by Mark Lukens
The woman frowned and seemed reluctant, but she let me sign in. I went down the hall, cutting to the right immediately before she changed her mind.
I found Kendra on the second floor after asking around. I had a sense that these nurses were going to get suspicious soon. I felt like I didn’t have a lot of time before I was asked to leave. My whole world felt like a ticking clock right now.
Kendra looked surprised to see me there.
“Hi, Kendra,” I said. “I’m Zach. Michelle’s husband.”
Kendra nodded. She knew who I was, recognizing me immediately even though I’d only met her a few times. She seemed nervous, maybe even frightened of me. I wondered if she already knew that Michelle had vanished, and that I might be a suspect.
“I’m looking for Michelle,” I said in the gentlest voice I could muster.
“I don’t know where she is,” Kendra said. “I haven’t talked to her in weeks.”
That seemed strange to me. I told Kendra about how Michelle disappeared last night, how she’d gone into the women’s room at the restaurant and then never came back out.
But Kendra didn’t look shocked about that, and that also seemed strange to me.
“A woman at the restaurant,” I continued, “she saw Michelle leaving with a man. About my height, brown hair. She said he even kind of looked like me. The woman said that it didn’t seem like Michelle was being forced to leave, but maybe she was.”
Kendra just shrugged and glanced down the hall like she was looking for someone to rescue her.
I looked down the hall in the same direction she was and saw a few of the residents in the hall. One lady was pushing herself away from us in a wheelchair, passing a man hobbling along with a walker.
“Kendra, I’m worried someone took my wife,” I said, looking at her again.
Kendra didn’t seem too alarmed. She seemed to dismiss the idea that my wife had been taken—I could see it in her eyes.
And for the first time, right there in that brightly lit hallway, I wondered if Michelle could have left willingly. Could she have planned this whole thing? She had been the one adamant about trying out the restaurant last night. I’d told her I was kind of tired, but she really wanted to go out. My stomach curdled with the thought, but one way or another I needed to know the truth.
Kendra still wasn’t volunteering any information. I knew she was on the verge of bolting, coming up with some kind of excuse to get away from me.
“Have you seen Michelle with a man like that?” I asked, my voice quivering. I was suddenly afraid of the answer. It was a strange feeling, a possible sense of relief that Michelle might be okay, but a crushing devastation if she had chosen to leave me for another man.
Finally, Kendra shook her head no.
“Did Michelle say anything to you?” I asked her. “About us?” I was almost afraid to hear her answer.
Kendra nodded. She seemed to be steeling herself, preparing to say something that might make me angry. “She was afraid of you.”
A sledgehammer had just smashed me in the chest. I even took a step back from Kendra as my mind tried to understand what she’d just said.
Kendra stood there, suddenly empowered and bold, a weight off of her chest. She glared at me like I was some bully she’d just stood up to. “She told me you were scaring her.”
“Scaring her?” I said, shaking my head. “How? I mean, why? I don’t understand.”
“I need to get back to work,” she said.
“Please,” I said. I was tempted to grab Kendra’s arm, stop her from turning away from me, but I could picture how that would look. “Please. I need to see Michelle. I need to talk to her. Has she been in to work today?”
“She quit,” Kendra said, practically spitting the words out at me.
“Quit?” A sense of disbelief was washing over me. I imagined that Michelle had come in last night, or even this morning to quit. Maybe I had just missed her.
“She quit three weeks ago,” Kendra said and walked away.
CHAPTER SIX
I was numb as I drove home.
Kendra said Michelle had quit working at the nursing home three weeks ago. No wonder the receptionist had looked at me so strangely when I said I was there to see Kendra and Michelle. I was surprised she’d let me pass, but maybe she was scared of me too. Maybe they all were.
Scared of me? Why? What had I done to make Michelle so frightened of me?
She certainly hadn’t acted scared of me during the last three weeks. And she had quit her job, so she’d been pretending to go to work for the last three weeks, playing some kind of charade, some kind of game, setting all of this up while acting normal around me.
Again, I felt a little relieved that Michelle might be okay. At least she wasn’t dead or being tortured or raped somewhere. At least there was that. But still, I was devastated that she’d been afraid of me, that she couldn’t even talk to me about leaving, that I’d never even gotten a chance to plead my case, to try to right any wrongs or make things better.
It wasn’t fair.
I knew I should go home. It was still pretty early, not even afternoon yet. I needed to calm down and think about things. Michelle had left all of her stuff at home. If she had left me, then she hadn’t taken a single thing of hers. I could understand her wanting to leave her entire life behind, starting over new, as Officer Crowell had said, but I couldn’t understand her taking nothing with her. She had photo albums with pictures of her parents, of her sister. She had other mementos from childhood. What could make her leave all of that behind?
And it just didn’t make any sense. I knew what I’d just heard from Kendra, but it didn’t seem like the truth. I couldn’t explain why I couldn’t accept it, I couldn’t explain why things just weren’t adding up, but it was something I felt in my bones.
Instead of going home, I went to the restaurant. I parked as far away in the parking lot as I could, watching the restaurant. They were open for lunch, somewhat busy even though it wasn’t even twelve o’clock yet. I saw a few customers going in, a few coming out. I even saw the manager walking out and checking on things.
I waited for an hour, watching a few employees park and walk to the restaurant, dressed for work in their uniforms.
And then I saw her—the one I’d been waiting for. Cindy.
I got out and hurried up to her as she walked toward the restaurant.
“Cindy,” I called out.
She stopped, turning around, staring at me. There was no fake smile on her face now. She was startled for just a second, but then I saw the fear in her eyes, the same fear I thought I’d seen in Kendra’s eyes only a few hours ago.
“Cindy. My name’s Zach. I was here last night. I came with my wife.”
She remembered me.
“I just need to ask you a few questions.”
“I . . . I need to get to work. I’m running late.”
I expected Cindy to take off running, but she started walking again, a brisk pace toward the restaurant.
I shadowed her, but not too close. I felt absurdly like a reporter harassing a celebrity; all I needed was a microphone and a cameraman following me. “Did you see my wife come into the restaurant with me?”
“No. I saw you at the table. I gave you menus and water.”
We were getting closer to the restaurant now. Cindy was walking a little faster.
“Did anyone else see my wife? Who turned my wife’s purse in?”
“I don’t know. The hostess said it was some lady.”
“Who was she? How did she find my wife’s purse? Where exactly did she find the purse in the bathroom?”
“I don’t know,” Cindy moaned, picking up the pace a little more.
I started to panic. We were close to the restaurant. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to follow her inside. “That elderly couple, the lady who saw my wife leave, do you know them? Do you know their names?”
She shook her head no, not looking at me, pressing on toward the
glass and metal front doors of the restaurant.
“Are they regulars? Please, I need your help. That lady’s the only one who saw the man my wife left with.”
“Sorry,” Cindy muttered, still not looking at me. “I can’t help you.”
The front doors burst open and Richard the manager came out, his fleshy face red with anger. “You need to leave,” he told me.
I thought about arguing that I had every right to be there, and that this was public property, but I could tell he was one breath away from calling the police. “Please,” I told him. I stopped a few feet away. “I need to find my wife.”
Cindy kept walking, passing right by Richard and then entering the restaurant.
“I’m sorry,” Richard said, but he sure didn’t look like it. “I truly am. But I can’t help you.”
“Two detectives came to my home this morning. They said they checked out your security camera footage. They said the cameras weren’t working last night. Some kind of glitch.”
Richard shrugged; his gesture saying: Things like that happen.
“How could the cameras not have been working at that exact time? All of the cameras went out at the same time? Were the ones out here in the parking lot working?”
“I told the detectives everything I knew,” Richard said. “I answered their questions. That’s all I can do. Now, I’ve got a restaurant to run and I need you to leave.”
“You don’t think it’s strange that all of your cameras stopped working. Did you get them fixed?”
“We’re done here.”
“I need to know what happened to my wife.”
“She left, man,” Richard barked out, finally losing his temper completely. He calmed down almost immediately, seemingly a little embarrassed about losing his cool. “I’m sorry she left you. I am. It happens. Hell, my girlfriend left me four years ago. I came home and her stuff was packed. She left a note.”
But Michelle didn’t leave a note. She didn’t pack her things. I wanted to argue that point, but I didn’t.
“Please,” Richard said. “I’m asking you to leave. If you don’t, I’m going to have to call the cops.”
I nodded, my hands going up in surrender. I even backed up a few steps. I could feel tears of frustration burning in my eyes. I turned and walked away.
“Don’t come back,” he called after me. “Don’t harass Cindy or anyone else here.”
I got to my truck and got inside, started it up. I pulled out of the parking lot and saw Richard watching me leave, perhaps committing my truck and license plate to memory.
*
When I got home, I went through Michelle’s closet and dresser drawers again. I didn’t pull everything out, but I sifted through the clothes and her jewelry boxes on top of the dresser. I went through the boxes on the top shelves of her closet that contained photo albums and other things that were special to her. Everything seemed to be there, all of her photos and jewelry. I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but I was fairly sure.
I stood in the little hall between my closet and my wife’s larger closet, the hall between our bedroom and the master bathroom. I just stood there, staring in at her closet. I felt like I was missing something. I was sure there were clues among her stuff, but I was overlooking something. In my haste, in my panic, I wasn’t seeing something.
So I slowed down. I looked through her things again, taking my time. I stared at the clothes on the hangers: dresses, pants, shirts, coats, and of course nurse’s scrubs. I stared at the line of shoes on the metal and plastic racks along the closet floor: sneakers, sandals, clogs, high heels, flats, boots. I’d seen her wear some of these clothes and shoes, but others I’d never seen her wear before.
Some of the clothes and jewelry triggered memories for me. I saw a flash of us going to the movies. Michelle loved the movies; it didn’t matter what kind of movie it was, she was all for going. In another memory I saw us cleaning out the garage. I saw us working in the yard. Having sex. Eating breakfast. Comforting her one time when she had the flu.
But I was no closer to an answer, to why she would have been taken, or why she would have left me.
Did she leave? I needed to think about things rationally. Was she frightened of me like Kendra had said? And why had she quit three weeks ago yet kept on acting like she was still going to work? And she had insisted that we go to the restaurant last night. I had been tired and didn’t want to go, but she had insisted. Had it all been planned out? Why plan it out like that?
The elderly woman in the restaurant had said that Michelle left with a man, but she also said that Michelle hadn’t looked distressed. But wouldn’t she have been nervous while leaving with another man? Wouldn’t she have been nervous that I would have seen her? What if the hostess hadn’t seated me right away? What if I would have decided to use the bathroom or waited for her to come out? What if I would have checked on her sooner? How could she have known exactly what I was going to do?
And why leave her purse behind? Even if a wealthy man had whisked her away, why not just take her purse with her and dump it somewhere else? Had she left the purse there to taunt me?
Or was the purse some kind of clue left behind?
If she had been abducted, why would the man make her leave her purse behind? Wouldn’t that have alerted people more quickly, giving them less time to get away? And then I wondered where the man would have been if he had abducted her. Had he been in the women’s room? Or just outside of it? I wondered again where the purse had been found. On the floor? By the door? Just outside of the door on the floor?
I wished I would have pressed Cindy or Richard more about it earlier.
Why would an abductor allow Michelle to drop her purse? Because her cell phone was in it and he was afraid of being tracked? But then again, why not take the purse and then dump it somewhere in the parking lot, or out on the street?
I was driving myself crazy. I could tell that I was leaning more toward the abduction theory—it just felt right to me. Or maybe I just didn’t want to believe that Michelle had left me, that she had planned this whole thing out so meticulously. It would mean that she not only feared me, but that she also hated me.
I was restless. I needed to do something. I couldn’t find any clues in her clothing or jewelry, so I went into the office. We had a desk in there with a computer and printer on top. There was a stereo and two bookcases that held mostly Michelle’s books that she’d read, a lot of well-worn paperbacks. Her taste in books was as eclectic as her taste in movies.
Maybe there was something in one of the books.
Two hours later the bookshelves were nearly bare and there were stacks of books all over the floor. I had looked through them all. There was no writing inside, no doodling, no drawings, no papers or notes tucked inside.
Next, I went through the desk drawers, pulling everything out of them and repacking them not so neatly. I checked through the boxes and envelopes of receipts, bills, and statements. I checked for anything unusual in our bank statements. I checked the computer, looking for any strange files. I checked both of our emails again. Michelle hadn’t used her email in years, and there was nothing there. No messages on the phone.
Nothing.
A sudden anger raged inside of me. I had an urge to clear everything off of the desk, but I resisted.
Instead, I went into the kitchen. I didn’t feel hungry, but I knew I needed to eat. I looked at some of the leftovers in the fridge, including some pasta and sauce Michelle had made a few nights ago, but I settled for another frozen dinner that I heated up in the microwave oven over the stove.
I thought about going to the store and buying some beer, but I knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to drink alcohol and take my anxiety meds and the sleep-aid. After my parents had died, I had self-medicated with alcohol. It seemed like the only thing that kept the panic attacks at bay, but it didn’t help at all with the depression. I was turning into a mess.
Michelle saved me. She’d gotten me to cut down on
the alcohol, and then four years ago to completely quit, along with help from Dr. Valentine and the meds she prescribed.
I thought of Dr. Valentine. I wondered if I should schedule an appointment to see her. Maybe I would call her office on Monday. Maybe if I could talk some things out with her, maybe she could help me see things more clearly.
After I ate, I tried calling the phone numbers on Michelle’s contact list again. Except Kendra. I didn’t need to talk to her again. I left some messages, and the other phone numbers just rang and rang. Her sister’s phone was still disconnected.
I wrote an email to Michelle, begging her to come home, begging for forgiveness for whatever I’d done wrong. But she hadn’t looked at her email in years and I didn’t expect her to look at it now. But it was better than doing nothing.
I turned on the TV again, but wasn’t really watching it. Stan called around seven o’clock and told me he was sorry to hear about Michelle.
“If there’s anything I can do, man,” he said.
“Thank you,” I told him.
Stan said the guys at work were sorry about it, too. He said some of them were praying for me.
We talked a bit about work, and then I hung up.
The next few hours drifted by, and then I popped my pills and I was in bed, the TV in our room on, the ceiling fan on. I was dressed only in my underwear. I drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In my dream I saw Michelle again. The dream seemed so real. It felt more like a vivid memory, or like I’d been teleported to another place.
Except I knew it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
Michelle was a few feet ahead of me in the darkness, walking toward something, maybe a building or a house. I could see the bulk of it in the distance, but I couldn’t make out details. There was a small sliver of light coming from the building, but it was all blurry in the background because my focus was on Michelle. I was following her, afraid to take my eyes off of her, drinking in every molecule of her while I had the chance. We were walking so slow, like everything had slowed down like it does in dreams sometimes.
