My Wife Is Missing(52)
The receptionist began tapping away on her keyboard with the precision of a concert pianist. Several moments later she announced room availability as if it were a stroke of good fortune. The parking lot was mostly empty when they’d arrived and Natalie doubted this establishment ever sold out.
“We just need a credit card to authorize for incidentals and a driver’s license and I’ll get you checked in,” the receptionist said.
Natalie only half heard as her attention was focused out the window on the patch of lawn where Addie twirled Bryce by his arm. Both kids had big smiles on their faces, but Natalie thought the play was too rough. She remembered Bryce’s elbow injury his father had inflicted upon him, and thought a hospital visit could be as disastrous as a speeding ticket. With her focus elsewhere, Natalie absentmindedly handed over her credit card.
While the receptionist busied herself with the checkin process, Natalie headed outside to round up Addie and Bryce.
Moments later, she returned to the counter with two grumbling kids in tow, both of them angry at having had their fun cut short. The receptionist returned the credit card and driver’s license. She didn’t seem at all perplexed that Natalie’s new hair color didn’t match her license photo, nor did her name raise any suspicions. That brought a measure of relief to Natalie, who felt she was in the clear here. They were safe. She could sleep tonight. Maybe.
But as Natalie put her card back in her wallet, something clicked in her mind. A sickening feeling swept over her as anxiety kicked in and her body began to tremble. She knew she’d made a terrible mistake, one from which she could not easily recover.
“Can you cancel that transaction?” Natalie asked the receptionist with urgency.
“Sure,” came the reply, but Natalie thought it over, realizing that probably wouldn’t work, wouldn’t erase the transaction in the system.
Briskly, she snapped her wallet closed before shoving it into her purse.
Because Natalie had applied for the new credit card independently, the card company used her salary, not their joint income, to establish the credit limit, which was considerably less than she would have preferred. For that reason, Natalie kept the old credit card handy for emergency purposes only.
She thought she’d made all the right moves. The bank account she opened to pay bills would keep Michael in the dark about the new card, and she even had the foresight to use a PO box address for her application, as well as going paperless to hide the new credit card statements from him. As an added precaution, Natalie religiously kept the old card in a special slot in her wallet to avoid any mix-ups like the one she’d just made.
She’d been in a total fog, her brain clicked off, when she mistakenly handed the clerk the old credit card, the wrong damn card, the one Michael used as well.
Sirens blared in Natalie’s head, and self-castigation soon followed.
You dummy! You idiot! You screwup!
A look of concern swept into the clerk’s eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Heat like a fire burned through Natalie, turning her cheeks red. She couldn’t get out any words. But that voice in her head was back, screaming at her like a drill sergeant: Go! Go! Go! He’d know. Natalie wasn’t certain if an authorization would show up as a transaction on a statement, or if it might even trigger a fraud alert. Given the efficiency of the credit card company, it very well might. If so, Michael would see the charge or get the alert, and he’d know it was his wife checking into a hotel, and more significantly he’d know her exact location.
Then he’d come for her, and he’d track her down. There were cameras here, too, had to be, though Natalie didn’t spot them on the way inside. She’d lulled herself into a false sense of security. But she was secure no more. Michael would see everything. The car. The license plate. He’d see it all.
Natalie’s mouth went dry. She grabbed Addie and Bryce by their arms and pulled them toward the door.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the clerk as she took several lumbering steps backward. “We won’t be needing that room after all. Something’s just come up.”
“What’s going on, Mommy?” asked Bryce, keying in on his mother’s distress. “Is it Daddy? Do we have the wrong hotel?”
“Yes,” said Natalie, twisting her body to face the door, moving faster now. Panic fluttered in her chest. “We have the wrong hotel.”
“So that means we’ll see Daddy soon?” asked Addie, her eyes shimmering with delight.
“Yes,” Natalie said, talking with a faraway voice. In her mind she was plotting: how to recover? “We’ll probably be seeing Daddy sooner than we think.”
CHAPTER 23
MICHAEL
Michael and Detective Kennett sat down at the bar of the Friday’s restaurant in Burlington just in time for lunch. Kennett ordered a basket of wings along with a cold pilsner. Michael got a Coke and a burger, figuring he’d need a cool heart and clear head for this meal.
Service was swift, and before Michael knew it, Kennett had a frothy beer in front of him. He swallowed a gulp while letting his gaze linger too long on Michael’s face for his comfort. The detective’s stare seemed intended to intimidate, but the ensuing conversation was, for the most part, light and breezy. They talked about the scammer, Kennett telling him about other similar ruses he’d encountered, but that conversation came to an abrupt end when the food arrived. Kennett eyed the basket greedily before taking one steaming wing into his hand.