Chapter 47 DANNY
DANNY
The first few times it found matches, it was her, mostly on security cameras.
I flew out to look for her anywhere she popped up, and I contacted the local police to help me.
She was careful, even changing her clothes a few times to try and hide, but there are so many goddamn cameras everywhere now that it was easy to track her as far as Seattle before she completely disappeared.
I don’t want to give up on her, but I’m almost positive my poor Bunny’s dead.
I shower before I pour myself a drink and head to my office, exhausted from work and expecting disappointment.
When the software gives me a photo from a website in Oregon, and the girl in the picture is in a Pilates class at a recreation center, I pay attention.
I set my drink down and lean in closer, unsure if it’s her.
Her hair and body are different from Bunny’s, but I try not to get hopeful when I look closely at her face.
That honestly might be her. She’s got the same nose, the same big eyes, and the same shaped lips. I look up at the painting of her as a little girl holding the white bunny, and I realize the expression on the woman’s face is eerily similar.
Oh my god, I think I found her.
How the fuck did she disappear like that?
I call Captain Rodriguez to let him know that I found a promising lead on my wife, and I put in an immediate time off request. He approves it because he’s a good guy, even though he probably thinks it's another dead end.
People don’t want to say it to my face, but everyone thinks she’s dead.
At first, when I thought something bad happened to her, I was a fucking wreck, but I didn’t tell anyone once I finally noticed the money was gone and realized she’d run away.
I still don’t understand why she ran from me.
Sure, we got into a fight the night before, but couples fight. She was being so disrespectful, drunk and screaming at me about ruining her life, calling me all sorts of horrible things, and I couldn’t help but lose my temper with her.
I was a jackass, maybe, but she needed to be put in her place.
Bunny has always been so understanding when I lose my temper, but not this time. I don’t know what changed, but it’s time for her to come home. I need to show her that I can change for her, that I can be better.
I stare up at the painting of her as a little girl, sweet and lost the way she was when I found her. She needed me to take care of her then, and she needs me to take care of her now, better care of her.
Once I find her, Bunny’s never going to run away from me again.
***
I grab my gun and my surveillance camera, pack a bag, and spend the entire redeye to Portland trying to keep my emotions in check. I’m fucking furious that she ran away from me, but I’m so relieved she’s alive. I was such a piece of shit that night, but I still don’t know why she hasn’t come home.
Maybe she’s afraid that I won’t take her back or something.
Bunny’s always been so fragile and irrational, but she deserves me to be better, so I’m going to try to be understanding and figure out how to fix things with her. We can try that bullshit couples counseling my partner Marquez’s wife forced him into.
Maybe Bunny would appreciate that.
It’s early, so I get through the airport and get my rental car quickly, navigating to the small coastal town’s recreation center.
Bunny likes routine, so she’ll be there for the Pilates class today.
I’ll find her, tail her for a while, see what she’s been doing, and then I’ll figure out the right way to make her come home with me.
At twelve-eleven, I see her walk up to the building quickly, her gym bag slung over her shoulder and a large vase of flowers in her arms. After all this time, seeing her is like getting hit with a freight train.
God, I didn’t realize how much I missed her.
She looks terrible. She’s obviously been depressed, the way she was that first year we were married, because she’s completely let herself go.
She looks like a completely different person now, and I don’t like it.
It’s going to take her a lot of time and effort to get her back to herself, but she can do that when we get home.
Fuck, what are we going to tell people when we get home?
I chain smoke while I wait for the class to be over, trying to calm myself down.
I’m still shocked that she’s not dead. Once I see her leave, I get back in my car, following her at a distance.
She’s walking quickly, texting occasionally before finally reaching a small house and climbing the stairs with a bounce in her step.
She doesn’t seem depressed.
I park two houses down and get out of the car, keeping a ball cap pulled down over my eyes and walking past the house quickly, seeing a sign that shows the house is a law office.
Does Bunny have a fucking job?
She’s never had to work a day in her life because I’m a good husband, and I’ve always provided a comfortable and easy life for her, but I guess she’d have to work without me.
She’ll be suspicious if the office gets a call with a Boston area code, so I hide my number when I call the firm, and she picks up immediately.
“Cairn and Reed, Alex speaking,” she chirps over the phone. “Hello?” I hang up quickly, grabbing my pack of cigarettes with shaking hands and lighting up.
She’s using a fake name, she looks different enough that cameras haven’t caught her before this, and she found a job where she got hired without using her legal name or social security number.
Alice didn’t just run, she’s been hiding from me.
How would she even know how to do all of this?
I checked her phone, her tablet, and her laptop, but there was nothing in her search history that would have helped her disappear like this.
Why would she do this to me over one stupid fight?
I know it was bad, but she’s making me feel like a fucking monster.
My temper starts to rise the more I think about it.
I want to know just what the fuck she’s been up to out here.
I light another cigarette and walk around the block, grabbing a cup of coffee once I’m done smoking and walking past her office again, keeping my face turned away.
The house is raised off the street, so I can’t see inside, but that doesn’t mean she can’t see out.
It starts raining hard, so I get back in the car and wait, only occasionally leaving to smoke under the shade of a tree.
Around four-fifty, I see her leaving her office with a few massive bouquets in her arms, a plump woman with a mass of black curls following her, also carrying bouquets.
What’s with all the flowers? Did someone die?
She helps the woman load them into her car that's parked right across the street from mine, but Alice doesn’t notice me. I look closely at her hands and almost bolt out of the car.
She’s not wearing her fucking wedding ring.
Has Alice lost her goddamn fucking mind? She’s still my wife. I watch as she hugs the other woman and hurries back inside to get out of the rain, and I barely notice as a car turns down the street and parks in a spot the woman just vacated.
I only clock it because the tall guy who gets out of the old silver hatchback walks up the stairs to the door and leans against the wall, checking his phone. My hands tense on the steering wheel.
This better not be what I think it is.
Alice comes out a few minutes later in a long, puffy coat, and he grabs her aggressively and bends down to kiss her. My blood starts to boil as she leans into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down towards her to deepen the kiss, her hands running through his hair.
Alice isn’t that affectionate.
I start my car and tail them, noting down his license plate.
I assume they’re going back to one of their places, but I end up following them down the coast for hours.
I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m starting to get really fucking angry.
Her running was one thing, but the fact that she hasn’t come back home to me because she’s too busy whoring herself out is fucking unacceptable.
I wait for them as they stop at a small grocery store, sickened by how casually possessive of my wife this asshole seems, draping his arm around her shoulders as they cross the small parking lot.
I follow them as they head up a hill into a neighborhood with nice houses, passing the driveway they turn down and parking my car out of sight up the road.
I whip out my work laptop and link it to my phone’s hotspot to search for the guy’s license plate, and my blood runs cold when the search comes back.
The fucker is a violent offender who went to prison for stalking and assault.
I can’t believe Alice is this fucking stupid, but it’s why she’s always needed me to protect her. She has no idea what she’s gotten herself into, and she needs me to save her.
She probably doesn’t even know what sick fucks like this do to women.
I grab my gun before I sneak down the long driveway, keeping to the shadows. I notice floodlight cameras on every corner of the house, so I stay in the tree line, navigating slowly until I can get a good view of the main room through the enormous windows that make up the side and back of the house.
There’s a pile of gift bags on the dining room table, expensive gifts strewn all over the table, and I can see the two of them talking in the kitchen. When I get closer, I see the stupid bitch is in nothing but strappy, lacy lingerie.
She’s a literal whore.
I watch him look at her, his face focused and predatory, before he aggressively picks her up around the waist. She screams as he hauls her into the living room, throwing her down on the chaise of the couch and undoing his pants quickly.
He wraps one of his hands around her throat and shoves into her hard, and she screams again.