Don't Wait Up

The oven timer blares, waking Kate. Afternoon sunlight streams through the living room windows. She quickly folds the oversized navy blanket, drapes it over the back of the couch, and walks to the kitchen to quiet the oven.

Warm hints of nutmeg and cinnamon fill the air. Opening the oven, she is pleased to see the crust on her apple pie is golden, with small gooey bubbles bursting around the edges. With her perfect pie resting on the countertop, she sets her sights on the roast chicken she will prepare for dinner. From the refrigerator, she collects fresh thyme, rosemary, and sage to make an herb butter to slather over the bird.

“Hey, Mom,” Carter says, dumping his backpack onto a stool facing the kitchen island. “That smells good. Can I have some?” He smiles at her, pleading with his warm brown eyes.

Startled, Kate looks at the clock on the oven. 2:30 p.m.? Where did the afternoon go?

“How was your day?” she asks. Her eyes search behind Carter, scanning the living room and the door to the garage. “Where’s Jordan? Did he not drive you home today?”

Raiding the refrigerator, Carter responds, “Nah, he went to the mall with Lacey. He dropped me before he left. Said he’ll be home for dinner, and Lacey is coming too, apparently.”

Wonderful, Kate thinks, purposely rearranging her face into a neutral expression so her son won’t see her disgust at the mention of Jordan’s girlfriend having dinner with them.

“Sounds good, buddy,” she says, pulling her dark blond hair into a high, messy bun as she begins whipping the herbs and butter together. She watches him disappear up the stairs, his hands full of snacks.

With the chicken roasting and sweet potatoes baking, she heads to the loveseat on the porch in her backyard. She has always loved the tranquility of this space. Large oak trees shade the lot. When Carter and Jordan were young, they used to build mountains of leaves in the fall and play for hours. Now she and James just rake the leaves up and put them out at the curb.

Before she cracks the cover of her newest book, she can’t resist taking a look at the Cavanaugh GPS circle to see if Jordan is safely at the mall. Seventeen is such a bizarre age. Touching freedom but still needing the comforts of your parents. Next year, they will be teaching Carter to drive, and Jordan will be starting a new chapter at college.

Lost in her book, she looks up when the sliding glass door opens. A breeze of crisp AC air wafts onto the porch from the living room.

Carter stands in the doorway. “I forgot to tell you, I need fifty dollars cash for the boosters tonight at practice. Jordan is going to drive me after dinner, so you don’t need to.”

Closing her book, she stands and joins her son inside.

“No problem, honey. I’ll go grab that now. It was about time for me to finish up with dinner anyway.”

In her master bedroom closet, she stands in front of the gray metal safe and flips through the Notes app on her phone to find the combination. She can never recall it from memory. Phone in her left hand, dial in her right, she scrolls to find the numbers she needs.

14-09-02-06.

She turns the black plastic handle, and the safe gives a satisfying thud.

Inside, she leafs past the folders of birth certificates, passports, and the deed to their house and reaches toward the back for the blue zippered banker's bag they use for their cash. She pulls out a fifty-dollar bill for Carter and, for good measure, pockets an additional fifty.

In a holster hanging from the inside wall of the safe is a 9mm Smith & Wesson handgun. She has never fired it, and she hates its existence in her home, but James told her it was better to have one and not need it than to need one and not have it. She fought hard against having a gun in the same home as their teenagers, but he had won.

Gently, she touches the holster, and something small falls from behind it. It lands with the softest thud against the paperwork at the bottom of the safe. Blindly, she fumbles for the lost item. When she finds it, she holds it up to inspect it.

A small silver key with a bright yellow rubber cap covering the head.

She studies the key, turning it over in her hand before returning it to the safe. She places it not where it fell from, but underneath the holster, as if it had naturally fallen from its place behind the pistol.

Downstairs, her chicken has reached the optimal temperature. She pulls it out to rest on the counter while she sets the table. She hears the garage door open, and soon James walks into the kitchen. He smells like fresh deodorant and mouthwash and kisses her gently on the lips. His long, shaggy brown hair tickles her cheek.

“Hey, babe. Look at this spread, Mrs. Cavanaugh! I’m starving. Let me go change. I’ll be right back down,” James says.

Sharpening her carving knife, Kate calls to him, “Tell Carter dinner in ten, please.”

Jordan and Lacey arrive next. Jordan takes his shoes off at the front door, but Lacey does not.

Kate doesn’t know what it is that irks her about this girl. She is respectful. She seems nice enough to her son. But there is just something she can’t place.

Maybe it’s the shoes.

At dinner, the entire chicken is devoured within thirty minutes. A constant hum of family chatter caps the day.

“Ma, is that blackberry pie on the counter?” Jordan asks, stacking plates on the table to take them to the sink.

“Apple,” Kate responds.

“Oh! My favorite!” Lacey blurts, standing to help Jordan.

Okay, maybe she isn’t that bad. If she would just take her shoes off when she comes over.

Kate wakes the next morning to the sound of James’s electric razor in their en suite bathroom. She sits up, reaches to his nightstand, and snags the mug of now-lukewarm coffee, pulling it to her side of the bed. He never puts enough sugar in his coffee, but it will do.

She scrolls on her phone until he walks back into the bedroom.

“Good morning,” Kate says.

“Morning, babe. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. I am rushing this morning. I have an appointment over lunch at the DMV to get my REAL ID done, and I need to be in the office early so I can take a long lunch.”

“No worries. I needed to get up anyway. I told the PTA girls I would do breakfast with them this morning. I need to shower and get moving.”

Kate watches James walk over to the safe. He flawlessly turns the dial and wrenches it open. Sipping her coffee, she looks at him closely. He reaches into the safe.

Did he pause?

By the pistol?

He definitely nudges the pistol with his finger and feels behind it.

“Have you been in the safe lately?” he asks.

“Yesterday. Carter needed booster cash,” she responds.

“Ah. Can you stop at the ATM and get more cash? Looks like we’re running low anyway.”

“Is something missing?”

“No, no,” he says, his voice calm and neutral. “I just need to find my... ah, got it!”

James pulls out his Social Security card and closes the safe. He kisses Kate on the forehead and turns to walk through the bedroom door.

“Have a good day. Love you,” he calls from the doorway.

“I love you too,” she returns softly.

Kate showers, dresses, and applies a minimal amount of makeup before smoothing her flyaways. She parks at the coffee shop where, once a month, the Titan Ridge High School PTA moms meet to discuss the business at hand for fifteen minutes and then spend the rest of the time gossiping about who got a boob job, who was on a GLP-1, whose kid was doing drugs, or who was sleeping their way through the school.

This particular morning, she doesn’t have much to offer the group. She finds herself distracted.

“Kate,” Lora says. “Earth to Kate?”

She makes eye contact with Lora.

“I’m sorry. What was that? Sorry, ladies. I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”

“Did Jordan pick a school yet?” Lora asks.

“He is between two now. One is far. One is farther. I’m not ready for him to go. It went so fast. Everyone says that, but it seriously feels like I blinked and poof, he is applying to college. I wish he would stay closer, but I know he wants to spread his wings.”

On the drive home, Kate is consumed with the next chapter of her life. A partially empty nest. A marriage that would be put to the test, time to sink or swim when all the focus wasn’t on taking care of kids. She loves James. He is a good man. A solid man. But the thought of the next forty years is unsettling.

At home, Kate sets her mind to the piles of laundry she has been neglecting. She puts on a podcast and begins folding. Her eyes drift to the safe, and she wonders if James moved the key or if he noticed it was out of place.

She opens the safe. The key is in the same spot she left it.

Well, what else do I have to do today? she wonders.

Her days used to be filled with mom tasks. When they still had their golden retriever, she would take at least two walks a day. Now her days are too quiet. The boys take care of themselves. James travels one week out of each month and sometimes works late into the evenings.

Maybe she would get another dog. A big, fluffy one that would cuddle, watch television, and snack on popcorn with her.

With the key in her hand, she walks downstairs into James’s office. He rarely uses it, and it still smells like new carpet and fresh leather.

Kate first walks to the wall that boasts three wooden filing cabinets. She tries the key in each lock. None of them turn. She tries the locks on the custom-built mahogany desk. She pushes so hard against one lock that she feels the key begin to bend.

With no luck, she considers abandoning her mission and going back to her laundry. Then she decides to head out to the garage. She inserts the key into James’s toolbox, a liquor cabinet, and even a bike lock.

None of them turn.

On her way back upstairs, she remembers James has an old military footlocker shoved into a recess of the basement that his father gave him before he passed. Kate has never seen the contents of the trunk, but James told her it was where all of his father’s hunting rifles had been stored, so she had no interest in it.

She inserts the key into the padlock.

Click.

The hasp snaps open.

Slowly, she slides the metal lock away from the footlocker. She lifts the lid.

The scent of laundry detergent fills the air. She expects to see decades-old hunting gear from her late father-in-law, but instead, on top, she finds folded men’s clothes. She unfolds a T-shirt and lifts it to her nose. The smell of her husband is ingrained in her soul. The shirt is unfamiliar.

Underneath it are several sets of clothing, all neatly folded and spanning every season. Shorts, pants, jackets, hoodies, gloves, and hats.

Between two piles of clothes, a blue banker's bag falls to the floor. She unzips it and pulls out a stack of cash. She flips through the stack and estimates there has to be at least fifteen thousand dollars, mostly hundred-dollar bills.

Sweat beads on the nape of her neck. Her pulse quickens.

Her phone vibrates in her back pocket, snapping her back into reality.

A text from James scrolls across the screen.

Hey babe. How was brunch with the ladies of Titan Ridge? Work is crazy today and I still have to run to the DMV. Any chance you could start putting together my weekender bag for me? It might be a late night, and my flight is at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning.

She tosses her phone onto the soft beige carpet of the basement and sits down. She starts taking piles from the footlocker and dumping the contents onto the floor.

Taped underneath a tray in the trunk, she finds a small black flip phone.

Holding the burner phone in her left hand, she covers her mouth with her right and retches. Swallowing back bile, she tries to breathe.

An affair.

He’s having an affair.

This must be where he keeps the clothes he doesn’t want her to find. The cash must be to pay for affair things. She presses and holds the power button on the flip phone, but it doesn’t power on. She considers calling her best friend but needs to sort through the rest of the trunk first. She needs that phone to turn on so she can find out who he calls on it.

She digs through the trunk for a charger when she stumbles across a small black metal box at the very bottom. When she shakes it, something small and light slides around, clattering against the sides of the box.

A small metal lock keeps the contents of the box secure.

Kate stands and runs to the garage, where she finds a pair of bolt cutters hanging on a pegboard. Back in the basement, she easily breaks open the lock and lifts the lid.

Inside, she finds a passport and driver’s license. Her husband’s photograph is on them, but his name is listed as Jacob Caruso.

This time, she can’t suppress the contents of her stomach. She sprints to the sink at the wet bar and heaves what remains of her brunch down the drain, gasping to catch her breath.

Her phone vibrates. Another text from James.

Pretty please. I will rub your feet before bed.

Who is this man? Jacob Caruso? Does his mistress call him Jacob?

Dread fills her chest, and she can’t stop the tears from filling her eyes.

Sitting back on the carpet, she sorts through the items in the small metal box. She finds over a dozen pieces of jewelry. Some gold, some silver. Some pieces look expensive, particularly a white gold ring with a very large emerald-cut diamond.

So that was it. Her marriage was over.

She didn’t need to wonder anymore how the next forty years would play out with James.

She switches on her phone’s flashlight and sweeps the beam across the trunk. At the bottom, something interrupts the light. A folder, nearly the same color as the metal, is taped to the bottom of the trunk. Kate pulls at the edge. It tears free, and its contents scatter across the basement floor.

She picks up a driver’s license and reads the name, Casey Morrow. The woman is in her twenties. She is beautiful, with long blond hair and striking green eyes.

So this is her, then. The woman who stole her husband.

Looking closer, Kate notices that the license expired more than ten years ago and was issued in Arizona. She and James have never lived anywhere but Maryland.

Driver’s licenses litter the basement carpet around her, scattered among the clothes and jewelry. Kate reaches for one, then another.

She counts eleven.

Eleven women.

Casey’s appears to be the oldest. The newest one hasn’t expired yet and is for a woman named Lila Betts, issued in Virginia.

Lila looks familiar to Kate. She has fiery red curls and a smile that is huge and contagious. Kate knows she has seen this woman before.

She quickly grabs her phone from the floor, swipes James’s texts off the screen, and opens Google. She types in Lila Betts, Virginia.

Her hands shake as she reads the results. She clicks on the first article.

Lila Betts, Reston, VA, 34-year-old mother of two, has been missing for almost one year now. The anniversary of her disappearance is upcoming on September 17th. Her family plans to host a vigil at Hawthorne Grove. Her husband and parents continue to search for Lila. She was last seen on September 16th at her Reston home. The morning of September 17th, she went for a walk in the early hours of the morning and did not return.

There are several photos attached to the article. Kate’s eyes focus on one in particular: a photo of Lila with her husband, her hand resting on his chest. A white gold ring on her finger with an emerald-cut diamond sparkles in the sunlight beams.

Kate looks down at the ring lying on the basement carpet. She picks it up. The same ring.

Her mind drifts back to September 16th.

James had been away that week. She remembers because she had spent three days getting the boys where they needed to be on her own. Jordan had a soccer game, and Carter had practice. James had apologized for missing both and promised he would make it up to them.

He’d brought her flowers. She remembers that now. A dozen pink roses, wrapped in brown paper. He’d kissed her in the kitchen and told her he’d missed her.

Kate looks at the article again.

Lila disappeared September 17.

Kate sits moon the basement floor, the ring closed in her fist.

Her phone vibrates beside her.

Another message from James.

She doesn’t look at it.