My Wife Is Missing(7)

“Yes, Teddy belongs to Bryce. He’s my six-year-old. Addie, his sister, she’s ten.”

Michael sniffled and Dan White handed him a tissue, as if he’d been waiting for his cue.

“I found Teddy in the hall outside our room. That’s why I think something horrible happened. Bryce would never leave his bear behind, not unless he was being rushed.”

“Tell us what you know, Michael,” Detective Ouyang said, her voice calm, her eyes kind. Michael sensed her genuine concern, but didn’t trust it fully yet. He knew it could be an act, and that she might be suspicious of him. It’s always the husband, after all.

Michael shelved that worry to go through it all over again. They’d arrived hungry, he told Ouyang. Delivery would take too long. He’d gone to get food. He came back and found Teddy in the hallway; the hotel room empty, suitcases gone. Searched high and low, no sign of his family anywhere. He showed the detective the numerous text messages and phone calls made to Natalie, all of which had gone unanswered.

“Who is Maybe Tina?” Detective Ouyang asked.

Maybe Tina? Then it dawned on him. When Ouyang looked at his phone she must have seen his call log. Tina wasn’t a contact of Michael’s, so that was how his phone registered her name. Maybe Tina. He was pleased to get a demonstration of the detective’s powers of perception, and hoped that skill of hers would soon come in handy.

“Tina is Natalie’s friend from work,” Michael said. “I didn’t know what to do when I couldn’t find them, so I thought maybe Nat had called Tina or something. I had this notion that my wife got cold feet about the vacation and contacted her friend for support or guidance.”

“And did she?” asked Ouyang. “Call her?”

“No,” said Michael. “There was no call.”

A slight hitch sounded in Michael’s voice, and then, without warning, a pit opened up in him, a trapdoor of sorts, and down went his spirits, free-falling into some abyss.

“What the fuck,” Michael muttered to himself. “What the absolute fuck fuck fuck. Where are they?”

He gave the back of his hair a hard yank until it hurt, holding it so that a sharp pain radiated from his skull all the way down his leg. The brief flash of agony felt like a welcomed distraction from the other, far worse kind of suffering he was experiencing.

“Let’s try to stay calm,” said Ouyang. “Best for everyone. I know this is difficult. But we don’t know anything yet, not really. We don’t know what’s happened here. It’s possible it’s all a big miscommunication, right?”

Michael wasn’t sure what she was thinking, but something about the way Ouyang was eyeing him now made Michael more than a little uneasy.

“What else can I tell you?”

“Did you see someone following you?” asked Ouyang.

“No,” said Michael, offering a slight shake of his head. “I thought everything was fine. Normal.”

“So what makes you think they’ve been kidnapped?”

Ouyang had her notepad out, pen in hand ready to scribble.

“Because what other explanation is there?” Michael said, exasperated. “We’re here on vacation and suddenly they’re all gone. All their things, gone.”

“Sorry to say, but another explanation would be that she left you, willingly and willfully,” the detective replied with stinging authority.

“Why would she do that?” Michael asked. “Leave me when we made these plans. She was looking forward to this trip. She asked to come here.”

Michael locked eyes with Dan like he’d have the answer, which he of course didn’t.

“You tell me,” said Detective Ouyang, who pivoted to a slightly more menacing tone. “Did you two have a fight? Was she upset about something?”

“No … no, it’s nothing like that. We’ve been good. I mean, yeah, it’s been a struggle lately, but we’ve been okay.”

“Why a struggle?” Ouyang wanted to know.

Michael took some audible breaths, hoping to purge any lingering frustration or animosity he felt toward his wife. It had been a hard few months. Perhaps the hardest. “Natalie, my wife, suffers from insomnia, and it’s caused us some … difficulties.”

“What kind of difficulties?”

The glimmer in Ouyang’s eyes implied that she felt they were finally getting somewhere.

“She hasn’t exactly been herself of late,” Michael said. “Do you know the symptoms of insomnia? What it can do to a person?”

Ouyang’s mouth formed the hint of a smile.

“I’m a New York City police detective,” she said. “But why don’t you tell me anyway.”

“There’s depression, irritability, anxiety.”

But there’s more, Michael, whispered the devil. There’s so, so much more.

Ouyang’s eyes widened slightly as if she’d heard that voice in his head. “So your wife had been acting strangely, and now she’s vanished, with the kids. Is that about right?” The detective cocked her head slightly. “You see why I might not jump straight to kidnapping, don’t you?”

Michael swallowed hard. He saw all right.

“Do you have a family picture, Michael?” she asked. “I want to get it over to the station right away so we can issue a BOLO. That’s: be on the lookout in our parlance.”