Into the bedroom she went. She had to wipe off both doorknobs, inside and out. It was while she was wiping off a second application of cleaner that she glanced at the dresser. It was there in plain sight, neatly folded inside a clear plastic Ziploc bag. The design on the navy-colored T-shirt might have gone unnoticed were it not so familiar to Natalie.
She hadn’t seen Michael wear his favorite shirt from his alma mater, University of Oregon, for a while now; didn’t remember seeing it in the wash, either. Now here it was, secured inside a clear plastic bag on Audrey’s dresser. Natalie was sure the T-shirt belonged to Michael, but she picked up the bag to check, careful to use a paper towel to avoid leaving prints. The coloring looked right. It was an old, faded tee, well-worn, a favorite workout shirt of Michael’s. Why was it in a bag? Because Michael had left it after one of his trysts here, and thoughtful Audrey washed it for him and put it in a storage bag so it wouldn’t get mixed up with the other clothes, Natalie decided. She was being kind and caring, and her payment was a knife thrust into her body over and over.
For a second Natalie had forgotten there was a body lying in a pool of blood just down the hall. Her breathing had grown shallow and rapid. Waves of dizziness came and went. Natalie had been certified in first aid and recognized the symptoms of shock, but she didn’t have time to go catatonic. She had a few more doorknobs to wipe clean. The faces of her children flashed in her mind like the strobe light on a fire alarm, keeping her upright and moving.
Confused and dazed as she was, Natalie was with it enough to ask herself one question: What triggered the attack? She’d experienced Michael’s anger before, but it had never resulted in violence.
Never, until today.
She had no clear answers, but then another thought came to her, a single word: evidence. If the police could trace the shirt to Michael, using his DNA perhaps, they’d put it all together and come after her, not him. She’d be the jilted wife who took matters into her own hands. Natalie couldn’t let that happen.
The bag fell from her grasp—sweat and fear weakening her grip. She bent down to retrieve it, and that’s when she saw the key. It was on the floor under the dresser. Natalie slid the key out from underneath, not worried about her fingerprints. The number 774 was engraved on one side of the red plastic key chain, and on the other side were the initials OAC, which Natalie took to mean Oakmont Athletic Club.
She’d seen this exact key in her house before, the key Michael had lost.
Natalie put the key in the same bag as the shirt. After finishing with all the doorknobs, she exited, looking both ways for cars containing more potential witnesses. The street was clear.
Natalie got back in her car. She tossed the bag with the shirt and key inside on top of her pile of clothes. A few moments later, she was driving off into the darkness, back to her children, to her home, and of course, to her husband.
CHAPTER 22
NATALIE
The new hair color was going to take some getting used to. Natalie would catch a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror as she drove the speed limit on I-70 and think: Who am I? Wanting to go as unnoticed as possible, she hadn’t bothered with makeup this morning, and she found herself focused on the lines and wrinkles, the pasty white look of exhaustion she wore like foundation—and of course, her hair.
The dye job was hardly professional, but it was definitely better than what she’d given the children, who looked like they’d been playing with finger paint. There were still fading marks on their skin where the dye dripped past the hairline. The kids didn’t seem to mind the new color, and Bryce even asked to go green next time, but both had refused haircuts. Addie had been especially adamant. Natalie could have forced them to comply—of course she could have, she was their mother after all—but she supposed the dye had done its job. From a distance the trio looked a lot less like the picture circulating on social media.
One problem solved, but another remained.
Sleep.
The road was doing that hypnotic thing again, making it hard for Natalie to focus on driving. Lines dividing the highway blurred from solid to dotted and then back again. How many hours of sleep did she get last night? Two? Three? No … probably less.
She tightened her hands on the wheel, but her eyes still felt heavy. Why was it she could sleep where she shouldn’t and couldn’t sleep where she should? She felt like the butt of a cruel joke.
Her gaze softened as her attention drifted from the road to nothing at all. It was some distance later that Bryce asked when they could stop, and only then did Natalie realize she was behind the wheel of a car, going sixty, with her two kids in the back.
Holy shit, she thought.
She bit the inside of her mouth hard enough to make her eyes water, but at least she was awake and alert again.
“We’ll stop soon,” she told Bryce.
Bryce didn’t seem to like the answer and retorted: “When will we see Daddy?”
Kids know, thought Natalie. They just know how to make it hurt.
“Soon,” she said, hating herself for the lie.
“When’s soon?”
“Who needs a bathroom break?”
When in doubt, change the subject. Bryce raised his hand, and thinking she’d get to a rest area, Natalie followed a sign to a country highway. Away from the interstate the landscape changed with farms and fields on either side, and while this route offered nicer scenery, the road seemed to stretch on forever. Natalie felt herself driving toward some invisible edge—not only in this physical world, but in her mind as well. Her thinking was muddled, but at least she was keeping the car in its proper lane. Eventually, she pulled over onto the side of the road so that Bryce could do his business. No cars passed.
Everyone had a stretch, and Addie groaned about getting back in the car, a sentiment Natalie shared, but that was the extent of it. They had to keep driving. Complaints from the kids died down with the start of yet another game of I Spy.
“I spy with my little eye something … green,” Bryce announced.
Natalie glanced out the window.
Green … no shit.
Everything looked green to her. The trees. The grass. The houses. Hell, even the cows looked green. Natalie felt utterly disconnected from everything and everyone, as if she were having an out-of-body experience while behind the wheel of a two-thousand-pound car.
I’m going crazy, she thought. Bit by bit. Drip by drip. I’m going insane.
This line of thinking was as predictable as the dawning of a new day, and it served only to usher in waves of doubt.
Am I doing the right thing?
She reminded herself how easily Michael had slept that night after what he’d done. She knew she had no choice.
Her mantra came to her as it always did in moments of uncertainty.
Move. Move. Move. Keep on moving.
Her other thoughts: get to Kate’s farm. Rest and recharge. Turn the evidence over to the police, but do it from a place where Michael can’t find us.