The Man Stalking Me Said Stop Working Alone, and the Kind Vet Was the One Who Let My Tire Down novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: Being Asked
He came at nine, and he walked in the front door.
The second dispatcher the county had sent was a heavy man in a polo shirt with the sheriff's seal on his key tag.
He stood up from the spare chair the moment Matt Ravnik crossed the lobby, and then he sat down again, slowly, and picked up a pen.
Matt did not look at him.
He looked at me, behind the glass, and I looked back.
A county photographer in a parked car got all of it.
I buzzed him through.
"I'm here about the salt storage barn contract," Matt said, loud enough for the polo shirt.
"I'd like a copy of the delivery schedule."
"Take a seat," I said.
"I'll find it."
He took the chair against the wall.
The polo shirt watched him from nine until midnight, and Matt watched the map.
At midnight the polo shirt went to the bathroom.
Matt leaned toward me without leaving his chair.
"You're angry," he said, very low.
"You've been angry since the car."
"I've been angry since the dock," I said.
"I just hadn't had time."
"Tell me."
"Not here," I said.
"At my door, when I'm off."
I got off at six.
I walked up the exterior stair behind the bookstore in the blue dark, with my keys in my gloved hand.
He was already on the landing, a foot from the threshold, with his hands at his sides.
I understood he would have stood there until noon.
I put the key in the lock and did not turn it.
"I'm going to say the wound," I said.
"Say it."
"You held my father's binder for eleven weeks."
My voice shook, and I let it.
"You moved it across the city.
"You paid Margit's roof.
"You copied my coffee off a whiteboard.
"You decided, all by yourself, that I couldn't be told."
"I did," Matt said.
"You never asked me one thing.
"You never asked if I wanted to know."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Man Stalking Me Said Stop Working Alone, and the Kind Vet Was the One Who Let My Tire Down are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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