She met Owen Oliver when he was in his early thirties. She was a decade younger with a degree in art history and a job at a collections agency. That was how they met. Owen worked in billing at Saint Mary’s. When the bills weren’t paid, they were turned over to the collections agency.
“It was a scum job,” she said. Her voice slurred from the wine. “I called sick people and demanded money from them. So that was me. Scum. All day, I felt like a scummy person who did scummy things.”
Owen told her she wasn’t. They first spoke about someone named Leann, who owed the hospital more than $10,000. After calling Leann seventeen times, Trista had become convinced the number was wrong. The only person to answer the phone was a man who sounded about ninety and had an obvious case of dementia. Leann was a twenty-eight-year old woman who lived alone. Trista called over to the billing department of Saint Mary’s to check the phone number. She wasn’t supposed to contact the hospital directly, but she did it anyway. Owen had answered the phone.
“Of course I had the right number. Owen told me Leann was an actress.” Trista heaved a big sigh. “I was so embarrassed I didn’t even ask how he knew that.”
They talked. She liked his voice, he liked her laugh, and they agreed to meet. Trista dated Owen for six months.
“We both liked to eat and drink, and would rather watch sports than play them. Except sex. We had a lot of sex. Good but not great. Not earth-shattering. But”—Trista held up a finger and waved it around—“he did make earth-shattering cinnamon rolls. Made them from scratch, too. Rolled out the dough, spread melted butter over it, and then added this cinnamon-and-sugar mixture …” For a second, she stared at nothing. She was slow to come back. “Anyway. The cinnamon rolls were good. There was nothing wrong with the cinnamon rolls. There wasn’t really anything wrong with Owen, either. Except he was a medical billing clerk.”
Trista looked down at the table and smiled. Not a real smile—one that is filled with loathing and aimed at herself. She lifted her head and looked me full in the eye. “I broke up with him because I was never going to marry a thirty-three-year-old medical billing clerk. There was no chance in hell. And if that makes me a snob, so be it, but hell if I was going to be poor my whole life.” She threw up her hands, surrendering to whatever insults I may have wanted to sling at her.
I said nothing. Instead, I lifted my glass, we toasted, and we drank.
Trista talked about Owen Oliver Riley for almost two hours.
He watched sports. Hockey was one of his favorites, although the closest professional team is hundreds of miles away. Owen always wore jeans. Always, unless he was in the shower, in bed, or near a pool. But he couldn’t swim. Trista suspected he was afraid of the water.
He lived in a house on the north side of town, the same area Millicent and I lived when we first got married. The north side isn’t a bad area, but it is older and more run-down than the southeastern side, where Hidden Oaks is located. Owen had inherited the house when his mother died, and Trista described it as “cute enough, but almost a shack.” This wasn’t surprising. A lot of houses on the north side are small cottages with porches, elaborate woodwork, and little dormer windows. Inside, most are outdated and falling apart. Owen’s was no exception.
The heater didn’t work, the bedroom window was jammed, and the carpet was an obnoxious shade of teal. The bathroom did have a claw-foot tub, which Trista liked, but the faucet dripped and drove her crazy. If she spent the night, she shut the door to the bathroom; otherwise, she would hear the drip down the hall. When they ate at Owen’s, they used his mother’s dishes, with a yellow floral pattern around the edge.
After a while, Trista was too drunk and tired to continue, so I had a driver at the club take her home. I told her if she wanted to talk more about Owen, I would be happy to listen. It was the truth.
She’d provided me with exactly what I needed for the second letter to Josh.
Seventeen
Plans have never been my thing. Not even my trip overseas was planned. I got a call from a friend, and a week later I met up with him at the Orlando airport. When I realized I would never be good enough to play tennis professionally, I didn’t have a plan. The day Millicent told me she was pregnant with Rory, I had no plan to raise a child. When she got pregnant with Jenna, I still didn’t have one. Only the secret I have with Millicent makes me plan.
My game is tennis, not chess. I play, and teach, singles tennis, and usually that is all I see: two sides of the net, two opposing forces, one goal. It isn’t complicated. Yet here I am, designing a plan involving multiple people, like I have something to prove.
The current version of my plan involves three people: Owen, Josh, and Annabelle. Millicent makes it four, and I could even include Trista. Or at least the information Trista gave me.
First, I’ll send another letter to Josh. Not only will it include details about Owen’s real life—specifically his mother’s home—but it will also include the date when another woman will disappear.
This is risky, I know. Maybe even unnecessary. But in one fell swoop, it accomplishes our goal. Yes, Owen is back. Yes, he is responsible for Lindsay and for the next one. No guessing games, no back-and-forth between the police and the media, wondering if he is really back or if there is a copycat. The information Trista gave me will prove to them it’s Owen. No one will have a doubt when the next one disappears.
It will be Annabelle Parson, though I don’t include her name.
The downside is that the entire police department will be waiting for a woman to disappear that night, and they will be searching for her as soon as someone reports her missing.
The upside is that Annabelle has very few friends. No one is going to report her missing until she doesn’t show up for work. It would be easy enough to give us a two-day lead.
We’ll still have to figure out how to snatch Annabelle without being seen by anyone, including a camera, on a night when everyone is expecting a woman to disappear. And while the police are looking for Owen, they will completely miss Millicent.
The plan is so simple it could be brilliant.
I go through it again, starting with the letter to Josh and ending with the disappearance of Annabelle. Along the way, I see a hundred holes, loose ends, and potential problems.
This is why I do not plan. It’s exhausting. Which is also why I do it. I try to put the plan together before telling Millicent about it. Even after all these years, I still want to impress her.
And it’s been a while. Impressing Millicent wasn’t easy when she was young. Now, it almost impossible.
Our relationship is not one-sided, though. There have been plenty of times she has tried to impress me. Millicent was trying to impress me when she decorated our Christmas tree with the oxygen masks. On our fifth anniversary, she put on the same lingerie she wore on our wedding night. And for our tenth anniversary, she planned a little vacation.
With two kids and a bigger house on our wish list, we had no money for a vacation or even a nice dinner. Millicent found a way.
First, she showed up at the tennis courts. Millicent never comes to the tennis courts. If she comes to the club at all, it’s to swim or have lunch with someone, so when she walked onto the court, I thought something was wrong. My wife just wanted to kidnap me.