“And the other three. Don’t forget about them.”
My mind is flooded with images of Millicent killing women alone, framing me for the murders.
Now, I know what she has been doing while I was at home with Jenna all those days and nights when she was sick.
The future rolls out in front of me like a bloody red carpet.
I pull over to the side of the road. Close my eyes, lean my head back, and think of all the ways Millicent could set me up. All the DNA she has access to. Everything she could plant, could give to the police. That does not even include the people who knew me as a deaf man named Tobias.
Annabelle. Petra. Even the bartenders.
They will remember.
Everything will point to me.
My mind fights against this idea. Around in circles I go, mapping out an idea, following it to the end, realizing it will never work. Every path is blocked, every idea already thought of by Millicent. It feels like a giant maze with no exit. I’m not a planner after all, not like my wife.
I pace up and down the length of the car. My head feels like it’s being shocked again and again.
“Millicent, why would you do this?”
She laughs. It sounds like a bite. “Open your trunk.”
“What?”
“Your trunk,” she says. “Open it.”
I hesitate, imagining what could be inside. Wondering how much worse it could get.
“Do it,” she says.
I open the trunk.
Nothing inside except my tennis equipment. Not a single racket out of place. “What are you—”
“The spare tire,” she says.
My phone, the disposable one. The one with messages from Lindsay and Annabelle. I reach inside the rim of the tire, but I don’t find it. Instead, I find something else.
Pixy Stix.
Lindsay.
The first one I slept with.
It happened after that second hike.
You’re cute. That’s what Lindsay had said.
No, you’re the cute one.
Millicent’s voice brings me back to now. “You know, it’s amazing what people will tell you when they’re locked up for a year.”
“What are you—”
“She saw you the night we took her. Lindsay was waking up before you left. She was pretty surprised you weren’t deaf, actually.”
A wave of nausea hits. Because of what I did. Because of what my wife has done.
“The funny thing,” she says, “is that Lindsay thought I was torturing her because she slept with you. I tried to tell her it wasn’t like that, not at first anyway, but I don’t think she ever believed me.”
“Millicent, what have you done?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Millicent says. “You did. You did all of this.”
“I don’t know what you think happened—”
“Do not patronize me with a denial.”
I bite my tongue until I taste blood. “How long have you been planning this?”
“Does it matter?”
No. Not anymore.
“Can I explain?” I ask.
“No.”
“Millicent—”
“What? You’re sorry, it just happened, and it didn’t mean anything?”
I bite my tongue. Literally.
“So what are you going to do?” she says. “Run and hide, or stay and fight?”
Neither. Both. “Please don’t do this.”
“See, this is your problem.”
“What?”
“You always focus on the wrong things.”
I start to ask her about what the wrong things are but stop myself. I am making her point.
She laughs.
The line goes dead.
Sixty-two
I should get sick. I should vomit up whatever is in my stomach, because when my wife of fifteen years has set me up for murdering multiple women, this should make me sick to my stomach. Instead, it feels like my whole body has been injected with Novocain.
Not a bad thing, because I can think instead of feel.
Run and hide. Stay and fight.
Neither is appealing. Nor is prison, the death penalty, lethal injection.
Run.
First, I take stock. Car, half a tank of gas, panini, partial iced coffee, and about two hundred in cash. Credit cards I cannot use, because Millicent will be watching.
I wonder if there is time to make a cash withdrawal at the bank.
Beyond that, my options narrow considerably. Can’t keep the car for long unless I get rid of the license plate, and then there is the issue of where to go. Canada is too far. By the time I make it there, my picture will be all over the news.
Mexico is the only driving option, and even that would be a stretch. It depends on how quickly this all plays out. My name and picture could be out within hours.
I could fly out of the country, but then I would definitely need to use my passport. They would know where I landed. At no time did I prepare for this kind of escape.
Millicent knows this.
Running will get me caught.
It also means leaving my kids. With Millicent.
Now, I get sick. On the side of the road, behind my car, I empty my stomach. I do not stop until there is nothing left.
Run and hide. Stay and Fight.
I start to consider a third option. What if I just walk into a police station and tell them everything?
No. Millicent might be arrested, but so would I. Claiming innocence is not an option, because it is not true.
There has to be a way, though. A way to implicate her instead of me, because I never killed anyone. A deal could be made with the right lawyer, the right prosecutor, the right proof. Except I don’t have any. Unlike Millicent, I have not been setting up my spouse for murder.
You always focus on the wrong things.
Maybe she is right; maybe the why does not matter. But it will. The why is what will haunt me, what I will think about at night when I am lying in bed. If I am in a bed. Maybe it will be a prison cot. She is right about the why. It’s the wrong thing to think about.
Run and hide. Stay and fight.
The options repeat over and over, like those words written on the wall of the basement. Millicent stated these options as if they were the only ones that existed. As if it were an either-or choice.
She is wrong. The options are wrong.
First, I will stay. Leaving my kids isn’t going to happen.
And if I stay, I have to hide. At least until I can find a way to make the police believe me about Millicent.
That means I have to fight.
Stay, hide, fight. The first is easy. No running.
The police. I could go to the police and tell them everything, tell them …
No. Cannot do that. I have real blood on my hands, and even a rookie will figure that out. And if I cannot go to the police, I will have to avoid them.
Money. I have two hundred dollars in my wallet, and that will not last long. I head straight to the bank and withdraw as much cash as I can without triggering an alert to the IRS. Millicent will know about it, because the tracker is still on my car.
Millicent. How long did she know? How long has she been tracking me? When did she start to plan this? The questions are endless, unanswerable.
With all we have been through, with all we have done together, it is unfathomable to me that she did not talk to me, ask me about it, even give me the benefit of the doubt. Instead, I had no chance, no opportunity to explain.
It seems a little bit crazy.
And heartbreaking.
But I do not have time to think about either one. In less than an hour, my life has been reduced to its most base level: survival.
So far, I am not very good at it. Millicent knows where I am, and I have no idea what to do next.
Home. It is still where I always go.
I grab what I can—clothes, toiletries, my laptop. The one we used to search for the women is gone, probably destroyed, but I find Millicent’s tablet and take it. And photographs. I take a couple of pictures of the kids right off the walls. I also send them a text.
Don’t believe everything you hear. I love you.
Before leaving, I turn off the GPS tracker but keep it with me. For a while, she will wonder if I am just sitting in our house. Maybe. But that is assuming I know my wife at all.