He Left My Fever for His Ex, So I Took Our Daughter novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Approved by Ms. Paulsen

Leah walks into Tobin's office and learns he needs his ex-wife's sign-off to move money, then meets her brother Joel on the stairs.

The next morning I walked into Paulsen Freight with Maisie on my hip and a prescription slip in my fist.

I had slept four hours on Britt's couch. I had no card, no phone plan and no husband.

The front office was a long room of glass cubicles above the loading docks.

Dispatchers sat in rows with headsets on, and every one of them knew who I was.

I had met half of them at the Christmas party.

"Mrs. Halvorsen," said the receptionist. "Mr. Halvorsen isn't taking visitors."

"He'll take me."

I walked past her.

Tobin's office had a glass wall facing the floor, which meant everyone could see him jump up from his chair.

"Leah." He came around the desk. "You shouldn't be out of bed."

"My cards don't work."

"I know. I can explain."

"My phone doesn't work."

"It's a billing thing, I'll fix it tonight."

"I need my medicine now."

He reached for his wallet.

I put my hand flat on his desk. "No. Not your wallet. The account. The one my paycheck goes into."

"That's a joint account."

"Then you can undo what you did to it."

His eyes went to the glass wall and back. The dispatchers had stopped talking.

"Keep your voice down," he said.

"You didn't mind a lobby full of neighbors yesterday."

Maisie reached for the stapler on his desk. I took it away from her.

"I have to get approval," Tobin said quietly.

"For what?"

"For moving money. Anything over two hundred."

I stared at him.

"You run this whole company," I said. "You said so at our wedding. You said you were the youngest general manager in the state."

"I do run it."

"Then approve it yourself."

"I can't."

His assistant had come to the door behind me, a young man with a lanyard.

He was holding a tablet and looking at his shoes.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Halvorsen," he said. "It has to go through Ms. Paulsen's office. It always has."

I turned around.

"Always?"

"Every transfer. Even the payroll."

Tobin shut his eyes.

Somebody out on the floor let out a short laugh and covered it with a cough.

I looked at my husband.

A yellow sticky note on the folder on his desk said INGRID, 3 PM.

I had been angry for two days. This was the first time I felt something colder.

"How long?" I asked.

"Leah, please."

"How long have you asked her permission to buy our daughter a pair of shoes?"

"It isn't like that."

"Then say what it's like."

"It's temporary."

"For how long?"

He didn't answer.

The assistant cleared his throat. "Mr. Halvorsen, I can put a request in. It might be Thursday."

"Thursday," I said.

Tobin took out his wallet after all.

He laid three hundred dollars onto the desk with unsteady fingers, and he did it while forty people watched.

"Take it," he said. "Please. I'll fix the rest."

I picked up the bills. I didn't say thank you.

Then I walked down the center aisle with my daughter.

Nobody looked away this time.

One of the dispatchers, an older woman, gave me a small nod.

I made it to the stairwell before my legs gave out.

I sat on the second step with Maisie in my lap and cried without a sound, because she hated it when I cried.

The fire door opened on the landing below.

A man stood in it, tall, with a beard and a canvas work jacket.

He had a coffee in one hand and a clipboard in the other.

I had never seen him before.

He looked at the money in my fist, then at the baby.

"You're the wife," he said.

"I'm leaving the wife."

"Good." He set his coffee on the rail. "Joel Paulsen."

I knew the name from the company letterhead.

"Ingrid's brother," I said.

"The one with the docks." He nodded at the office door above us.

"I heard the whole thing through the vent.

Eleven years in this building, and I've never seen anyone make Tobin Halvorsen count out cash."

"That's not funny."

"It isn't. I'm sorry." He actually sounded it. "Where are you staying?"

"My sister's."

"Is that where you're sleeping tonight?"

"Yes."

"Then stay there." He picked up the coffee again.

He took a phone out of his jacket pocket, an old one with a cracked corner, and held it out.

"It's a company phone nobody uses, and my number is the only one in it.

Your plan is gone, and you need to be able to call your sister."

I looked at it. I looked at him.

"Why would you help me?"

"Because nobody helped the last one."

"The last what?"

He didn't answer that.

"And don't go back to that house until you've talked to me."

"Why?"

"Because I don't think you know whose it is."

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