Unexpectedly, Milo - Matthew Dicks [70]
The search complete, Hairy Knuckles returned to his squad car, presumably to run Milo’s name through their computer. This left Milo standing alone with the redhead, Officer Unfriendly, while still trying to keep his back to the house. Even with the fear and dread that had consumed him, Milo’s mind continued to stray back to Freckles and Tess Bryson and the events surrounding her disappearance. Despite his desire to find out what was going on with his wife, and an equally strong desire to rid himself of these police officers, an even more urgent need to get home as soon as possible and start his research was forcing its way into the corners of Milo’s consciousness, not unlike many of his other demands.
Cassidy Glenn. Her full name, at last.
“So what did you plan on doing tonight, Mr. Slade, if you found your wife with this other guy?”
“I don’t know,” Milo said, back to honesty. “Probably nothing. I just had to know the truth. Know what I mean?”
“Sure. But then what’s up with the video camera? Who’s the woman on the tape? A girlfriend of yours?”
Milo was saved from answering this question by Hairy Knuckles, who had returned with Milo’s driver’s license. “Okay, Mr. Slade. Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to wait with Officer Eblen and I’m going to have a chat with your wife. Get some information. Then we’ll take it from there.”
“I don’t understand,” Milo said, already feeling the mortification of Christine finding out what he was doing. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Can’t I just go home?”
“Of course. But let me talk to your wife first. If this is a onetime thing, it won’t constitute stalking. And your record is clean, which is good. But I don’t know for certain that you’ve never done this kind of thing before.”
“I haven’t. Honestly. I’m not a stalker.” The sentence sounded ridiculous to Milo.
“I’m just going to confirm that with your wife while you wait here. Is your wife’s last name Slade too?”
“No, she uses her maiden name. Turcotte. But officer, do we really have to do this? I swear. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about, Mr. Slade. Just wait here with my partner. I’ll be right back.”
Milo watched as the cop crossed the street and headed in the direction of his house. He couldn’t believe this was happening. What would Christine think? What would she say? What would she tell Dr. Teagan when they met next week?
“You know,” Officer Eblen said, still sounding unfriendly. “If you’ve done this before, it’s better to tell me now before we hear about it from your wife.”
“I’ve never done anything like this before. I swear. I saw the guy today for the first time. That’s his Jeep right there. I just wanted to know if my wife was dating another guy. That’s all.”
At that moment, two thoughts materialized in Milo’s mind.
The first was to the need to strike a match or two, or maybe ten. Not the flimsy kind you would find in a book of matches, but one of those blue-tipped wooden kitchen matches that Christine kept in the drawer beside the dishwasher. The kind with the match head mounted on an honest-to-goodness block of wood. He had never experienced this need before, but he knew immediately that it was no different than the demand that had forced him to open the jars of jelly in his trunk, except that it was growing in intensity with surprising speed. Perhaps the tension of the situation in which Milo found himself was stoking the flame, both literally and figuratively.
The second thought was that he might end up in a jail cell this evening, unable to satisfy this and any other demand that might appear, and unable to research the street address and hometown of Cassidy Glenn. The possibility that he might find himself locked up in an small concrete room, with no access to kitchen matches or jelly jars or the Internet, sent