Chapter 15: The Lot

I typed back to her.

"No."

Then I blocked her number.

The bank froze the card that night.

A week later, a thick envelope came to Pell Hall with every statement since September.

A jewelry store in the Dayton Mall, $2,140.

A car audio shop on Route 4, $2,060.

A salon supply warehouse, two styling chairs, $3,400.

Gas. Protein powder. Dinners at a steakhouse I'd never been to.

On the application, the phone number wasn't mine.

It was Ryan's.

On December twenty-second, I drove eleven hours back to Ohio.

The lot was off Route 4.

I walked onto the lot with a folder under my arm.

I'd called the police the night before and told them where I'd be.

Ryan was on the lot with a customer.

She was an older woman in a long wool coat, holding her purse in both hands.

He had his hand on the roof of a silver hatchback and his best smile on.

"It's perfect for a first car," he was saying. "Your granddaughter's going to love it. Safest thing on the lot."

The watch flashed on his wrist every time he patted the roof.

He saw me.

The smile didn't drop. It froze in place.

"Linds," he said. "Wow. Merry Christmas."

"Do you two know each other?" the woman asked.

"She's my ex," he said, low, like he was letting her in on something. "She has a hard time letting go."

"I drove up from Boston for your watch," I said.

"What?"

"The steel one. Two thousand one hundred and forty dollars. It's on my credit card."

I opened the folder on the hood of the hatchback.

"Lindsay M. Lowry," I read. "Card opened September fifth, at ten fourteen in the morning."

"At ten fourteen that morning, I was in a room in Boston writing code for four professors. My phone was in the director's desk drawer."

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