“Yo, Ty!” Wood called him, he looked from the belly of the car he was working on and across the garage to Wood who was turned, looking out a bay.
Walker’s eyes moved that way and then he moved out from under the car when he saw Tate stalking his way.
Fuck.
Tate stopped five feet away.
“Lexie needs a couple of hours to get the rest of her shit outta your house. For reasons I’m guessin’ you get, she does not want to ask you herself and she does not want you there,” he stated.
“Tell her to name the time and I’m gone,” Walker replied instantly.
Tate stared at him like Julius stared at him for an entire day any time he saw him until he’d connected with his man and went back to California – like he thought Walker was one serious dumb fuck.
Then Tate jerked up his chin and started to go.
“Jackson,” Walker called and Tate stopped. “Tell her the safe will be open. She’ll know why. And tell her she’s plain stupid she doesn’t take what’s hers.”
“Great, I’ll continue this junior high bullshit and tell her that, Ty. You got anything else I should whisper to her at recess?” Tate asked, pissed as all hell, not at his errand, not doing this for Lexie but because he was pissed at Walker. And he was not hiding it.
“Nope,” Walker answered.
“Terrific,” Tate muttered, turned and stalked away.
Walker moved back under the car.
*
Three days later…
Walker worked out hard and he worked out long then he returned home late, giving Lexie plenty of time to do her thing.
He parked the Cruiser by the Snake in the garage. Then he took the stairs, braced for what he would find.
But when he got to the top of the stairs, it was all there. The pitchers, the snow globe, the frames, the crock with the spoons in, the fruit bowl, the KitchenAid, the toss pillows.
Fuck, she didn’t show.
Fuck!
He needed her shit out.
Now he had to call a still seriously pissed off Tate.
Or stop acting like a fucking idiot and continue perpetrating exactly the junior high school bullshit Tate called it and phone his soon-to-be ex-wife.
He dropped his workout bag by the stairs, reminding himself to sort it. There was no Lexie to take it away and deal with it. Not anymore.
He headed upstairs and hit their room then something made him stop dead.
His head turned and he saw the frame that held the picture of them at The Rooster was gone. He felt his chest compress and his gut tighten as he walked to the closet.
Her clothes were gone.
He retraced his steps down the stairs and went right, to the guest bedroom.
Cleaned out.
He moved to the office.
Her computer gone. The frames gone. Her print gone.
He moved to the other bedroom.
Void of everything.
He walked back up the stairs and to the closet, looking down; he saw the safe was closed. He moved to it, crouched in front of it and opened it.
Money and jewelry still there.
“Fuck,” he whispered to the safe. Then he slammed the door shut using all his strength, it flew back open, hit the back of its hinges and swung shut again.
He surged to his feet and barked, “Fuck!”
He prowled back downstairs to his workout bag, bent to it, dug through it and found his phone. He straightened as his thumb moved on the keys, taking him to her number.
He clenched his teeth as it rang.
He got voicemail. No surprise.
“This is Lexie. Busy right now, leave a message.”
He clenched his teeth harder at the sound of her voice.
Then he heard the beep. “Don’t be stupid. Come back, get your cash and diamonds. You need me gone, I’ll be gone. Just get them.”
Then he flipped his phone shut.
Then he stood by his bag and stared at the snow globe in the kitchen windowsill and his eyes lifted.
The petal heart was still there.
Except that picture of them at The Rooster, she left everything that was them.
Everything.
He turned his head away.
Then he sucked in breath through his nose and walked into the kitchen to blend a shake.
*
Five days later…
His cell ringing woke him up.
He rolled, tagged it off the nightstand, looked at the display and it said, “Unknown caller”.
Considering his business and the ball Julius got rolling, it could be anyone.
His eyes slid to his alarm clock.
Anyone, even at one thirty in the fucking morning.
He sat up, flipped his phone open, put it to his ear and growled, “What?”
“She’s with Shift right now,” he heard a woman say and he knew that woman.
It was Bessie.
But he couldn’t think of Bessie because he’d stopped breathing.
Bessie kept talking.
“Motherfucker finds out shit, found out she was home, was all over her. And now, way she is, no job, no money, no schoolin’, no fight left in her, no nothin’, that asshole is gonna be all over her. But you knew that, didn’t you? You just didn’t fuckin’ care.”
She didn’t wait for him to respond. She got finished saying what she had to say and gave him dead air.