Chapter 9: The Locksmith

"I'll drive you," Gabe said.

"No." I was already running. "If you're in the car, it becomes a different fight."

He didn't argue. He pulled his keys out of his pocket and held them out anyway.

"Then take the truck. It's faster than yours on that road."

I took them without a word and drove his truck back across the bridge with my own car left behind in the boatyard.

When I turned onto my street, the white van was parked across my driveway.

Half the block was outside.

A woman in a bathrobe stood at the end of her walk, watching. Two men were holding coffee mugs on a porch down the road.

My front door stood open with the knob and cylinder lying on a towel.

A locksmith knelt at the frame with a drill.

Colby stood over him with his arms folded, and Brent stood on the step behind him.

Tori held up her phone at the end of the walkway, and the little red light was on.

"Stop," I said.

The locksmith looked up. He was a gray-haired man with a tired face.

"Ma'am, the homeowner called us out to change the locks," he said. "He said there was a domestic dispute."

"I'm the other homeowner."

I took out my phone and held up the deed, and then my driver's license beside it.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Gave My Room to Her, So I Took My Life Back from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.