He Had Me Drowned, Then Wept at My Grave novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Bar

Anders's POV

I took a car carrier across the Columbia bar that night with Daphne's voice in my ear.

Not the way she said my name.

The way she'd said, I'm going to Tarpon Springs, not for him, for her.

I stood on the bridge wing in black wind at three in the morning, the swell lifting the whole ship under my boots.

I gave the helmsman his courses without thinking about them.

I was forty-three years old.

I had been married once, to a woman who left because I was never home, and I hadn't missed her.

I had never wanted to be in a room as badly as I wanted to be in whatever room Daphne Rallis was in.

She had told me the truth at my kitchen table, and I hadn't said what I felt.

What I felt was a cold rage I hadn't known I had.

I wanted to find a man on the Tarpon Springs docks and put him through a wall.

I also knew exactly how that would look to her, a man's hands closing.

So I kept mine open, and I went to work.

At the pilot station that morning I booked three seats to Tampa on my own miles, hers and Irini's and mine.

I knew what I was doing.

I stood over the keyboard and thought about the brass key and the way she'd gone white.

I bought the tickets anyway.

Then I did not send them.

I drove to her house with the confirmation open on my phone.

I meant to hand it to her and say, I did this, and I'll cancel it in one second if you tell me to.

It was ten at night.

She was at her kitchen table with a sketch pad and a stick of charcoal, and the house smelled of tea.

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