Unmissing(3)

Clearing my throat, I hold my head high and move the door a few inches closer to the jamb until I can see only half of her. “I’m sorry, but you have to leave or I’ll have no choice but to call the police.”

The woman peers past me, scanning the twilight surroundings of our foyer, a nonchalant yet intrusive move. I attempt to swallow. If this is Lydia, I don’t know where she’s spent the last ten years or what her life has been like, but I can only imagine the thoughts running through her head as she soaks in the comfortable amenities of the beautiful coastal haven Luca and I have made together.

But I refuse to believe it’s her.

It’s impossible.

People only come back from the dead in movies and nightmares.

“I need to talk to Luca.” The glassiness in her eyes reflects the moon above, and with a quivering lip she adds, “Please. If you had any idea what I’ve been through . . . how long it took me to get here, to find him . . . I just need to see my husband . . .”

Her voice wisps into nothing, and she swipes at two tears that slide down her haggard cheeks with the back of her hand.

Real tears . . .

She’s almost convincing.

This little coastal town attracts all kinds. Old-moneyed. New-moneyed. No-moneyed. Young families. Retirees. Grifters and drifters. Educated professionals and professional-life escapists. We even have a Powerball winner and a handful of B-list celebrities with seldom-used second homes. Bent Creek is a modern-age melting pot, and everyone here has a story.

I’m certain she does, too—but it’s not part of ours.

Perhaps she’s a failed actor? Maybe she abandoned Hollywood years ago and has been making her way up the coast. Seems like sooner or later those lost souls jump ship and settle around Portland or Seattle. Every once in a while, we catch a few of them here, like fruit flies drawn to a honey jar. And it makes sense—this place is heaven on earth. Relatively affordable, charming, scenic. The perfect place to raise a family. It’s the sort of town where locals never leave, vacationers buy property before the end of their first trip, and transients linger longer than most.

“Luca—” she starts to say before I wave my hand to silence her.

“I’m sorry. Goodbye, now.” Because there’s nothing more to say to this strange woman, I close the door.

A pit forms in the bottom of my stomach, weighing me in place.

I’ve never closed a door in anyone’s face before. Then again, I’ve never had a reason to.

An unsettled knot remains in my core as I flip the dead bolt, slow and steady. Unmoving, I wait until the sound of her shoes scuffing against my front walk grows fainter, and then I peek out the sidelight window to find pure darkness.

It’s almost like she was never there, as if she were a ghost—if a person believed in that sort of thing.

Taking a moment to quell my nerves, I head upstairs to check on Elsie, lingering in her doorway. After I’ve soothed myself with the sound of her breathing, I triple-check the back door, side entrance, and garage door. Last, I make my rounds through the house, ensuring every one of our twenty-six windows is double-latched and all exterior lights are shining brighter than the sun.

No one’s getting in tonight.

Once I make it to my room, I charge my phone and check the security system mainframe. A thirty-second clip of that wisp of a woman ambling up our driveway was recorded at 8:06 PM. I’m not able to determine if she was dropped off . . . or if she walked all this way. Since the camera is motion activated, it didn’t capture her until she appeared at the foot of our drive.

I replay the video a half dozen times, fruitlessly zooming in and out, worrying the inside of my lip, attempting in vain to pick up on a detail that wasn’t there the first time.

The baby kicks and squirms inside me. Maybe he can sense my unease, or maybe he’s reminding me to relax, which has never been my forte—pregnant or not.

With the system armed, I send my husband a good night text. It’s three hours later where he is, so I won’t disturb him with a phone call, though I’d love nothing more than to hear his soothing voice right now. But I can’t bother him with any of this. He’s currently in Newark, desperately trying to sell our local restaurant franchise to a national buyer who intends to turn it into a god-awful chain. It isn’t ideal, but we’ve spent the entirety of the last year sinking into the red like quicksand. We don’t have a choice. Not selling means we’ll lose everything we’ve worked so hard to achieve. It means layoffs. Bankruptcy. And laughingstock reputations. It means financial uncertainty. And unloading our dream house. It could also incite a change in our relationship dynamics—these things are stressors on a marriage. Put them all together, and it’s the perfect recipe for divorce.

Nothing—and I mean nothing—wrecks me more than failure.

Lying in bed, I roll to my side and stuff a pillow between my legs to alleviate the stubborn ache in my hips. Sleep comes at a premium at this stage in my pregnancy, but tonight I’ll be chasing it with a fervor.

Unfortunately my mind didn’t get the memo, forcing me to replay the entire exchange on a loop in my head. The audacity of that woman to march up to our door at eight o’clock at night. Unannounced. Claiming to be a dead woman. What did she expect? That she’d be welcomed with open arms? That we’d take her word as gold and invite her in for tea?