My Wife Is Missing(50)
Natalie took a few shaky steps down the hall, away from the body, and stopped. She forced herself to go back into the kitchen. A fierce tremor shot up her spine when she saw Audrey for a second time. She took a tentative step closer, then two, until her body froze and she could move no more. The heavy thud in Natalie’s chest wouldn’t abate. Thoughts came at her, piercing like the tips of darts.
Michael did this.
You left your house in a rush.
HR knows you’ve been harassing Audrey.
Michael will say you’ve made accusations about him and Audrey.
He’ll turn you in for his crime to save himself.
You shouldn’t be in this apartment, but now your fingerprints are everywhere.
Her hands felt like blocks of ice as she grabbed a roll of paper towels off the kitchen counter along with a nearby bottle of spray cleaner.
What had she touched?
She thought back to moments ago—the bathroom doorknob, the one to the bedroom, the front door. That was it. Not much. It would be easy to clean. Her gaze traveled over to Audrey, splayed on the floor. The milky look of death in her eyes bore into Natalie with a cutting force. Her mind clicked out of its raw shock as her survival instincts took over.
The kids. Addie and Bryce. They need a mother. I’m so sorry, Audrey. I’m sorry for everything.
Natalie backed out of the kitchen slowly before starting down the hallway again, clutching the cleaner and paper towels. Prickling fear stayed with her every step of the way. It felt as if at any moment Audrey’s cold dead hand would latch against her shoulder, pulling her back to the kitchen.
Pushing her fear aside, Natalie stood at the threshold to the bedroom. Call the police, rang an angry voice in her head. But no, she couldn’t risk it. Not even an anonymous call. No, that could still be traced back to her.
Into the bedroom she went. She had to wipe off both doorknobs, inside and out. It was while she was wiping off a second application of cleaner that she glanced at the dresser. It was there in plain sight, neatly folded inside a clear plastic Ziploc bag. The design on the navy-colored T-shirt might have gone unnoticed were it not so familiar to Natalie.
She hadn’t seen Michael wear his favorite shirt from his alma mater, University of Oregon, for a while now; didn’t remember seeing it in the wash, either. Now here it was, secured inside a clear plastic bag on Audrey’s dresser. Natalie was sure the T-shirt belonged to Michael, but she picked up the bag to check, careful to use a paper towel to avoid leaving prints. The coloring looked right. It was an old, faded tee, well-worn, a favorite workout shirt of Michael’s. Why was it in a bag? Because Michael had left it after one of his trysts here, and thoughtful Audrey washed it for him and put it in a storage bag so it wouldn’t get mixed up with the other clothes, Natalie decided. She was being kind and caring, and her payment was a knife thrust into her body over and over.
For a second Natalie had forgotten there was a body lying in a pool of blood just down the hall. Her breathing had grown shallow and rapid. Waves of dizziness came and went. Natalie had been certified in first aid and recognized the symptoms of shock, but she didn’t have time to go catatonic. She had a few more doorknobs to wipe clean. The faces of her children flashed in her mind like the strobe light on a fire alarm, keeping her upright and moving.
Confused and dazed as she was, Natalie was with it enough to ask herself one question: What triggered the attack? She’d experienced Michael’s anger before, but it had never resulted in violence.
Never, until today.
She had no clear answers, but then another thought came to her, a single word: evidence. If the police could trace the shirt to Michael, using his DNA perhaps, they’d put it all together and come after her, not him. She’d be the jilted wife who took matters into her own hands. Natalie couldn’t let that happen.
The bag fell from her grasp—sweat and fear weakening her grip. She bent down to retrieve it, and that’s when she saw the key. It was on the floor under the dresser. Natalie slid the key out from underneath, not worried about her fingerprints. The number 774 was engraved on one side of the red plastic key chain, and on the other side were the initials OAC, which Natalie took to mean Oakmont Athletic Club.
She’d seen this exact key in her house before, the key Michael had lost.
Natalie put the key in the same bag as the shirt. After finishing with all the doorknobs, she exited, looking both ways for cars containing more potential witnesses. The street was clear.
Natalie got back in her car. She tossed the bag with the shirt and key inside on top of her pile of clothes. A few moments later, she was driving off into the darkness, back to her children, to her home, and of course, to her husband.
CHAPTER 22
NATALIE
The new hair color was going to take some getting used to. Natalie would catch a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror as she drove the speed limit on I-70 and think: Who am I? Wanting to go as unnoticed as possible, she hadn’t bothered with makeup this morning, and she found herself focused on the lines and wrinkles, the pasty white look of exhaustion she wore like foundation—and of course, her hair.
The dye job was hardly professional, but it was definitely better than what she’d given the children, who looked like they’d been playing with finger paint. There were still fading marks on their skin where the dye dripped past the hairline. The kids didn’t seem to mind the new color, and Bryce even asked to go green next time, but both had refused haircuts. Addie had been especially adamant. Natalie could have forced them to comply—of course she could have, she was their mother after all—but she supposed the dye had done its job. From a distance the trio looked a lot less like the picture circulating on social media.