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 did find one place that listed 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. The 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.