Chapter 21: Nobody's Wife

Kip's POV

Dalton Hazard signed the divorce papers at the counter of Bev's Diner on a Tuesday morning in April.

Eleven regulars watched him do it.

I sat at the far end on a stool, with a cup of coffee I wasn't drinking.

Bev had refused to move the regulars.

"It's a public place," she said. "He can sign in public."

The lawyer, a tired woman in a gray coat, laid the pages out in a row along the Formica.

Hallie sat on the stool beside her with her hands in her lap.

She wore jeans and a green sweater, and she had her hair pulled back.

Dalton stood across the counter in a diner apron.

He had been washing dishes at Bev's for three weeks.

He hadn't been asked to.

He had come in one morning and picked up a towel.

Bev had looked at him for a while and said nothing.

The color was in his face now.

The pill bottle was in his apron pocket, where I could see the outline.

"Mr. Hazard," the lawyer said. "The terms are what you agreed to.

"Ms. Stoltz keeps her name, and takes no money from you.

"The gag clause in paragraph nine is struck.

"If there is anyone you need to consult before you sign..."

"There isn't," Dalton said.

He picked up the pen.

I watched his hand.

It did not drift toward his pocket.

There was no phone in the pocket.

He had bought a flip phone at a drugstore.

He had given the number to two people, and I wasn't one of them.

He signed the first page.

Then the second, then the third.

At the fourth he stopped and looked at the line that said Spouse.

"Hal."

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry about Wren."