Chapter 9: Two Hundred and Fourteen Weeks

He was waiting in the back booth of a diner off the highway, with a banker's box on the seat beside him.

He was a gray, tired man in a gray raincoat, and I had seen him a hundred times without noticing him.

He had been the man reading a newspaper at the bus stop, and the man in the parked car across from the school.

"You can transfer the money from the booth," he said. "I'd rather you did it before you read."

I sent the five thousand dollars with Sadie watching over my shoulder.

He slid the box across the table.

Inside were dozens of manila folders, each one stamped with a week number.

I opened the first one on top.

It was week 41.

Subject leaves house 9:10 and attends the urology clinic.

It was a follow-up after the elective vasectomy, with an infection in the wound.

The report ended: Antibiotics prescribed. No other reason for the visit.

Under it, in neat handwriting, someone had added: Sent to D.R. Sunday.

My mouth went dry.

Dane had turned my infection into a disease in front of twelve people.

He had held the doctor's own note in his hand.

I picked out another one.

Week 77: Subject at rear lot of Orme Veterinary, Thursday, 7 p.m., feeding eleven stray cats.

Subject pays the clinic cash and speaks to veterinarian S. Orme, age 33, about vaccines.

The last line said: No romantic contact.

Keep reading free with an account. Start She Trusted a Fake Lie Detector, So I Left Her the Truth from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.