The Liar's Wife

by Kiersten Modglin

  But I had to. I had to know what was happening.

  I connected the call and followed the prompts until I was able to speak to a live person.

  “Yes, hi. Um, my husband and my son are…missing, I think. I’m not really sure what to do.”

  “Okay, well, what do you mean you think they’re missing?”

  I brushed away the tears as they came, my voice cracking with each word I spoke. I just wanted them to walk through the front door. I just wanted it to have all been a misunderstanding. “I came home from work, and they aren’t here. I can’t get a hold of my husband. I’ve already checked local hospitals.”

  “Okay, let me transfer you to one of our officers. Please hold.”

  An hour later, the police were in my apartment, dripping wet. They walked through the apartment, checking over it with a fine-toothed comb. Once they’d done that, they returned to me.

  The first officer, Officer Kessler, was friendly but professional, her long black hair tied back in a tight bun. She sat me down on the couch, as her partner, Officer McGuire, did the same. I was having trouble focusing on what she was saying while my mind was listening carefully to every bump outside in the hallway. I just wanted him to come home. “Okay, so we’re going to get through this the best we can. I know it’s an emotional time, and I know you’re scared. We’re going to do everything we can to find your family, Mrs. Lewis, okay? First, we just need to get some information so we can get an idea of where to start. What can you tell us about your husband? Was it usual for him to go anywhere during the day? Does he have any places he frequents? Have you checked with his friends?” She held unrelenting eye contact with me as she fired the questions at me.

  I sniffed, running a finger under my nose. Where are you, Gray baby? Why weren’t they doing anything? Why weren’t they searching? Why were we still sitting here? “He…he doesn’t really have friends. There are a few guys he used to work with, but they didn’t…you know, hang out, really. Not since he left work. He began staying home when we had our son—”

  “And you mentioned on the phone your son is just a few weeks old, right?”

  I nodded, my voice catching in my throat as my chest grew tight. He was going to be turning three weeks old. I’d see him again before that happened, right? I had to. “That’s right. He’s just shy of three weeks old now.”

  “Okay, great, go on.” As we spoke, Officer McGuire took notes from behind her, his eyes quietly wandering the room, expression solemn.

  “Well, he doesn’t really have friends or anything, is what I’m saying. He hadn’t told me about any plans for today and, even if he’d planned to do something, there’s no reason for his phone to be off.” There was no reason for him to take my son away from me for any length of time. He knew how attached I was to Gray. He knew how much I needed him home with me.

  She pressed her lips together. “Were there any issues between the two of you? You were newly married, is that right?”

  I tried not to let her question offend me, but I dreaded telling her what I’d have to next. “We are. We’ve been married just over six months.” I let her piece together what that meant. Yes, we’d gotten married after we found out about Gray, but that didn’t change anything. Ben and I were happy, or so I’d thought. We loved Gray more than anything, I knew. That baby was the best thing to ever happen to me. To us. “But things have been fine. We argue over little things, of course, but nothing major.”

  “Do you have any recent pictures of Ben and Gray? And I’ll need to know what they were wearing last.”

  “Of course,” I said, rushing across the room and lifting the photo frame from the end table with myself and Ben. I could hardly look down at the photo without bursting into tears. Then I walked toward the pile of papers still on the counter from our hospital stay, searching for Gray’s hospital photos. I pulled one from the folder and carried them back to the officer, tracing a finger over his tiny features. Come back to me, sweet boy. “Here you go.”

  She looked them over carefully. “Thank you for these. It’s okay that we keep them?”

  “Of course.” Just bring me my son back.

  She passed them to McGuire. “And can you tell me what they were wearing when you last saw them?”

  “Right,” I said, remembering she’d already asked me that. I tried to picture Gray, the last time I’d seen him without crying. It was nearly impossible. “Um, well…I believe Ben was wearing khaki shorts and a light blue T-shirt. Gray was dressed in a white onesie and blue jeans.” I breathed slowly, trying to make sure she could understand me through the sobs. She was gracious, letting me cry as much as I needed, while still moving the interview along.

  “And that was this morning, correct? What time did you leave for work?”

  I chewed my lip, sniffling and wiping my eyes. I needed to tell her everything, which included that I’d half-lied to the person I spoke to on the phone about the last time I saw them. “Actually, I didn’t go into work today. The last time I saw them was around noon. I’m sorry…I should’ve been honest about that right away. I don’t know why I lied. I just didn’t want it to be…I don’t know, I didn’t want it to make me look bad.”

  “So you were home at noon with them?” she asked, not missing a beat, though McGuire was scribbling furiously.

  “No, I…” Just spit it out, Palmer. Gray is missing. We don’t have time for this. “I followed my husband to a woman’s house this morning. A woman I believe he may be cheating on me with.”

  Finally, I’d gotten a reaction from her. Her eyes opened wider, lips thinning. “You…you believe your husband has been having an affair?”

  I just needed to explain it all. I didn’t care anymore. I just wanted Gray home and safe. “I don’t know for sure. I came home early from work on Monday, and he was gone, which struck me as odd. So, I followed him the next morning, and he met with a woman at a restaurant down the street from us. I had a feeling he was going to do it again today, and so I followed him to her house. He took Gray with him there.” I wasn’t going to mention that I’d already followed the woman to her house. I was doing enough damage, based on the skeptical look she was giving me. “They were there until around noon and then, when he left, I did, too. But when I got home, he wasn’t here.”

  “Why didn’t you mention this before?” she asked, the warmth gone from her tone. I’d messed up. Big time.

  “I wasn’t intentionally leaving it out, but it’s embarrassing. Right now, though, what I care about is finding Gray. It’s all I care about. Making sure he’s safe. Making sure they’re both safe. Please just find him,” I sobbed.

  “Well, the best way to do that is for you to tell us the truth. From the beginning. We can’t do our jobs if we don’t have all the information. Do you understand?”

  I nodded, grabbing a new tissue from the coffee table and dabbing my eyes. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

  “Okay, so did Ben know you were suspicious about the alleged affair?”

  “I don’t think so. I never brought it up to him, and he never mentioned it. I was careful not to be seen when I did follow him. I was…cheated on by my ex, and he managed to lie to me every time and keep me stringing along. I wanted to see it for my own eyes rather than asking Ben and allowing him the space to lie to me. I have enough experience to know if they are caught in a lie, they’ll just find new ways to hide it.”

  Her expression changed ever so slightly, less of a wrinkle on her forehead, less judgment in her eyes. A muscle from her jaw relaxed. She’d been cheated on before, I thought. Or knew someone who had. In this day and age, who didn’t?

  “Do you know the woman he met with?”

  “Not personally, no. But I found her online. Her name’s Katie and she’s a food blogger from Crestview.”

  “And do you know her last name? You said you know her address?”

  “I know where she lives, but I don’t have an address. I can give you directions or…take you there. I don’t know her last name, tho
ugh. Her profile didn’t have it.”

  “Can you show me her profile?”

  I nodded, lifting my phone from the coffee table. My vision was blurry with tears, but it didn’t take me long to pull her up. I turned the phone around and Kessler looked it over, passing it to McGuire, who wrote something down. She handed the phone back to me.

  “Thank you. If you can give us whatever information you have on her, directions to her house, that sort of thing, that’ll give us a good head start. And you said Ben doesn’t have any friends? What about his family? Could he have gone to stay with them?”

  “His parents are divorced, and they haven’t spoken in years. There was some big falling out. Ben doesn’t like to talk about it. I’ve never even met them.”

  The muscle in her jaw tightened again. “Do you know where they’re located?”

  “I know they live out of state, and I know their names, but I don’t have much else on them.” I scoffed, realizing how pathetic I must sound. “Ben never even told me which state they live in.”

  She looked at her partner, and I could see it all over their faces. They thought I was crazy, that Ben was leaving me, that I’d made a mistake, that I was wasting their time. I sucked in a sharp breath. “I just want my son back. Please just…please help me. Even if Ben’s leaving me, I just want to see my son. I need to know he’s safe.”

  She nodded, cocking her head to the side. “We’re going to put a few calls in, okay? Check with area hospitals, check police reports, check in with this Katie, check in with his old employer, see if we can track down his parents. In the meantime, I want you to sit tight, okay? I know you’ll want to help, to go out and look for them, but the best thing you can do is just be here when he gets back.” If. “If he does, or if you hear from him, you’re going to have to call me, okay? Keep in touch with me, and I’ll do the same.”

  I nodded. “Of course. Will you…I mean, will you put out an Amber Alert for Gray? I get them on my phone sometimes for other…missing children.” The words hurt to say. The thought of seeing Gray’s picture on one hurt even more. Please, no. Please be safe. Please come home.

  “One step at a time,” she said, pulling out a notepad of her own for the first time. “Right now, we don’t even know that they’re missing, just that they haven’t come home. Gray hasn’t legally been kidnapped if he’s with his father, even if you didn’t give him permission to take him.”

  “But I’m his mother,” I cried, panic settling further down in my stomach. “Don’t I have a say in where he is? He can’t just…he can’t just take him, can he?”

  She was solemn, refusing to answer. “We’re going to focus on finding them with every resource we have, but we have no reason to believe Ben would be a threat to your son, do we?”

  “Ben would never hurt Gray,” I said quickly. “He loves him.” But maybe not me. “We have to find him…”

  “That’s great news, Palmer. Great. That means we are just trying to find out where they ended up. Why they left. We’ll start digging into his past, his bank records, everything. It’s hard for people to go missing for too long these days, okay?” The warm smile was back. “I know this is scary, but I promise you we’re doing everything we can to bring that baby home to you.”

  I felt cool tears lining my eyes as I nodded. That was all I wanted. All I cared about. I needed Gray to be safe. I needed him to be home. I needed my baby back with me. I should’ve followed them closer. Should’ve spoken up sooner. If I had, I wouldn’t have lost my son. If I had, things would be so different.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next morning, I paced the house. Truth be told, I never stopped pacing. Ben never called. He never came home. Gray was still gone. Ben had taken Gray somewhere. He’d taken him away from me. But where…and why? What had I done that was so wrong?

  My breasts ached from the need to pump, but I couldn’t bear it. Doing so only made me think of Gray, and to do that was taking a dagger to my heart, plunging its sharp blade into my most sensitive places. Had I done enough? Had I loved him enough? Had I smiled at him, cuddled him enough? Was I enough for him? What if I never saw my son again? Were these weeks, these mere days enough to satisfy me? To give him a memory of me at all? I’d grown him in my belly, cared for him, loved him, fought for hours to bring him into the world before having my stomach torn open to pull him free. I’d done so much and would do everything over again, but would any of that matter? If something had happened to them? If Ben had run off?

  Nothing would matter to me anymore.

  I thought losing Nate after finding out he’d been having an affair would be the worst pain I’d ever experienced, but this, no, this was worse. This was fire to my insides and scraping of my bones. Pulling at the tender nerves on every frayed part of the shell that remained in my place. Without Gray, I was nothing. Without Gray, I’d cease to exist. I was sure of it. I’d fall to the ground, nothing left of me but ash. The charred remains of a woman who’d lost the most important thing to her. Someone would sweep me away or the breeze would carry me off, and no one would know. No one would speak of my pain or know that it existed. My pain is not the kind you talk about. It’s the kind that’s swept under the rug at family get-togethers, where I’d become that cousin who lost her son. That niece whose husband ran away. The girl with the missing child. And with time, that would all fade. I’d be left with nothing. I’d be nothing.

  I stared around the house, its walls mostly bare, and entirely bare of pictures of my son. I had three printed photos total from the hospital, and now one of those was being passed around by the police. I hadn’t even thought to ask if I’d get it back when she asked to keep it.

  I had a few snapshots on my phone, as well as the blurry photos of him with Kat, but nothing more.

  A knock on my door pulled me from my thoughts, and I sprang forward, hope swelling in my chest so quickly I felt like it may burst.

  I swung open the door, shocked to see a familiar face.

  “Dannika?” I wiped my cheeks, though the tears were long dried. I felt my brows knit together in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to check on you,” she said, stepping further into the house. “I’m worried.”

  I shut the door once she was inside and turned to face her. “You didn’t have to come.” I was so relieved to see her, though. To see any familiar face at this point.

  “Well, I know you, and I know it’s not like you to miss work this much. Howie’s covering for you, saying you’re taking meetings and whatnot, but I wanna know the truth, Palmer. Is everything okay?” She glanced behind me. “Where is everybody?”

  I shook my head. “They—” My voice quivered and cracked, and I stopped, unable to prevent the tears I felt.

  Concern clouded her expression. “Palmer, what is it?” She reached for me, touching my arms, and I fell into hers, letting my weight—the weight of the world—be a shared burden between the two of us. I sobbed, my body convulsing with heavy, raddled breaths. She was still for a moment before her arms made their way around me and she patted my back. “Shhh…” she soothed. “It’s going to be okay, I’m sure. We’ll make it okay.” She whispered niceties into my ear, patting my back and nodding until my last tear had dried. I felt powerless, ashamed of my breakdown. It was accomplishing nothing. I didn’t have time to be sad.

  When I pulled away, I looked at her, shaking my head. How could I even put into words what had happened? “Dani, they’re…they’re just gone.”

  She stared at me, one brow lifting slightly. “Who’s gone? Gone where?” She brushed a piece of hair from my eyes.

  “Ben and Gray. They’re missing. I don’t know.” My shoulders fell. “I don’t know anything. Ben never came home yesterday. I can’t get a hold of him. He has Gray, and they’re just…gone.”

  Her jaw dropped, and she reached for my arms again. “Palmer…oh…oh my god, I’m so sorry. What can I do? What are you doing? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’
m still processing, I think. And I just keep worrying that I’ll tell people, and maybe that makes it real somehow. Like, if I just keep it to myself, maybe he’ll just walk through the door.”

  She cocked her head to the side with sympathy. “Do you really think that’s going to happen? It has to, right? Where else would he be? I don’t…” She trailed off, running a finger over her lips.

  “I have to believe it could. Otherwise, what am I saying? They’re just gone? Both of them? I can’t give up on Ben. He’ll do the right thing. He’ll come home. He has to come home. He has to bring Gray back to me, right? He has to.” I blinked back tears at the possibilities swirling through my head. He had to bring him home.

  “Yes, he does. He will. I’m sure this is all just a misunderstanding. Ben loves you. We aren’t giving up.” Her expression was fierce as she shook her head, nudging me toward the couch. “Come on. Let’s make a plan. When did they go missing, exactly? We can figure this out.”

  “Yesterday around noon…” I hesitated. Dannika had been there for me during my last breakup. She’d taken care of me, comforted me, encouraged me to get back out there. How would she feel if she knew that I’d managed to mess this new relationship up too? Would she start to see a pattern? Wonder if I’m worthy of any kind of love?

  “Palmer, was Ben who you were talking about when you told Ty your friend’s husband was having an affair?” she asked, her lips pressed together.

  I sucked in a breath and held it, breaking eye contact. I knew she knew, but it didn’t make it any easier. When I looked back at her, I’d given my answer.

  “Son of a bitch,” she said, slapping her knee. “Who is she? Do I know her?”

  “She’s a food blogger from Crestview. Katie something.”