My Lovely Wife

by Samantha Downing

  That tiny chip on her front bottom tooth, from when she tripped and fell into the doorjamb.

  The long, deep cut in her calf from broken glass in the street. The scar is still visible, a tan stripe almost six inches long.

  The list went on for what seemed like hours. And as they got older, it got worse.

  When Millicent was ten, Holly pushed her down the stairs. Millicent broke her arm. Six months later, Holly crashed into Millicent with her bike. After that, she fell out of a tree in the backyard.

  Her parents believed they were all accidents. Or they saw what they wanted to see. No parent wants to believe their child is a monster.

  Part of me could understand that. Nothing would make me believe Rory or Jenna could act like that. It just isn’t possible, isn’t feasible. And I was sure Millicent’s parents felt the same way about Holly.

  That didn’t make me any less angry. As I sat and listened to what Millicent had endured growing up, I could not reason away the rage.

  The treatment—no, the torture—continued into their early teens. By then, Millicent had long given up trying to be nice to her sister in the hopes she would stop. Instead, she tried to hurt Holly back.

  The first and only time she tried to hurt Holly was when they were both in middle school. When the day was over, they headed out front with the rest of the children, to the line of parents waiting to pick up their kids. They walked together, side by side, and Millicent stuck out her foot.

  Holly fell flat on the ground.

  The whole thing happened in a second but was seen by half the school. Kids laughed, teachers rushed to help, and, inside, Millicent smiled to herself.

  “It sounds sick,” Millicent said. “But I really thought it was over. I thought hurting her would make her stop hurting me.”

  She was wrong.

  Hours later, Millicent woke up in the middle of the night. Her wrists were bound and tied to her headboard. Holly was in the process of tying a gag around Millicent’s mouth.

  Holly didn’t say a word to her. She just sat in the corner, staring at Millicent until the sun came up. Just before their parents woke up, Holly untied her and took the gag out of her mouth.

  “Don’t ever try to hurt me again,” she said. “Next time I’ll kill you.”

  Millicent didn’t. She continued to take the abuse while searching for a way to prove she wasn’t clumsy and she wasn’t hurting herself by accident. Holly was too smart to get caught on camera, too clever to get caught by anyone.

  To this day, Millicent is convinced it would have continued if it hadn’t been for the car.

  The car accident she told me about did happen. Holly was fifteen, Millicent was thirteen, and Holly did decide to take their mom’s car out for a spin. She ordered Millicent to come along for the ride, then purposely drove into a fence, passenger side first.

  It would have been written off as an accident if not for the video.

  Two separate security cameras recorded the accident. The first showed the car driving straight down the street when a sudden turn right made it plow into a fence. The second video showed the driver’s side of the car. Holly was behind the wheel, and it looked like she turned the wheel on purpose.

  The police interviewed her and decided the accident was no accident.

  After many interviews with Millicent, Holly, and their parents, they came to realize something was very wrong with Holly. They also believed she was trying to kill her little sister.

  Rather than have their daughter charged with attempted murder, Millicent’s parents agreed to put her in long-term psychiatric hospitalization. Her doctors kept her there.

  Twenty-three years later, she was released.

  Holly was the first.

  * * *

  • • •

  AFTER OUR DATE night, I research Owen Oliver Riley. If our plan is to resurrect our local boogeyman, then I need to brush up on the facts, specifically the types of women he targeted. I don’t remember much about that. What I remember is that he scared the hell out of every woman in the area, which made it either very easy or very hard to meet a woman. They’d either looked at me like I might be the Woodview Killer or they evaluated my chances of fighting him off.

  These were girls around my age at the time, between eighteen and twenty, although it looks like Owen Oliver wouldn’t have given them a second glance. He liked them a bit older, between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five.

  Blond or brunette—it didn’t matter. Owen Oliver had no preference.

  He had others, though. The women were on the shorter side; none was taller than five-three. Easier to move them. And much easier for Millicent.

  They all lived alone.

  Many worked at night. One was even a prostitute.

  Owen’s final requirement was the one that gave him away. At one time or another, all of his victims had been patients at Saint Mary’s Memorial Hospital. Sometimes, the work had gone back years. One had her tonsils out at Saint Mary’s; another had pneumonia and spent two days on an IV. Owen had worked in the billing department. He knew everything about their procedures, as well as their age, marital status, and address.

  Saint Mary’s was the one thing tying the victims together. For a long time, that was overlooked, because everyone goes to Saint Mary’s. It’s the only large hospital in our area. The second-closest is still an hour away.

  I skip past most of the details about what he did to his victims while they were held captive. Too much information I don’t need, too many mental images I do not want.

  The only one that catches my eye is the fingerprints. Owen had filed them off all his victims. Millicent had done the same to Lindsay.

  Next, I scroll through pictures of the women he killed. They were young, bright, and happy. This is how victim pictures always look. No one wants to see a picture of a somber young woman, even if she’s dead.

  I notice a few more things. All of the women were quite plain. They didn’t wear a lot of makeup or stylish clothes. Most looked simple: ordinary hair, jeans and T-shirts, no dark lipstick, and no painted nails. Lindsay fit this profile, and she fit Owen’s height requirement.

  Naomi was more simple than glamorous, but she was too tall.

  Up until now, I have never chosen a woman based on this kind of profile. My criteria revolved around how many people would be looking for her, how quickly the police would be notified, and how much time they would put into finding a grown woman.

  Everything else was arbitrary. I chose Lindsay because she fit all the important criteria, and because Millicent would not get off my back about choosing the next one.

  Petra was different. Because I slept with her, or because she suspected I wasn’t deaf. Maybe both. She is still out there, still a risk, but she doesn’t fit our new profile at all. Petra is too tall and far too glamorous; she wears skirts and heels, and even her toenails were painted red.

  I need to find another one. Our fourth.

  That was how Owen Oliver worked. He always took his next victim after the last one was found.

  As I scour through social media sites, I can feel my adrenaline start to surge. It’s not quite a rush, not yet, but it will be. Millicent and I will bring back Owen together.

  And I’m looking forward to it.

  Thirteen

  WE DIDN’T PICK the first two women. Lindsay was the first one we chose, and we found her on social media. But that was when we didn’t have a profile or a height requirement. Most don’t put their physical statistics on social media, and there are no categories for exact height or weight or eye color. This makes my preliminary search for number four difficult.

  I do find one place that lists height: dating websites. But a brief search through a few of them is uninspiring. The next day, I ask Millicent to meet me for a midday break. We grab a cup of coffee and sit in the park across the street. Th
e day is a beautiful one, the sky an unbroken blue and not too much humidity in the air, and the park is close enough to use the coffee shop’s Internet.

  I explain our new profile requirements and show her what I’ve found online. She pages through the women on the dating site and then looks at me.

  “They all seem so . . .” She shakes her head as her voice trails off.

  “Fake?”

  “Yes. Like they’re trying to be who men want instead of who they are.”

  I point to one, who says her hobbies are windsurfing and beach parties. “And they might have too many friends.”

  “Some do, I’m sure.”

  She continues to page through profiles, her brow furrowed. “We can’t pick from a dating site.”

  I say nothing, and she looks up at me. I am smiling.

  “What?” she says.

  “I have another idea.”

  She relaxes, no longer worried, and raises one eyebrow. “Do you now?”

  “I do.”

  “Tell me.”

  I glance across the park, my eyes finally settling on a woman sitting on another bench and reading a book. I point. “What about her?”

  Millicent looks over, studies the woman, and smiles. “You want to look for someone in the real world.”

  “To start, yes. So we find someone that fits the physical profile. Then we’ll research online to make sure she’ll work.”

  Millicent’s eyes turn to me. They are so bright. She places her hand on mine. Her touch spreads throughout my whole body; it feels like I am being recharged. Even my brain hums.

  She nods, and the corners of her mouth turn up as she starts to smile. All I can think about is kissing her. About throwing her down in the middle of the park and ripping off her clothes.

  “I knew there was a reason I married you,” Millicent finally says.

  “Because I’m unbelievably brilliant?”

  “And humble.”

  “Not too bad-looking, either,” I say.

  “If we do this right,” she says, “the police will never even think to look for a couple. We’ll be free to do whatever we want.”

  Something about that makes me even more excited. The world is filled with things I can’t do and can’t afford, from houses to cars to kitchen equipment, but this, this, is how we can be free. This is the one thing that is ours, that we control. Thanks to Millicent.

  “Yes,” I say to her.

  “Yes to what?”

  “Yes to everything.”

  * * *

  • • •

  I DRIVE TO the SunRail station and take the train to Altamonte Springs, the opposite direction from where Petra lives. Technically, the town is outside Woodview, but it was still part of Owen’s original hunting grounds.

  Women are everywhere. Young, old, tall, short, thin, heavy. They are on every street, in every store, around every corner. I don’t see the men, only the women, and it has always been this way. When I was young, I couldn’t imagine choosing only one. Not with so many available.

  Obviously, that was before Millicent.

  I’m the one who is different. I still evaluate all women, just not the same way. I do not see them as possible partners, lovers, or conquests. I evaluate them based on whether or not they will fit Owen’s profile. I size each one up first based on height, then on makeup and clothes.

  I watch a young woman leave a Laundromat and go upstairs, to the apartment above it. From where I am standing, I am not sure if she is too tall.

  A second woman exits an office building. She is quite short but annoyingly brisk, and I watch as she gets into a car that is nicer than mine. I am not sure I could get close to that one.

  I see a woman at a coffee shop and sit at the table behind her. She is on a laptop, scrolling through sites that fall into two categories: politics and food. I know a smidge about both and wonder what kind of conversation we would have. This makes me curious enough to watch as she leaves, and then trail after her to get a license plate number.

  I continue down the sidewalk until I see a small woman who is also a meter maid. She is writing a ticket. Her nails are cut short; so is her hair. I cannot see her eyes because of her sunglasses, but she isn’t wearing lipstick.

  I pass by her close enough to read her name tag.

  A. Parson.

  Maybe her, maybe not. I haven’t decided yet. When she isn’t looking, I take a couple of pictures.

  * * *

  • • •

  LATER THAT NIGHT, Millicent is lying in bed and studying a spreadsheet on her computer. The kids are asleep, or should be. If nothing else, they’re silent. That might be the most we can hope for these days.

  I slide into bed next to Millicent. “Hey there,” I say.

  “Hey.” She scoots over to make room, though our bed is more than big enough.

  “I went shopping today.”

  “Jesus, I hope you didn’t spend any money. I’m looking at our budget right now, and we don’t have any extra. Not after the washer had to be replaced.”

  I smile. “Not that kind of shopping.” I place my phone in front of her, with a picture of A. Parson on the front.

  “Oh,” Millicent says. She zooms in on the picture and squints at it. “What kind of uniform is that?”

  “Meter maid.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t mind getting a little revenge on one of those.”

  “Me neither.” We laugh together. “And she fits Owen’s profile.”

  “Indeed she does.” Millicent closes her computer and turns her whole body to me. “Nice work.”

  “Thank you.”

  We kiss, and all our budget problems melt away.

  Fourteen

  AT FIRST, NOTHING about it was sexy. It was petrifying.

  Holly was supposed to be the end, not the beginning. The day after she was released from the hospital, Millicent opened the front door to find Holly on the porch. She slammed the door in her sister’s face.

  Holly wrote a letter and put it in our mailbox. Millicent did not answer it.

  She called. Millicent stopped answering the phone.

  When I contacted the psychiatric hospital, they wouldn’t tell me anything.

  Holly started showing up in public, staying at least a hundred feet away, but she was everywhere. At the grocery store when Millicent went shopping. In the parking lot at the mall. Across the street when we went out to dinner.

  She never stayed anywhere long enough for us to call the police. And every time we tried to take Holly’s picture for proof, she turned, walked away, or moved to create a blur.

  Millicent would not tell her mother. The Alzheimer’s was already making her forget who Holly was, and Millicent wanted to keep it that way.

  Online, I researched the stalker laws and made a list of every time Holly had showed up so far. When I showed it to Millicent, she told me it was useless.

  “That won’t help,” she said.

  “But if we—”

  “I know the stalker laws. She hasn’t broken them, and she won’t. Holly is too smart for that.”

  “We have to do something,” I said.

  Millicent stared at my notebook and shook her head. “I don’t think you understand. She made my childhood hell.”

  “I know she did.”

  “Then you should know a list isn’t going to help.”

  I wanted to go to the police and tell them what was happening to us, but the only physical evidence we had was the letter Holly put in the mailbox. It was not threatening. As Millicent said, Holly was too smart for that.

  M,

  Don’t you think we should talk? I do.

  H.

  Instead of going to the police, I went to see Holly. I told her to leave Millicent and my family alone.

  S
he didn’t. The next time I saw her, she was in my house.

  It was on a Tuesday, around lunchtime, and I was at the club finishing up a lesson and thinking about what to eat. My phone dinged three times in a row, all texts from Millicent.

  911

  Get home NOW

  Holly

  This was less than a week after I paid Holly a visit.

  I didn’t pause to text Millicent back. When I arrived home, Millicent met me at the door. Her eyes were wet, tears threatening to slide down her cheeks. My wife does not cry over every little thing.

  “What the hell—”

  Before I could finish, she grabbed my hand and led me into the family room. Holly was at the far end, sitting on the couch. As soon as she saw me, she stood up.

  “Holly was here when I got home,” Millicent said. Her voice shook.

  “What?” Holly said.

  “Right here, right in our family room.”

  “No, it wasn’t like that—”

  “I forgot my camera,” Millicent said. “I was supposed to photograph the Sullivan place today, so I came home and she was just here.”

  “Wait—”

  “I found her sitting on our couch.” The tears finally came, in force, and Millicent covered her face with her hands. I put my arm around her.

  Holly looked like a normal thirtysomething woman dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and sandals. Her short red hair had been slicked back, and she wore bright lipstick. Holly took a deep breath and held up both hands as if to show me they were empty. “Hold on. That’s not—”

  “Stop lying,” Millicent screamed. “You’re always lying.”

  “I’m not lying!”

  “Wait,” I said, stepping forward. “Let’s all just calm down.”

  “Yes,” Holly said. “Let’s do that.”

  “No, I’m not going to calm down.” Millicent pointed to the window in the corner, facing the side of the house. The curtain was pulled shut, but glass was scattered on the floor. “That’s how she got in. She broke a window to get into our home.”