Chapter 17: The Parking Lot

Nate's POV

Conway Slocumb's lawyer got him out by Saturday noon.

A judge set a bond with a monitor on his ankle.

The order still said five hundred feet from Jean, and nothing at all about me.

I drove her old Corolla to the Slocumb Auto lot on Monday morning with the title in my glove box.

The car was registered to the company.

Jean wanted it gone from her life, with a signature on a form.

I wanted to see him with my own eyes.

The flagship dealership sat on the river road under a forty-foot flag.

Rows of white sedans shone in the sun, and a salesman in a tie came out to meet me with his hand already stretched.

"Looking to trade?"

"Returning," I said. "Where's the owner?"

He looked at the Corolla and went a little pale.

"Mr. Slocumb is in the glass office," he said. "I'm not sure he's taking visitors."

"I think he'll take me."

He walked me across the lot, and every salesman I passed found something to look at on the pavement.

Everyone in town knew where I'd come from.

The story of Friday's arrest had gone around the county by Sunday night.

Conway stood behind the glass in a navy suit with a gray monitor box clipped to his belt.

When he saw me he opened the door himself.

"Mr. Trumbull," he said. "The paramedic. Come in."

I did not.

"Here," I said, and held out the Corolla's key. "It's hers. It's your company's. She doesn't want it."

He took the key and turned it over in his fingers.

"She used to drive this to work every day," he said fondly. "I gave her the first week of every month off the payment. Did she tell you that?"

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Hits You? Suck It Up So I Locked Them in With My Abusive Husband from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.