The Missing Woman: Utterly gripping psychological suspense with heart-thumping twists

by Georgina Cross

  I shake the thoughts away, hoping she doesn’t catch my hesitation.

  Instead I tell her, “I bet whatever happened took place before they got home. They’re filling out the police report right now.”

  “But why an ambulance?”

  “It’s protocol.”

  Her eyes light up. “So no one got hurt if no one was in the ambulance, right, Mom? I mean, it was empty. You saw that too? That’s a good sign?”

  My heart goes out to my daughter. Her frightened thoughts battling with the need to think everything is going to be okay.

  “I think that’s a very good sign,” I tell her, and add, “You know, when things like this happen, a lot of things get safer afterwards. More cops, more patrol, more Neighborhood Watch. People won’t go after the same neighborhood twice, and not so soon.”

  “Like a grace period.”

  I nod. “Yeah, like a grace period.”

  She fiddles with the Coke tab again. Another glance out the window as she chews nervously on the inside of her cheek. “Will you tell me if you hear anything?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Lydia has been this way since she was a toddler, always the more anxious of my children. If I let her, she’d sit right here at the kitchen counter and wait on Amanda, listening to our entire conversation, but I won’t.

  “It’ll be okay,” I tell her.

  She smiles meekly before crossing the room, her turn for the shower next. And I’m glad she’s stepped away and out of earshot because the door from the garage swings open. It’s Amanda, her brown curly hair shoved beneath a baseball cap and wearing a baggy T-shirt that hangs loose over track pants.

  She tosses a bag of potato chips and several packets of M&Ms on the kitchen counter, her motions frenetic. The snacks are her way of saying we’re going to be up for a while. It’s nearly ten but there’s no way anyone is going to sleep soon.

  Amanda settles herself on a bar stool and Tish, finishing with the kids’ showers and encouraging them to stay in Taylor’s room and play, slides onto the stool beside her.

  I stand opposite the counter from them, my hands gripping the edge of the sink, waiting to hear what she has to say.

  “I heard it’s Sabine,” Amanda tells us. She looks buzzed. Excited. Her fear mixed with adrenaline.

  My heart lurches—I was right.

  Tish stares at her. “What do you mean it’s Sabine? What happened?”

  Amanda scrolls through her phone looking for updates or messages or both. “Whatever happened, it was at the house.” Her eyes skate back and forth across the screen.

  Tish leans over. “What are you looking at? The Nextdoor app?”

  “Yes. All anyone in the neighborhood group is talking about is the Millers. Neighbors said they walked over but were told to turn around.”

  Tish nods. “We got turned around too.”

  “Mark is there, but not Sabine.” Amanda taps with her thumbs. She clicks on something else. “Mark is frantic.”

  “How do they know that?” Tish asks. “Are the police saying anything?”

  Amanda looks up. “It’s all speculation right now but someone approached a cop and that’s what he told them. They’re out now looking for Sabine.”

  I spin on my heel and open the fridge with a yank. Forget the junk food; this Fourth of July is going to require more alcohol. I grab three beers and place them in front of the girls with Tish and Amanda barely acknowledging.

  Tish’s eyes grow wide. “Out looking for Sabine? Like she didn’t come home or they think someone took her from the house?”

  “They don’t know.”

  “What do they think happened to her?”

  “I don’t know,” Amanda says again.

  Tish whips out her phone and says she’s checking Facebook.

  I take a long sip of my beer, the bubbles coating my throat, trying to calm the steady pang inside my chest.

  “What about Ring?” Amanda asks. Ring is the video doorbell system that connects with an app on your phone allowing you to watch video of who is approaching or leaving your house.

  “I don’t have it.” Tish glances at me. “You?”

  “Nope.”

  “I do,” Amanda says. “It’s the one thing my ex did for me before he split. Putting up those cameras now that I’m living alone.”

  Tish rolls her eyes. “I’m convinced he’s using them to spy on you.”

  Amanda’s ex-husband, Connor, is one of the IT leads for a government defense contractor. If he could find a way to tap into her video cameras, he would.

  “Even if he wanted to—which he can’t.” Amanda cuts her eyes at us. “My Ring cameras are only set up at my front and back doors. That’s about as exciting as it gets.”

  Tish smirks. “He can still see who you’ve got coming over…”

  Amanda smirks too. “Maybe I don’t care if he sees that.”

  My unease rolls gently beneath the surface—unease or fear, or both.

  “Okay,” I say, cutting through their chatter. “What does Ring have to do with anything? It’s not like we can see into the Millers’ camera at their door. Only the cops will be able to do that.”

  “There’s also a way for people to post info,” Amanda says. “People can post alerts or videos in the app saying, watch out for this. Or have you seen this person stealing packages from my front porch? That sort of thing.” She turns her phone toward me. “See?”

  I look at a couple of hazy screen captures with videos and captions underneath. People posting about dogs or raccoons or coyotes getting into their trash, the cameras recording any movement in their driveway.

  “I don’t see anything about the Millers.”

  Amanda brings the phone back to her face. “Not yet, but I bet people will be posting stuff soon. Front porch views. Cars driving by. People returning from the pool. Video cameras showing anyone going up and down that street.” She continues to scroll, her eyes locked in on anything that might be related to Honors Row.

  “I’ll check the news sites,” Tish offers. “We saw a couple of vans pull up when we turned around.”

  “Good idea,” Amanda says.

  Tish clicks from one website to another. “Nothing yet. Maybe when we get closer to the ten o’clock news.”

  Amanda’s phone dings, and she sucks in her breath. “They found blood.”

  My head snaps up with a jerk.

  “Blood on the floor,” Amanda says, each message lighting up her screen and shining a glint in her eyes.

  Frantic, Tish says, “Whose blood? Where? Was it Sabine’s?”

  My heart races, a sickening swell rising through my chest and spreading to my body.

  Amanda has a hard time meeting our stares. “The door was smashed in with blood on the floor.”

  Four

  Tish rips the phone from Amanda’s hands. “Who’s saying that? The news isn’t even reporting those details yet.”

  Amanda pulls back her phone. “One of the guys I work with.”

  Of course. Amanda works for city hall. With colleagues in both the mayor’s office and friends in the sheriff’s department, someone is bound to hear something and share that information with her, especially when it involves someone living in her neighborhood—not to mention someone as high-profile as County Commissioner Mark Miller and his wife.

  “Someone hurt Sabine?” Tish asks. “Why?”

  “How do we know the blood is hers?” Amanda asks. “It could be Mark’s.”

  “Like he was trying to stop them?”

  “Or they were going after Mark instead.”

  I hear them, but I’m not hearing them. The panic in my chest rises higher.

  “And Sabine got in the way and they hurt her? They took her? Oh my God…” Tish settles against the bar stool, her shoulders sinking. She watches as Amanda’s thumbs move rapid-fire across her screen. “What else do they know?”

  “Not sure yet.”

  She rubs her arms. “This is crazy.”


  A loud noise rumbles inside my ears.

  “Guys,” I say.

  But Tish doesn’t hear me. “If there’s blood, there was an altercation. And if Sabine is missing then whoever’s got her could hurt her too.”

  “Or she could already be dead.”

  Tish smacks her on the arm. “Don’t say that! Why kill her? Why not ask for a ransom?”

  Amanda says, “Okay, fine. Or ask for a ransom.”

  “Guys,” I say again. This time, louder.

  Tish’s eyes slide toward me.

  “Something happened at the pool.”

  Amanda raises her eyebrows.

  “I know something’s wrong.”

  “Well, of course something’s wrong,” she quips, “or there wouldn’t be a bunch of cops and Sabine missing with blood at the house.”

  “But what do you mean at the pool?” Tish asks.

  I pause, my words slowing, not knowing exactly where to start. “Sabine… she was there. We shared this look…” I grip my beer bottle, my hands grasped tightly around the glass.

  Tish eyes me. “Are you okay?”

  I look at the blood that is leaving my hands and turning my fingertips white, and let go of the bottle, shaking my head. But it’s not an answer to her question; it’s more like confusion, my head spinning with a million dark thoughts whipping in every direction.

  Amanda’s eyes peer over the top of her screen. “She looked at you?” she says, in a way that means to imply, that’s it?

  “Yes.” I feel silly now that I’ve said it out loud, but I’ve got to tell them. “It was odd. It felt… purposeful.”

  Amanda continues to stare. “Did she say anything to you?”

  “No. Just this look from across the deep end. She…” I’m stumbling for the right words. “… she looked frightened.”

  “Why would she look frightened?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “I saw her at the pool and she looked fine to me,” Tish says.

  “She was fine, and then she wasn’t. Right as she was leaving. It was like something came over her, this fear from out of nowhere. And she looked at me.” I nervously peel at the label wrapped around the bottle, my fingernail scratching at the foil until it’s coming off in strips.

  Should I also tell them I have her bracelet? That I’m weird for keeping it—that my intent is to return it to her?

  “I know it sounds crazy but it was like she knew something was going to happen. To her. Tonight.” I meet their eyes again.

  “What do you mean she knew something was going to happen?” Amanda says. “How would she know?”

  I shrug, confident I sound like a fool.

  “And why you?” Amanda asks. “I mean, no offense, Erica, but you guys aren’t friends. There was that thing that happened—”

  A heat flushes down the back of my neck. “That has nothing to do with this.”

  “That thing at the auction last year,” Amanda presses, and my stomach twists. “It was pretty intense. Maybe she never got over it?”

  “It was stupid,” I tell her. “It’s over. Tonight, this was different.” It’s still difficult to explain. “She didn’t seem angry—”

  “You’re the one who should be angry,” Tish says resolutely.

  I drop my gaze.

  I don’t want to talk about it. Not about that night. Not about the argument that seemed to come from out of nowhere between Sabine and myself. It was embarrassing and in front of all those people at the school fundraiser. An ordeal that lasted only minutes with Sabine storming out of the room. After that, we returned to our separate sides of the neighborhood.

  “It’s been a year,” Tish continues. “So why would Sabine give you this weird look but not say anything to Monica and Carol? If something was upsetting her, that’s who she’d tell.”

  Amanda asks, “Were they with her at the pool?”

  “Always.”

  Amanda turns to me and waits for more of an explanation. I hesitate—I honestly don’t know. “Maybe she already told them. Or maybe it was something else.”

  “Something else?” She sets down her phone.

  “I heard Mark. He thought she was there. He wanted to surprise her.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I was eavesdropping. Over by the face-painting table, they were close by. And after Sabine gave me that look, I couldn’t help myself.” I pause, trying to remember his exact words. “He said she shouldn’t have gone home by herself.”

  Tish’s eyes bolt open.

  “Monica said something weird too. She said, they won’t try it again.” Worry crawls across my chest, my insides tightening.

  “They?” Amanda says. “Who won’t try it again?”

  “I have no clue.”

  “And try what?” Tish asks. Just like Mark described and the way Monica said they all felt that night, Tish looks spooked too—the word coming back to haunt me.

  A paleness spreads through her cheeks. “She knew something was going to happen to her?” Tish’s words send goosebumps up and down my body.

  “Erica”—Amanda looks at me—“you have to tell the police.”

  Panic seizes my chest. “Right now?”

  “You need to tell them what you heard.”

  Tish’s eyes bounce between us. “But won’t Mark Miller tell them? Won’t Monica? Erica doesn’t have to get involved. If they’ve been having trouble, if someone’s been stalking them or harassing them, or they think someone’s tried breaking in before, they would have already told the cops. Wouldn’t they?”

  “I hope so,” Amanda says. She looks at me intently. “But you need to tell the police too. Every piece of information is important. They’re out there looking for her and every hour is critical, you know this. We hear those same statistics.”

  I drop away from the counter, anxiety running through my head.

  The cops. Getting involved. Cops at my house with kids who need to be going to bed soon. Lydia, who’s already rattled and will ask a hundred questions when Amanda and Tish leave—she won’t be able to sleep. I’m not sure how the younger kids will respond when police officers show up at our door.

  I back against the fridge, noting the intense stares from my friends. Swallowing down my fear, I shake my hands. “You’re right.”

  But Tish is still trying to find a way to get me off the hook. She knows I’d rather not get mixed up in all this—who would? The likes of us getting mixed up with the people on Honors Row.

  Tish also knows about my daughter. She knows the crippling anxiety that can take root in Lydia—we saw it forming tonight; Tish has been with us before I don’t know how many times when Lydia has cried herself to sleep or clung to us with the slightest shake of a thunderstorm. She’ll worry we’ve left the house with the oven still on.

  Tish says, “Mark’s wife is missing. If someone broke into their house and took her and he knows there’s been an issue before, he’ll tell them who’s done it. He’ll tell the cops immediately. Her friends too. Erica doesn’t have to say anything. She doesn’t need to get pulled into their ordeal.”

  “And what if they don’t?” Amanda asks. “What if they don’t say anything?”

  “Why wouldn’t they?” Tish asks.

  “But what if they don’t know who it is?”

  “Monica said they, right? She has to know something. She’s already told the police too, I’m sure of it.”

  “I’ll tell the cops,” I interrupt them. “I just need to calm myself down first.” I take another sip of my beer before setting down the bottle. The three of us grow quiet, my thoughts ricocheting until I’m squeezing the sides of my head; it hurts.

  “Who would want to do this to the Millers?” I ask, finally. “It’s so horrible. Who would go after Mark and Sabine?”

  “Maybe someone who doesn’t want Mark to be county commissioner,” Amanda suggests. “Or someone who hates him and sees Sabine as collateral damage.”

  “No one hates Mark Miller,”
Tish says.

  I nod. “He’s everyone’s golden boy.”

  But Amanda rolls her eyes. “He can’t be that much of a saint.”

  It’s frustrating sometimes to hear Amanda speak this way, her constant doubting of someone else’s character especially if they’re an elected official. But after years of working at city hall, her views have become jaded.

  She’s explained to us several times how her once-perceived notions of heroes in suits and ties, silk scarves and ruby brooches with plans for effective action, idealistic dreams and altruistic intentions, have fallen painfully short. Many of the politicians, she claims, only give podium speak—it’s what we want to hear. They’re full of hot air. Inaction. Or worse, they take advantage of their position. She’s reminded us more than once how the wool has been pulled away from her eyes and it’s hard for her to take them seriously anymore, even when it’s someone like Mark Miller who’s done so much for our community.

  Tish shakes her head. “That poor family, that poor woman.” Her eyes redden. “Do you remember when she helped the school build a new library?” She grabs a napkin and wipes at her cheek. “She doesn’t have kids but she’s always there, tutoring in the afternoons. She’s read to Charlie several times. He thinks she’s a princess because he says she’s so beautiful.”

  My eyes redden too, my girls often having described story time with Mrs. Miller also, how she’ll dress in character and wear the most elaborate costumes, often bringing the kids treats from the donut shop. “She’s straight out of a fairytale,” Taylor has whispered to me, and in her hands, she’ll be clutching a book Sabine gifted every child.

  Shame spreads through my chest. I should have thanked her. That stupid fight last year should have never happened. Instead, I should have told her what an amazing service she is doing for our children. Giving so much of her time when she doesn’t have kids of her own.

  I close my eyes. But she’d gotten in my face that night. She’s the one who yelled.

  “I can’t imagine what Sabine must be going through,” Tish says and my eyes blink back open. “Mark too. He must be out of his mind wondering what’s happened to her, where she could be. How far they’ve taken her. If she’s hurt or not.” She clutches her arms, her fingers pressing tight.