But those who did live here, and are old enough to remember, believe Owen has returned home. Especially the women.
They remember what it was like to be scared whenever they were alone, indoors or out, because Owen snatched his victims from almost anywhere. Two disappeared from inside their own homes. One was in a library, another in a park, and at least three had been in parking lots. Two of these had been caught on security video. The footage was old and grainy; Owen looked like a big blur dressed in dark clothes and wearing a baseball cap. The videos have been on the news all day, all over again.
Today, I have a tennis lesson with Trista, Andy’s wife, but as I walk through the clubhouse I see her in the sports bar. She is watching the news on one of the big screens. Like her husband, she is in her early forties and couldn’t pass for younger. The ends of her hair are too blond, her eyes are always rimmed in black, and she has a deep, disturbingly natural tan. She is alone and drinking red wine at one o’clock in the afternoon. The bottle sits on the table.
I guess we are not having a lesson today.
From a distance, I watch her, unsure if I should get involved. Sometimes, my clients tell me more than I want to know. I’m like the hairdresser of exercise.
But I have to admit, it can also be interesting.
I walk up to Trista. “Hey.”
She waves and points to an empty chair, never taking her eyes off the TV screen. I have seen her drink plenty of times at parties and dinners, but I’ve never seen her like this.
At the commercial break, she turns to me. “I’m canceling our lesson today,” she says.
“Thanks for letting me know.”
She smiles, but it doesn’t make her look happy. It occurs to me that she might be upset with Andy. Maybe he has done something wrong, and I don’t want to get in the middle of it. I start to get up from the chair when she speaks.
“Do you remember what it was like back then?” she says, pointing at the TV. “When he was killing?”
“Owen?”
“Who else?”
“Of course. Everyone from here remembers.” I shrug and sit back down. “Did you ever go to The Hatch? A bunch of us used to drink there on Saturday nights, and all the TVs were tuned into the news. I think that’s where I—”
She takes a deep breath. “I knew him.”
“Who?”
“Owen Oliver. I knew him.” Trista picks up the bottle and refills her glass.
“You never told me that before.”
She rolls her eyes. “Not exactly something to be proud of. Especially because I dated him.”
“No way.”
“I’m serious.”
My jaw drops. Not an exaggeration. “Does Andy know this?”
“No. And don’t even think about telling him.”
I shake my head. No way would I tell him. I am not about to be the bearer of that news. “But how did you—”
“First, have some of this.” Trista pushes the bottle of wine toward me. “You’re going to need it.”
Trista was right. The wine dulled the horror of the story she told.
She met Owen Oliver when he was in his early thirties. She was a decade younger with a degree in art history and a job at a collections agency. That was how they met. Owen worked in billing at Saint Mary’s. When the bills weren’t paid, they were turned over to the collections agency.
“It was a scum job,” she said. Her voice slurred from the wine. “I called sick people and demanded money from them. So that was me. Scum. All day, I felt like a scummy person who did scummy things.”
Owen told her she wasn’t. They first spoke about someone named Leann, who owed the hospital more than $10,000. After calling Leann seventeen times, Trista had become convinced the number was wrong. The only person to answer the phone was a man who sounded about ninety and had an obvious case of dementia. Leann was a twenty-eight-year old woman who lived alone. Trista called over to the billing department of Saint Mary’s to check the phone number. She wasn’t supposed to contact the hospital directly, but she did it anyway. Owen had answered the phone.
“Of course I had the right number. Owen told me Leann was an actress.” Trista heaved a big sigh. “I was so embarrassed I didn’t even ask how he knew that.”
They talked. She liked his voice, he liked her laugh, and they agreed to meet. Trista dated Owen for six months.
“We both liked to eat and drink, and would rather watch sports than play them. Except sex. We had a lot of sex. Good but not great. Not earth-shattering. But”—Trista held up a finger and waved it around—“he did make earth-shattering cinnamon rolls. Made them from scratch, too. Rolled out the dough, spread melted butter over it, and then added this cinnamon-and-sugar mixture …” For a second, she stared at nothing. She was slow to come back. “Anyway. The cinnamon rolls were good. There was nothing wrong with the cinnamon rolls. There wasn’t really anything wrong with Owen, either. Except he was a medical billing clerk.”
Trista looked down at the table and smiled. Not a real smile—one that is filled with loathing and aimed at herself. She lifted her head and looked me full in the eye. “I broke up with him because I was never going to marry a thirty-three-year-old medical billing clerk. There was no chance in hell. And if that makes me a snob, so be it, but hell if I was going to be poor my whole life.” She threw up her hands, surrendering to whatever insults I may have wanted to sling at her.
I said nothing. Instead, I lifted my glass, we toasted, and we drank.
Trista talked about Owen Oliver Riley for almost two hours.
He watched sports. Hockey was one of his favorites, although the closest professional team is hundreds of miles away. Owen always wore jeans. Always, unless he was in the shower, in bed, or near a pool. But he couldn’t swim. Trista suspected he was afraid of the water.
He lived in a house on the north side of town, the same area Millicent and I lived when we first got married. The north side isn’t a bad area, but it is older and more run-down than the southeastern side, where Hidden Oaks is located. Owen had inherited the house when his mother died, and Trista described it as “cute enough, but almost a shack.” This wasn’t surprising. A lot of houses on the north side are small cottages with porches, elaborate woodwork, and little dormer windows. Inside, most are outdated and falling apart. Owen’s was no exception.
The heater didn’t work, the bedroom window was jammed, and the carpet was an obnoxious shade of teal. The bathroom did have a claw-foot tub, which Trista liked, but the faucet dripped and drove her crazy. If she spent the night, she shut the door to the bathroom; otherwise, she would hear the drip down the hall. When they ate at Owen’s, they used his mother’s dishes, with a yellow floral pattern around the edge.
After a while, Trista was too drunk and tired to continue, so I had a driver at the club take her home. I told her if she wanted to talk more about Owen, I would be happy to listen. It was the truth.
She’d provided me with exactly what I needed for the second letter to Josh.
Seventeen
Plans have never been my thing. Not even my trip overseas was planned. I got a call from a friend, and a week later I met up with him at the Orlando airport. When I realized I would never be good enough to play tennis professionally, I didn’t have a plan. The day Millicent told me she was pregnant with Rory, I had no plan to raise a child. When she got pregnant with Jenna, I still didn’t have one. Only the secret I have with Millicent makes me plan.
My game is tennis, not chess. I play, and teach, singles tennis, and usually that is all I see: two sides of the net, two opposing forces, one goal. It isn’t complicated. Yet here I am, designing a plan involving multiple people, like I have something to prove.
The current version of my plan involves three people: Owen, Josh, and Annabelle. Millicent makes it four, and I could even include Trista. Or at least the information Trista gave me.