And he still has Millicent’s tablet.
All day, I watch the news, scour my laptop, and look up my kids on the Internet. My search comes up with nothing new—just some old articles in the local paper from Jenna’s soccer team or Rory in a golf tournament.
I look at the pictures I took from the house. They feel like they are from a hundred years ago, back when I had a life that now feels like a dream.
Nighttime. I am out by the pool, pacing around it. If Kekona had any neighbors, they would think I must be a madman, which I may be, but no one is close enough. Since no one is, I jump in the pool, clothes and all, and stay underwater until I can’t. The air feels like a shock when I break the surface. It both wakes me up and calms me down.
I climb out and lie down on the patio, staring up at the sky, trying not to wonder how much worse it can get.
My life has just blown up, and I should feel angry. I think the anger is there, bubbling under the surface, all mixed in with the sadness and heartbreak, the guilt and shame and horror. It will all come, and it will all overwhelm me, but not yet. Not until I figure out how to get myself out of this mess.
And get my kids. I fall asleep thinking of them. Just us, not Millicent.
The sun and the birds wake me up. It’s so peaceful here at Kekona’s, so easy to pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist. I understand why she rarely leaves the Oaks. Why would anyone willingly leave this for reality? I would not if I didn’t have to.
Eventually, I do go back inside and turn on the TV.
Me.
I am on that wall, staring back at myself. My picture fills the screen, and my name appears at the bottom, along with a banner: PERSON OF INTEREST
Even though I am expecting it, I still fall to my knees.
So fast. My whole life has fallen apart in less than a week. If it were not happening to me, I would not believe this is possible.
Josh’s voice makes me look up. He is talking, always talking, but today he is not a reporter. Because we met at the First Street Bar & Grill, he is the subject of the interview. The star.
Most of what he says is a lie, and an abbreviated one at that. I approached him. I asked about the case. I begged him to give me the names of his sources. He skips the part about getting drunk, calling Claire Wellington a bitch, complaining about the information he had, and shared, but could not say on the air.
“I understand the police are calling this man a person of interest, and maybe that’s all he is. I can only tell you what I felt. You know that feeling you get when something is just wrong? Like that little alarm goes off in your head, telling you to get away? That’s how this guy made me feel.”
His remark is creepy enough to make me sound guilty, even though Josh had been in no condition to feel anything when I met him.
I want to put the battery back in my real phone. To see if the kids texted me, if they’re worried, if they believe what is being said about me. Or to see how many times the police have called.
Instead, I am alone, trapped in Kekona’s beautiful house without anyone to talk to.
Until the phone rings. Andy.
I pick up but don’t say a word. He is already talking.
“Those murders really upset Trista. I’m almost glad she can’t see how many there are.”
If Trista were still alive, she would know Owen didn’t kill these women. And she would have no reason to kill herself. I do not mention this.
“I remember,” I say. “She talked about it at the club.”
“But you didn’t do it.”
“I did not kill those women.” True. I only killed Holly, and no one found her.
“If I find out different—”
“Call the police,” I say. “Turn me in.”
“I was going to say I’ll kill you myself.”
I take a deep breath. “Deal.”
“I got into this tablet. Can you tell me where you are?”
“For your own good, you—”
“Don’t want to know,” he says. “I got it.”
We meet in another parking lot, not the one outside Golden Wok. My disguise is a baseball cap and sunglasses, and I have not shaved for two days. It isn’t much, but no one is looking for me inside Kekona’s SUV. I drive out the back gate of Hidden Oaks to avoid the guards.
It is after dark, because I will not go out during the day. I also won’t let Andy see the car or the license plate, so it’s parked two blocks away and I walk down to the lot. He is standing outside his truck with Millicent’s tablet in his hand. No other cars are around, no lights on. The lot belongs to a boarded-up car parts store.
Andy is standing a bit straighter than he was the last time I saw him. His chin is up.
“Whole damn county is looking for you,” he says.
“Yeah, I got that.”
Andy turns around and sets the tablet on the hood, keeping it propped up with his hand.
“If you tell me you failed, I’ll stop believing you’re a genius,” I say.
“I never fail. But I don’t know if any of this is helpful.” He swipes the screen, which lights up with a keypad. “New code. Six-three-seven-four. First, the bad news. She must’ve known you took this, because she wiped out everything in the cloud.”
“Of course she did.”
“Not to worry—there is some good news. She did have some information stored on the hard drive. She couldn’t get to that.”
He shows me a few pictures. A couple of the kids, a few of open houses, and a snapshot of a grocery list.
I shake my head. It’s all too mundane to be useful.
“She liked games,” Andy says. He opens a few Match 3 games and crossword puzzles.
Any hope I have blows away like a dead leaf. Of course there is nothing on the tablet. Millicent would never be so stupid.
“Also found a few recipes,” he says, bringing up some pdf files.
“Stuffed mushrooms, huh?”
“The spinach hummus dip sounds good.”
I sigh. “You’re an asshole.”
“Hey, it’s your wife,” he says. “Last but not least, her Internet searches and the sites she visited. She cleared the history, but I recovered most of it, for what it’s worth.”
Not much. More recipes, medical websites about sprained wrists and upset stomachs, the school’s online calendar, and a bunch of real estate websites.
“No smoking gun,” I say.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
I sigh. “Not your fault. Thanks for trying.”
“You owe me forever, you know,” he says.
“If I don’t go to jail for life.”
He gives me a hug before driving away in his old truck.
I am alone again, in no hurry to get back to Kekona’s. Even a big house can feel suffocating.
Instead, I go back to the tablet, looking through all those real estate websites she visited. No one is perfect, I tell myself. Not even Millicent. Somehow, somewhere, she made a mistake.
My eyes are almost bleeding when I find it.
Sixty-six
The website Millicent visited the most is a property database. She went to the site every day, researching sales records and real estate transfers, all of which were public information. Her browser recorded the addresses she researched.
One of them is a commercial building at 1121 Brownfield Avenue. Six months ago, a man named Donald J. Kendrick sold the building for $162,000. The building has been around for more than twenty years and has had one longtime tenant.
Joe’s Deli.
Donald sold the building to an LLC owned by another LLC and then a third. Ultimately, the building is now owned by R. J. Enterprises, LLC.
Rory. Jenna.
This is Millicent being clever, because she would not see it as a mistake. Our children are never a mistake. This was on purpose.
I think back to six months ago, realizing that it was right after she sold three houses in a row. Plenty of cash for her to use.
Denise was never a client of Millicent’s.
She is a tenant. A tenant who just happened to know Owen’s sister.