It was impossible not to picture cute little Audrey on the elliptical, her tight body like a superhero’s tucked into her Lycra workout outfit, catching Michael’s eye as he sweated alongside her.
What would be his opening line? she mused. Something innocuous maybe, on the cusp of being cheesy. “You have really good form,” he might say. Or, if they’d met on the weight floor, she could hear Michael counting his reps, one, two, three, until pert little Audrey walked by, then he’d up the numbers ridiculously: one thousand one, one thousand two … and then a little laugh, a playful look from her as she checked him over. Hot, she’d be thinking, because he was. Michael was an extremely good-looking man.
Natalie shook her head ever so slightly as if to purge the vision from her mind like a reset.
“So you met at the gym,” Natalie said, “and what? He just asked you out?”
“Something like that,” Audrey said, keeping it vague. “Skimpy clothes and sweat can be quite the aphrodisiac.”
Natalie forced out a smile.
“So what did you like about him?’
Audrey’s eyes lit with excitement.
“You mean besides the obvious?”
Natalie gave a slight shrug, hoping her discomfort wasn’t showing.
“There’s a lot to love. Brown hair, fit, trim … super attractive.”
Natalie resisted the urge to say that sounded like her husband, but the thought came out another way.
“What’s his name?”
A flash of discomfort settled on Natalie’s chest. She had no business asking. No business knowing, but the curiosity was like smog in her brain, clouding her better judgment. Audrey returned an uneasy laugh.
“Well, given the circumstances, I probably shouldn’t say.”
“Of course,” said Natalie. “I don’t know what came over me.”
Yes, you do.
“Well, let’s just call him … Chris, okay?”
Natalie smiled awkwardly.
Chris.
It took every bit of restraint Natalie could muster not to ask the question most prominent in her mind.
Is his first name Michael? As in Michael Christopher Hart. Natalie did not mention that Chris was her husband’s middle name—a name given to him in honor of his grandfather Christopher Anders Hart.
A cold tickle danced across the nape of Natalie’s neck.
“Okay, so Chris it is,” Natalie said, hoping she managed to maintain a neutral expression. “I’ve been to that gym, but no guy has ever tried to pick me up.”
Natalie tried for a light tone of voice, but thought she sounded bitter.
“Well, with Chris it was the other way around,” Audrey answered.
“You came onto him?”
“Sort of. I needed a spotter, and next thing you know we were working out together. We’d arrange it so our schedules aligned, and we became workout partners. One thing led to another, and, well … we went out on a date.”
“He didn’t tell you he was married.”
“Didn’t come up. By the time I found out, it was too late. I don’t know anything about Chris’s family. I didn’t ask … didn’t want to know. Somehow, it made it easier. I know it’s selfish, horrible of me. But we couldn’t get enough of each other. I just … couldn’t let go. You must think I’m awful.”
Audrey looked profoundly guilt-ridden.
“Well, I’m not here to judge. You really owe it to yourself to live your most authentic life, so perhaps you’ll eventually be together again.”
Audrey took in that bit of advice, which had pained Natalie to share, while absently drumming her fingers on the table in a rhythmic pattern—index finger to pinky then back again.
She noticed Natalie staring at her hand.
“Oh, sorry,” Audrey said, pulling her hand to her lap. “Nervous habit I picked up from—Chris.”
A lump sprang to Natalie’s throat, making it hard for her to swallow.
Michael drummed his fingers nonstop whenever he was nervous, and it always made her crazy.
CHAPTER 10
NATALIE
There were three things Natalie counted on happening after she ran. Three things, a slight variation on the family game they played at dinnertime, in another lifetime, it seemed.
One: Michael would call the police. Once he learned they weren’t in the hotel, after he searched high and low, after he texted and called with no response, he’d contact the police. He’d probably think his family had been kidnapped.
Good. He needed to suffer.
Two: security cameras would capture them leaving the hotel, most likely show them getting into the waiting sedan. Upon their arrival, Natalie had surveyed the area, immediately spotting two security cameras in the carport. While Michael was taking a family photo, she noted a third aimed directly at the exit. There was nothing to be done there. She wasn’t a genius computer hacker who could bring down a surveillance system, so she accounted for it in her planning.
Three: the police would run the plate, confirm it was an Uber ride, and they’d probably get the destination. Amtrak.
They (the police/Michael/everyone) would soon be looking for Natalie Hart, who had boarded an Amtrak train to an unknown destination. Only Natalie didn’t get on any train, or a bus for that matter. What she did, as soon as the Uber had dropped her and the children off curbside at Penn Station, was stick out her hand to hail a taxi.
She stood on the corner with Addie and Bryce on either side of her, cars whizzing past, horns honking as if barking at the other drivers. Life here moved with a frenetic energy that reminded Natalie of the jumbled thoughts constantly rumbling through her head as she tossed and turned in bed during those endless sleepless nights.
She found a strange cohesion in the chaos, like a frenetic orchestra playing something wild and untamed yet somehow synchronistic. The city felt dangerous but enticing. For a moment she imagined herself standing on the edge of one of the skyscrapers, readying to make an untethered plunge into the depth of the darkness below. In a way, that’s exactly what she was doing.
The children were unusually quiet—no, make that subdued—perhaps in shock. Natalie guessed their fight-or-flight responses were operating in overdrive, poor darlings, and since there was no place for them to run, and nobody to fight, they’d become somewhat frozen with confusion.
In time, she’d explain. What she was doing was mainly for them, their safety. Her only goal now was to get away from Michael, as far away from him as possible, someplace where she could think and plan. Up until now she’d done so much right. The pizza ruse had worked perfectly, as she knew it would at that hour based on the phone calls she’d made from home. It gave her just enough time to gather their belongings and go. The hasty departure, tense as anything she’d ever done, lingered in her mind.
* * *
“Where are we going?” Addie asked as she stuffed her flower-patterned pajamas back into her suitcase.
Natalie moved about the hotel room as though she were floating on air, going from one spot to another, grabbing all the things the kids had unpacked in a wild frenzy and putting them into various pieces of luggage.
“I’ll tell you later. We have to leave right now.”
She used her stern voice, the one she reserved for times when the kids were really acting up.