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

by Georgina Cross

  No one passes Tish’s place unless they’re needing to turn around—or they’re pulling directly into her garage and out of sight, just like Jacob would have done. Visiting her is made simpler this way.

  I swerve into the drive where police cars would have just been.

  Swinging open the door I find Tish waiting for me inside her living room. I run to her. “Are you okay?”

  By the way she’s pacing, her hands flexing as she pulls at her fingers, mindlessly popping her knuckles and wrangling her wrists, I can tell she is anything but okay. Her long blonde hair is down and stringy—she didn’t have a chance to brush it—and she’s wearing a thin bathrobe I’m guessing she quickly pulled over her pajamas when she heard the police knocking on the door.

  “They came so early. It scared me half to death. Charlie was asleep but now…” She glances at her child, who lies on the floor coloring a book.

  Tish keeps pacing. “But it’s done. I provided my statement. I showed them my phone, which corroborated the messages I received from Jacob. I told them how I left and went to the pool with you.” She gives me a warning look. “There are plenty of people who saw me swimming with the kids but they’ll want to talk and confirm times with you too.”

  “I’ll absolutely do that, Tish. Yes, I’ll confirm everything.”

  She points to the kitchen. “They even took photos. The dishwasher. The counter. They dusted it for fingerprints to confirm Jacob was really here.” She grits her teeth. “I haven’t cleaned it yet.”

  “I’m so sorry, Tish.”

  She keeps talking. She’s so rattled, the nervous chatter rolls right off her tongue. “They asked me about the Buick and I told them, yes, that’s what I saw him driving. Did he say anything about leaving, about going anywhere else? they asked. I told them he was heading home when he finished here. There’s no reason to think he would go to the Millers’, that he would do anything like that.”

  She spins to me. “It has to be another car. Someone else was driving, it just has to.” She grips my arms. “Someone is trying to frame him. They knew about me—they knew about us. And somehow, they found out that’s the car he rented Saturday. They rented the same model on purpose. That’s what they drove past the Miller house. Not Jacob. Never Jacob.”

  “Who would know about you two seeing each other?”

  She chews on her nails, her eyes returning to the floor, the wall and back to the floor, thinking. “I have no idea. We were so careful…”

  “And who would want to frame Jacob?”

  She gives a strangled laugh. “I don’t know, pick a number.”

  Monica Claiborne is telling the police she did not hurt her friend, that she did not hire anyone to hurt her friend, nor did she collaborate with anyone, including her former boyfriend, Mark Miller, to kidnap Sabine.

  She and Mark were an item in college more than twenty years ago. They’ve moved on since then with their lives and careers and families and there is nothing between them, Monica insists. It’s only happy coincidence she would become best friends with Mark’s wife after they moved to Green Cove and pure luck they would end up living side-by-side on Honors Row. She swears she and Mark are now friends and nothing more. Her allegiance is to Sabine.

  Monica also tells the police the letter was not written with any intent to hurt her friend. She was merely drunk and angry and doesn’t understand why Sabine would announce at the dinner party—and in front of her husband, no less—that she thinks Monica is having an affair.

  Monica insists she is not having an affair and that her argument with Sabine was a big misunderstanding. She is now heartbroken over the disappearance of her best friend and wants Sabine found immediately. As of last evening, she and her husband have contributed to the financial reward with the amount now sitting at a quarter of a million dollars.

  All of this we glean from Amanda, who continues to dig up information while she’s at work. City hall, she says, is abuzz with nothing but talk about the ongoing case.

  “It’s all anyone can focus on. That big of a reward is nothing to sneeze about. And there are missing person posters everywhere. Heather Stephenson and her PTA crew have been hanging them up since yesterday. A whole stack of them showed up in my office a few minutes ago.”

  Amanda is on speaker phone while I’m at Tish’s house. My legs are scooped under me on the couch while Tish’s knees continue to shake at a frantic speed.

  Tish has told her about the police visit this morning and Amanda doesn’t sound surprised when she says, “Well, at least that’s out of the way.”

  And it’s not that Amanda is being dismissive, it’s just that her main motivation behind this phone call is Monica. The hate letter that is the gossip spewing from everyone’s lips right now. The idea that if anyone had issues with Sabine, many are saying her letter spells it out clearly.

  But Monica’s defense as of this morning? “A new bombshell,” Amanda announces.

  Monica is claiming that Sabine Miller was planning on leaving the country. She says she’s been talking about going somewhere and Monica thinks she took off.

  “Wait,” I interrupt. “If Sabine wanted to go traveling, this is not the way to do it.”

  “Agreed,” Amanda says. “I can think of a thousand different ways to take a vacation without someone chasing me from my house while I’m bleeding from my arms and legs.”

  Tish waves her hands. “This doesn’t make any sense. Monica gets caught with a letter telling Sabine she wishes she would die and her explanation is to say, no, Sabine up and left the country?” Her eyes grow wide. “How does she explain the blood? And the broken glass? And what people found in the woods?”

  “It’s insane,” Amanda says. “Could be a desperate way to deflect the heat off her.”

  “And how come no one’s heard from Sabine?” I ask. “If she left the country, why hasn’t she called?”

  “Because maybe she was trying to leave Mark?” Amanda suggests.

  “No way,” Tish says. “She wouldn’t leave him. I think they love each other too much. They renewed their wedding vows back in January.”

  I look at her. “Where’d you hear that?”

  She shrugs. “Facebook. They posted pictures of the ceremony. It was beautiful, actually.”

  “Maybe stuff has soured since then,” Amanda pitches in.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “He was joining her at the pool and made it seem like they had plans to meet up with each other.”

  “I don’t buy it either,” Tish insists. “Sabine wouldn’t want to leave Mark and not in this way. Not so drastic and heinous. Monica must be feeling really desperate if this is the theory she’s coming up with.”

  “Well, whatever’s happening,” Amanda says, “it’s the crazy story Monica is sticking to right now—that Sabine wanted to leave the country. But she didn’t take her passport and there is no indication she purchased a plane ticket or traveled anywhere. Trust me—the cops have bulletins all over the place. The FBI is on this too. Someone would recognize her and flag her ID in an instant.”

  “And it still doesn’t explain the blood,” Tish reminds us. “Or her leaving without a trace.”

  “Or…” Amanda says but she lets the sentence hang.

  “Or what?” I ask.

  “Unless she used a fake name.”

  “Wait—what?” Tish leans closer to the phone. “What are you talking about?”

  Amanda’s voice quickens. “Unless she used a fake identity.” A muffled sound comes through on the speaker and I imagine her tucking the phone under her chin and pressing it close to her neck. The sound of fast typing comes next.

  “I’m emailing someone,” she says. “Going to ask around and see if that’s been looked into.”

  “Wouldn’t the cops have already considered this?” Tish asks. “Looking to see if she staged it. If she flew out of the country using someone else’s ID?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. They would look at everything.” The sound of Amanda’s
clacking against the keys comes to an abrupt stop. “Erica,” she says. “Your passport.”

  My legs sweep out from under me. I lean forward, same as Tish. “What about it?”

  “You never received it, right?”

  “No.” I think about the sticky note I left beside my purse last night, the one reminding me to check with the passport processing center later this week.

  “Do you think there’s a chance?”

  “A chance of what?” Tish asks.

  But I’m the one who answers her. “That Sabine received my passport instead of me.”

  Twenty

  Tish nearly trips on the rug, and within seconds, she’s returning to the living room with her laptop in her arms. She places it on the coffee table in front of me.

  “Do you really think…” she starts to say.

  But I don’t answer; I’m too busy logging into Gmail and accessing my Google Drive. I search for a folder titled Miscellaneous where I’m almost positive I saved the receipt and passport tracking file. The document opens and at the top of the page, the tracking number.

  I search for the US Department of State website next. Under the Passports tab, I click on Application Status and enter my information.

  Status: Delivered by mail.

  June 23.

  Two weeks ago—about the same time as Amanda’s.

  “Does it say which address?” Amanda says through the speaker phone.

  I search the page. “It confirms what I entered. My address. Everything is correct.” I scratch my head. “But my passport never arrived.”

  Tish peers over my shoulder and confirms the search results. “112 Holly Pond Road. That’s you.”

  Amanda is typing. “What’s Sabine’s address?”

  With a click, I navigate to the Green Cove website, although I’m almost certain that’s where Amanda is searching too. The private directory requires a password and it takes a second for me to remember mine. I haven’t used the directory in ages.

  I enter my last name—Holloway—plus my alarm code: 14-27, my kids’ birth dates, and presto, I’m in. I search for the Millers.

  There’s the sound of keystrokes on the other end of the line before Amanda says, “Found it.”

  The page I’m looking for pops up too. Tish and I stare at the screen:

  Mark and Sabine Miller

  112 Honors Row

  I sit back on the couch and the number glares back at me: 112.

  The Millers and I share the same house number. It’s not something I would have noticed before. Our street names sound a bit similar too.

  And with the mail service being as messed up as it is, if the Montgomerys did in fact receive Hector’s meds and Bethany ended up with the Carters’ mortgage statement like Amanda said they did, who’s to say a brown manila envelope with my passport didn’t end up in the wrong mailbox by mistake also? Who’s to say Sabine Miller didn’t open the package before realizing what it was and who it was for?

  So why didn’t she call me?

  Our contact info is listed right there in the directory. A simple email would have done the trick. Why didn’t she let me know? She had to know I’d be waiting for it, that I’d want this important document as soon as possible.

  Except… and I look at Tish….

  “No way,” Tish says. “There’s no way this is related—”

  But Amanda cuts her off. “It’s a huge coincidence, don’t you think?”

  “We have no idea if that’s where Erica’s passport ended up,” Tish cautions.

  “It says her passport was delivered.”

  “But that doesn’t mean it ended up on Sabine’s front porch.”

  112 Holly Pond.

  112 Honors Row.

  A simple mistake… right?

  Tish is pacing in front of the couch again. “So Sabine got your passport and used it to leave the country? She staged her whole disappearance? The blood and everything? No way,” she repeats.

  Quickly, Amanda tells me, “Erica, check your bank. Credit card statements. You’ve got LifeLock, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” LifeLock is an identity theft protection service I signed up for last summer.

  “Check to see if there’s been any suspicious activity. If someone ended up with your passport. That someone hasn’t taken your info and compromised it. Like bought an airline ticket or used your money to book a hotel or something.”

  My head is spinning at every one of her orders. I begin typing but it’s difficult at first. A nervous bubble rises through my chest causing my fingers to shake.

  I check my email for any LifeLock notifications but nothing turns up except for an alert from four months ago when I opened a department store credit card to buy clothes for Lydia. LifeLock sent an email to verify the activity was in fact me and I clicked confirm.

  But there are no other warnings in my inbox. No big purchases or international transactions that would have flagged the identity theft service. No dings to my credit either.

  A huge part of me sighs with relief.

  “Anything?” Amanda says.

  “No.”

  I search my bank next and choose a thirty-day history just to be safe. Scrolling through my checking account, I review my regular activity: weekly fill-ups at the gas station, occasional lunch deliveries at work, Rosie’s Mexican Cantina for dinner with the kids last week. There’s also a debit at the West Elm Bar & Grill when I bought a beer waiting on Terry. He joined five minutes later and purchased the rest of our drinks.

  A check cleared for my July mortgage. There’s a monthly transfer to savings. The bakery where I bought donuts for Taylor after she helped me tidy up the house. From what I can tell, everything appears to be in good shape.

  “Check your credit card too,” Amanda prompts me.

  The last two months of credit card statements take longer to inspect. It takes a moment for the PDFs to download and as soon as they open, I’m leaning forward to check each one. Amanda and Tish wait patiently—well, as patiently as they can. Tish is hanging so close over my shoulder I can feel her breath hot in my ear. Amanda is furiously typing something on her end while telling someone—an office aide, I imagine—to hold her calls and not come in. She barks at someone else and the door subsequently bangs closed.

  I read out loud: “Phone bill. Utility bill. The suitcases I ordered on June eighteenth.” I keep scrolling. “A hundred and twenty dollars at the grocery store.” Switching over to July’s transaction doesn’t show much either as we’re less than a week into the new month and I haven’t made as many charges yet. “A trip to McDonald’s for Taylor’s kid’s meal. Sparklers we bought at the fireworks place.” I reach the end of July’s history. “The only thing related to travel are the airline tickets we bought for our trip but that was months ago.” I log out of the website. “I don’t think anyone has stolen my identity. No one has used my passport to go anywhere internationally. They certainly didn’t take any of my money to buy a ticket.”

  “So not Sabine?” Tish asks.

  “We don’t know that yet,” Amanda pipes up. “She could have used her own funds. She could be traveling under Erica’s name.”

  “Is there a way to check?” I ask, thinking I could look at a travel website next.

  “Any emails about a flight confirmation?” Amanda asks.

  I return to Gmail and search. But the only flight details are the ones involving our trip to Tortola—the same email Tish and Amanda received about an earlier flight time.

  “Nothing,” I say again.

  But Amanda keeps typing. She must have set her phone on the desk and placed us on speaker because there’s a clatter, the clicking of her mouse set up right against her phone.

  “You can fly nationally with a passport too. Sabine didn’t have to go out of the country. She could still be in the US.”

  Tish steps closer to the phone. “But wouldn’t she need an ID to back up that she’s Erica Holloway? She can’t just show up with Erica’s passport.”
She turns to me. “Is your driver’s license missing too?”

  I shake my head. “No.” I don’t move to check my wallet, my purse I flung to the floor as soon as I entered Tish’s house. But I know my driver’s license is intact. I showed it at that hole-in-the-wall place where Terry and I met for beers during our first date. The bartender joked and asked if I was of age, and we shared a laugh since I’m very much of age and forty-three.

  “I still have my ID,” I tell them.

  “Then how would Sabine get away with this?” Tish asks.

  “She could get a fake one, I suppose,” Amanda says. “That’s not unheard of. Let me check into it…”

  I sit straight up, an alarm ringing through my chest. “Are you going to tell the cops?”

  “No, let me ask a friend of mine. I don’t want this getting out of control if it turns out to be nothing.”

  “It is nothing,” Tish insists. “Erica’s passport is circulating in God knows which mailroom at some post office. Or it’s stuck inside someone’s mailbox and they’ve been out of town and haven’t checked—”

  “They’ve been out of town for two weeks and didn’t have someone check their mail?” I picture Amanda rolling her eyes on the other end of the phone.

  “Or it’s sitting in someone’s house in a big pile and they haven’t gone through everything yet,” Tish continues. “They haven’t seen Erica’s name on the front of the package. They haven’t had time to—”

  “Or, it ended up at Sabine’s house and it got Sabine’s wheels turning,” Amanda says.

  “You’re only saying that because Monica has this B.S. story about Sabine cutting and running,” Tish tells her. “And Monica is only saying this crap to get out of the hot mess she finds herself in. She’s the one who hurt Sabine—not Jacob, I just know it. She’s the one who the police should be looking at. Sabine did not leave on her own.”

  But I keep thinking about Amanda’s theory: Sabine taking my passport on purpose. Her idea to leave Huntsville while pretending to be me.