Page 67 of Dear Debbie

“I don’t know,” Lexi admits. “She said she was going on an errand, and that was, like, an hour and a half ago. She’s not back yet.”

An errand? Like the errands she went on the last two nights?

I open the Findly app on my phone to see where she went. But when I click on it, the last known location for Debbie updated two hours ago. She must’ve turned off location sharing.

She doesn’t want me to know where she went, and that scares the shit out of me.

“I’ll be home in a minute,” I tell Lexi. “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”

I can lie to my children too, apparently.

55

I drive twenty miles over the speed limit all the way home.

I don’t know what is in this document on Debbie’s computer, but I can’t pretend anymore that there isn’t something seriously wrong with my wife. I agree with Lexi—it seems like Debbie is getting vigilante justice on everybody in her life who has wronged her or her family.

And I’m worried that I might have made the list.

I park at a weird angle in the driveway, but I don’t bother to correct it. I leap out of my car and head for the front door. I’ve barely got my key in the lock before Lexi yanks it open.

Both Lexi and Izzy are waiting for me with identical expressions of concern on their faces. Not just concern but something else. Like they’re counting on me to fix everything wrong in our lives. They haven’t looked at me that way since they were little.

And clearly, there’s still no sign of Debbie. I checked my phone to see if her location popped up before I started driving home, but no luck.

What could she be doing? I suspect this document on her computer will be another disturbing piece of the puzzle.

“I don’t know what she did to Zane,” Lexi says to me as I shut the door behind me. “But I know it was something.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she basically told me.” She squeezes her white fists together. “When we got home from school, she told me she ‘fixed’ my problem.” A few tears squeeze out from her brown eyes, which I now notice are bloodshot. “But I never wanted her to do that! I never wanted Zane to get hurt.”

I look over at Izzy next, who says, “I’m also worried about Mom. But I’m okay with Coach Pike being in jail. He was a dick.”

Good to know.

“Let me take a look at the computer,” I say, trying to sound collected.

Debbie’s computer is in the living room. Both the girls have laptops, but Debbie wanted to buy a desktop, with a whole complicated explanation about how she felt you could get more power for a similar price. I don’t argue with Debbie when it comes to technology, so she went ahead and bought one.

I sit down in the ergonomic chair in front of the computer. I move the mouse, and the screen jumps to life. A message prompts me for a password, and I look up at Lexi.

“It’s the date of Izzy’s birthday, then mine,” Lexi tells me.

Well, shit. I look up at her helplessly.

“Dad!” Lexi cries.

“Okay, okay.”

I do know this. I’m supposed to be good with numbers, but somehow, I can never seem to keep birthdays straight. Finally, I type in 1523, and thank God I get in, because I’m pretty sure neither of them would’ve spoken to me for the next week if I got it wrong.

There’s a folder titled “Dear Debbie” on the desktop. I click on it, and it’s filled with Word documents. I click on one of them. It appears to be a letter addressed to Dear Debbie, followed by her reply.

“It’s just her column,” I say. “What’s the problem?”

“It’s her column,” Lexi confirms, “but read her answers to the letters. They are really, really weird.”