so to speak, was going to get noticed.
Like those shirts Michael bought a little while ago—one a dress shirt, the other a jersey, both black. Natalie’s first thought when Michael showed her his purchases (of which he was quite proud) was that he didn’t wear black. In fact, Michael had exactly zero black shirts in his entire wardrobe, and suddenly he owned two of them, both from different stores.
When Natalie asked about his newfound preference for black, Michael offered only a shrug of his shoulders and a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Haven’t you been reading the news lately?” he asked, with a devilish grin. “We should all be mourning the state of things.” He gave a chuckle, like he’d actually said something quite funny, which Natalie didn’t even acknowledge with a smile. She was having her own private conversation at that moment, one that had nothing to do with politics. Instead, she was revisiting all the signs she’d shared with Tina. The cheater’s playbook, she’d called it.
Mr. Too Lazy to Get Out of Bed suddenly becomes Mr. Hard-Core Gym Rat—pretty much overnight. Weight loss suddenly becomes a real priority, as if he’s just discovered that under the fat he has abs. Next he tries a new cologne after all these years, as if that was for the benefit of his wife. And now these stylish black shirts.
Fuck him.
One evening when everyone was asleep (and of course she was not), Natalie picked up Michael’s phone. She was surprised when she was required to use FaceID to unlock the device. For security, Michael always used a code, 0702, representing the months of their children’s birthdays. She knew his code because on occasion he’d ask her to check a text message or something when he was otherwise occupied. Natalie couldn’t remember the last time she’d checked his phone, and he’d certainly never told her that he’d gone all James Bond with the biometric security stuff.
When she pressed him on it, once again Michael had an answer at the ready, so his explanation sounded quite obvious and logical. And maybe it was.
“Oh, that?” he said, downplaying it. “I read something about hackers figuring out those codes. FaceID is really the most secure, and since I use mobile banking, figured better safe than sorry.”
He didn’t stick around for more questions, she remembered that clearly. Instead, he offered a weak smile before slipping off into another room of the house, his phone naturally clutched in his hand.
Bastard.
Signs.
Natalie was on the lookout for them when she entered her home. She was pleased to see everything was as it should be, which was to be expected given the skill of her nanny. The kids had been fed. The dinner cleanup was done. The dishes had been washed and put away, counters wiped down. The children were in their bedrooms for reading time, a weeknight ritual that usually required an equal number of minutes reading as were spent cajoling them into the activity.
Of course it was Natalie who had found and hired the nanny, did the background checks and such. Michael didn’t even offer to help with the search, and his only comment after meeting her (and this “her” happened to be a lithe, quite attractive twenty-four-year-old woman of Swedish and Scottish descent) was to say she was the embodiment of every sexy nanny cliché. He’d made that remark years before he’d given Natalie so many reasons not to trust him, and now she found herself eyeing her hire with a hint of suspicion.
Her name was Scarlett, which was just as bad as the name Audrey in Natalie’s book—assuming “bad” meant provocative. Scarlett seemed to take note of Natalie’s lingering stare that evening, a look she clearly found unnerving.
“Is everything all right?” Scarlett asked. Her voice had a smoky, sultry appeal—an alluring resonance that Natalie hadn’t noticed before. Suddenly, as if her own mind were attacking her, Natalie conjured a mental image of Scarlett on the floor of the living room where they both now stood, with Michael on top of her, panting and thrusting. A queasy feeling came over her, but she pushed the image away and composed herself.
“Yes, everything is fine,” said Natalie, opening her pocketbook. Normally there’d be a friendly debrief after a long day, and she’d give Scarlett a chance to recap the events, but Natalie wasn’t going to offer her that opportunity—not today. She had the cash already presorted in the billfold of her wallet, so it was a quick exchange, which judging by the look in Scarlett’s eyes might have felt a little rude. Natalie didn’t care. She couldn’t shake the vision of Michael grunting on top of her nanny, and she needed the woman out of her house stat. Even if there were no truth behind the fantasy, any attractive female now felt like a threat.
“Are you sure everything is all right?” Scarlett asked tentatively as she took the money without counting it. She stuffed the bills into the front pocket of her jeans—tight-fitting dark jeans that showed off her curves, Natalie keenly observed.
“It’s fine. I’m just tired, that’s all.” Michael isn’t the only one around here adept at lying. “Thank you, Scarlett.”