I Gave Him Freedom, He Came Crawling Back in Tears novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Dexter: The Mail

Dexter's POV

I had driven to the Riverside lot because Marla Finch would not tell me where Willa was staying, and Marla's neighbor had let it slip that Willa's car was usually gone on Thursdays.

I didn't know what I wanted from her.

I had the cashier's check in my jacket pocket, still uncashed, folded in thirds.

I had carried it for a week.

Then a green pickup pulled in, and my wife got out of it.

She wasn't my wife.

I kept forgetting that.

She stood by the passenger door in the gray cap, thinner than she had been a month ago, with a man's hand on her bag strap.

He was a big man with a beard and the shoulders of someone who lifts things for a living.

He handed her the bag and said something that made her smile.

She hadn't smiled at me like that in a year.

Then she looked across the lot and saw me.

The smile went away without any hurry.

She said something short to the man, and he glanced at me once, quietly, and got back into his truck.

She walked over, slowly, as if every step were costing her something.

"What are you doing here, Dexter?"

"What are you doing here?" I pointed at the sign. "What is this place?"

"It's a building."

"Willa."

"Go home," she said. "Tatum's waiting for you."

She got into her car.

I stood in the lot and watched her drive away, and I did not follow her.

I could not make my legs move.

At the house, the porch light was on and Tatum was in the kitchen, stirring something on the stove.

She came around the counter and kissed me on the cheek.

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