None of this is legal. None of this is gonna show up in any court. That's not what it's for. It's for me. So I know.
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I sit at the monitors and I read all of it.
My jaw is set. The dot of blood from where I bit the inside of my cheek a minute ago is metallic on my tongue.
I ping his phone.
He's headed south on US-281, just past Marble Falls.
He'll be at the Hampton in about forty minutes. He's already booked the room—I can see the reservation on his email.
I make a note. Hertz return tomorrow morning at the Tyler location. Hotel tonight at the Marble Falls Hampton, room number TBD until he checks in. Drive time home to Garrison: about six hours from Marble Falls.
I shut the right monitor down and sit in my chair for a long time, trying to keep myself calm.
The dogs at the kennel are quiet.
The cicadas are loud through the open window.
I'm going to let Todd think everything is fine, for now, but I’m coming for him.
* * *
The next day passes and somehow it’s late afternoon.
I'm on my porch with a Lone Star sweating in my hand.
Across the yard, Hadley is out behind her cabin with Nash.
She's showing him how to weed the little vegetable garden she's been putting in at the edge of her porch.
Tomato cages staked in a neat row. A patch of basil. Two pepper plants. The kind of garden a woman makes when she's deciding to stay.
