My Lovely Wife

People who knew Naomi talk about her on the news. The narrator recounts how one time, he got money from a class action lawsuit and used it to buy him and Millicent tickets to a special networking event, which helped them climb social ladders and get better jobs. This made him feel useful.

Rory continues blackmailing the narrator and threatens to notify Jenna the next time he sneaks out or cheats on his mother. Josh covers the search for Naomi. They look in abandoned rest stops and bunker-like buildings because that is where Owen kept victims while he tortured them. Millicent gives the narrator some of Naomi’s hair to include in his next letter to Josh.

The narrator sends Naomi’s hair to Josh. On the news, everyone talks about Naomi as if she was nothing but nice. The narrator recounts that after they killed Holly, they forged a letter to her mother saying she moved to Europe. Their mother died shortly thereafter, leaving no one left alive to wonder about Holly’s absence.

Trista runs into the narrator, seeming happier, and says she left Andy. She is still in love with Owen.

A local church holds prayer circles for Naomi, and the narrator attends with his family. Jenna cuts her hair off, thinking this will make her less appealing to serial killers. Millicent and the narrator decide Jenna should see a psychologist.

The psychologist says Jenna has a media-related anxiety disorder and will likely keep relapsing every time the news releases new information related to murders. He recommends two sessions a week at $200 each, for Jenna to avoid the media, and for the family to refrain from mentioning Owen around her. Millicent implements new rules to minimize Jenna’s exposure to the news, although she still hears about it at school. The narrator still does not know where Millicent kept Lindsay or where she is keeping Naomi, and he is afraid to ask. If he discovered her, he does not know if he would kill her, release her, or leave her there.

Everyone is now convinced that Owen is responsible for Lindsay’s death and Naomi’s kidnapping. The narrator sees Andy at the country club looking upset that Trista left him. Andy knows Trista is in love with another person and asks the narrator if it is him. He says it is not but also does not clarify who it is.

The narrator checks the extra phone that he uses for Tobias and finds an unread message from Annabelle from a week ago, inviting him out again. He does not respond to it. He and Millicent came up with the name Tobias together. It was between that and Quentin because they both sound normal but not so normal as to be suspicious.

At first, the narrator avoided talking to his kids about his parents, who died in a car accident before they were born. When they got old enough to ask why they only had one pair of grandparents, he told them his parents died but that even before that, they should not have become parents and they were not great people. This was a revelation to the kids, who already understood that some people were bad, but did not realize their family could be bad.

DNA testing confirms that the hair the narrator sent to Josh belongs to Naomi, although most people already believed it did. Jenna seems a bit better. Old videos about Owen play on the news.

Trista dies by suicide, and everyone is shocked. Nobody else seems to know that Trista dated Owen and was still in love with him, or the reason behind her suicide. The narrator gets sick at this news, thinking he is responsible for Trista’s death. At the funeral, Andy is inconsolable. The narrator still does not tell Andy anything.

People on TV start sharing that Naomi slept with various hotel guests. The public then starts to treat her differently, as if it is her own fault that she got kidnapped and will probably be murdered soon. The narrator sees another knife under Jenna’s mattress; apparently, she is not feeling safer after all.

In addition to Petra, the narrator kept another secret from Millicent. For the most part, they have not used babysitters, but for a while, they got so busy that they had no choice but to hire a woman named Crystal to chauffer their kids. While Millicent was traveling for work, Crystal kissed the narrator. He pulled away but never told Millicent.

Jenna’s stomach problems are getting worse. The narrator thinks Millicent is also keeping secrets. For instance, he does not know where she’s keeping Naomi or what types of torture she is committing. The narrator puts a GPS tracker on Millicent’s car so he can see where she goes and how long she stays in each place.

Millicent only goes to normal places, like the kids’ school, her office, or the houses she is selling. She does not appear to visit any abandoned buildings or places where she could hide a missing woman for nearly a year. She stays within a small radius, but the police have been widening their search area. It has been 22 days since Naomi went missing, and her story is now receiving less news coverage. However, a new woman claims to have been attacked by Owen.

The woman, “Jane Doe,” claims she was in a bar parking lot around 11 o’clock at night when Owen attacked her. However, he heard her ringtone, which sounded like an explosion, and he seemed to think a real explosion was happening. This gave the woman a chance to run back into the bar to safety.

The narrator recounts his wedding to Millicent. It was small, in her parents’ backyard. They wrote their own vows; his were sincere, but she just whispered to him, “here we go” (215).

At family dinner, they avoid discussing the news. After the kids are asleep, in the garage, the narrator and Millicent share that neither of them attacked the woman from the news. Millicent thinks she is either lying or was attacked by someone random. The narrator thinks maybe the real Owen is back, but Millicent says he would not be stupid enough to show up just when everyone has started looking for him again.

Jenna’s psychologist schedules an extra session, but Millicent cannot come. The narrator watches her GPS tracker; she goes to a deli, not work. After Millicent leaves the deli and Jenna’s session is over, the narrator takes Jenna to the same deli to investigate. It is not the sort of place Millicent would normally go, because the food is not organic. Denise, the worker, is the only person there, and she makes them sandwiches. Jenna agrees not to tell her mother that her father took her to eat non-organic food.

Millicent and the narrator sit in the mall parking lot having just watched a press conference with “Jane Doe” at a sports bar. Millicent has on a T-shirt that says “WOODVALE UNITY” (221), which is a slogan that has caught on since Naomi went missing. The narrator says things have gotten beyond their control. Millicent disagrees, although she does concede that Jenna’s behavior is concerning. A security guard tells them to leave because the mall is closed.

Millicent returns to the same deli the following day for nearly an hour. Millicent suggests Jenna try martial arts classes to build her confidence. The narrator wonders how to ask Millicent about her repeated stops at the deli without revealing that he has been tracking her.