Chapter 5: Client Dinner

"Your mommy's right," I told Jasper. "Eat your pancakes."

He went back to his syrup.

Camille's hands were shaking on his shoulders.

I put my phone in my pocket, thanked her for breakfast and left before the coffee finished brewing.

That evening I was at Margo's table, going over statements, when my phone chimed.

It was a bank alert from the travel account.

Ashgrove Steakhouse. Eighteen hundred and sixty dollars.

The card was in Camille's wallet.

The account was in my name too.

"Dexter," I said.

Margo looked up from her laptop.

"Is it the first time?"

"I'll go back through the statements. I'd say it's the sixtieth."

I scrolled.

Every month of the five years had a week of hotels and a week of restaurants in the same town.

Cedar Falls, again and again, labeled client dinners and travel.

I stood and took my keys.

"Don't make a scene," Margo said.

"I'm going to make a very small one."

Ashgrove was the kind of steakhouse that kept the candles low and the wine list bound in leather.

I saw Dexter from the door.

He sat at the head of a round table with two couples and a gray-haired man in a gold watch, the owner of the car dealership where he worked.

He was telling a story with both hands, and everyone was laughing.

A bottle of red stood open at his elbow.

He raised a hand and the waiter came to him at once.

"Put it all on this."

He slid across a black card.

I leaned against the host stand and tapped my phone.

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