Page 9 of Croc Food

“Bitsy? She never came in today. Said she was taking a few days off for personal reasons. Maybe longer.”

Maybe longer?

Fumbling for my phone, I pulled up her location.

The airport?

Now I was really panicking, calling her again and again as I got back in the car and jammed down on the accelerator.

“Bitsy, please pick up!” I begged in my voicemail, unable to keep the pure panic from my voice. “Are you all right? Where are you going? Before you go anywhere, please wait and hear what I have to say!”

I ripped off my tie, the buttons on my shirt spraying like shrapnel.

Bitsy, why won’t you pick up?

I tried to force myself to think logically as I called her again.

“Baby, I love you so much! Don’t go anywhere without talking to me. Please.”

I couldn’t just go to the airport and demand to be let through security to hunt my wife down. They’d think I was a crazy man and throw me in jail.

Since Bitsy wasn’t responding, I needed to go home and see if I could find any clue to where she had gone.

Was Bitsy leaving me? Did she want to split up? Fuck.

Anxiety threatened to swamp me, and I could already feel sweat running down my back and soaking my shirt.

This was like a freaking nightmare. Why was this happening? I hadn’t meant it that way. She should know that, right? Right?

I pounded up the steps to our condo and then fumbled in my pocket for the keys.

They slipped through my fingers and onto the front porch, and I cursed loudly as I dropped down on shaky knees to find them.

This was fucking torture. . .oh my god. . .

Finally I was in, and even though it was ridiculous, I couldn’t help calling for her.

“Bitsy? Bitsy? Where are you?”

Charging from room to room, it took me way too long to notice there was a sign propped right on the sparkling clean counter top.

Dear Chadley it said, in Bitsy’s lovely, looping scroll.

My stomach sunk so fast I felt dizzy, that noon cappuccino burning my throat.

“I’m leaving for my dad’s house. . .”

CHAPTER 4

Chad

Ididn’t even need to read the rest of the note.

Absolutely not!

Apparently I had fucked up more than I thought, and I cursed my stupid idiocy. I had let my neurotic anxiety over work affect my wife.

And now she was planning to leave me! Panic gnawed at my stomach and I had to grab a paper bag and breath heavily into it because I was afraid I was going to hyperventilate and pass out.