Chapter 42

Dexter finally found his wife’s house.

She lived in a subdivision called Pine Trace, a neighborhood of spacious homes with attached garages, brick fronts, and Hardiplank siding. Expansive lawns, many featuring holiday decorations, lay wheat-brown and dormant in the winter weather. Dense forestland bordered the community, giant pine trees standing like silent sentries.

Her house was near the end of the block, in a cul-de-sac. It was a two-story model on perhaps a third of an acre, with white siding and green plantation shutters. A Christmas wreath hung on the front door, and a tree was visible through the partly opened blinds on the bay window.

There were no cars in the driveway, but they might have been parked in the garage. The blinds on the other windows were shut, preventing him from peeping inside and ascertaining whether anyone was home.

Dexter doubled back to an intersection within the community’s network of streets, and made a right turn. He’d spotted a ranch house with a Century 21 “For Sale” sign in the front yard. He pulled into the driveway, verified that there was a lockbox on the front door.

A sticker on the rear bumper of Tanisha’s Mustang read, “I’d love to be your realtor.” Evidently, she had moonlighted as a real estate agent. Anyone driving past would assume that she was showing this house to a prospective buyer, and if his wife’s man drove past on the intersecting road on his way home, the place was mostly out of his line of sight.

He got out of the car and invoked the cloak of invisibility.

He hiked back to the house. A cold wind sliced down the streets, stirring up phantoms of dead leaves. A drizzle had begun to fall from the tumorous gray sky. On the radio, he’d heard a forecast of a winter storm advisory for late morning and early afternoon.

It wouldn’t match the storm he planned to unleash on his wife’s illegitimate husband.

There was a black mail box posted at the corner of the driveway. Dexter opened it and skimmed the mail. He found only a few advertising circulars, a red holiday card envelope from Eddie and Ariel Barnes in Atlanta, and a couple credit card offers addressed to Joshua Moore.

So that was the guy’s name. Joshua. Or perhaps he went by Josh.

You’re going to tell me where my wife has gone, Josh.

When Tanisha had confessed that his wife had gone on the lam, she said no one knew where she had gone, including her illegitimate husband. Dexter found that claim specious. Josh might not know precisely where his wife had fled to, but he would know something, and he was going to share it with Dexter.

Dexter stuffed the mail back in the box and sauntered across the walkway. Two miniature Christmas trees stood on either side of the door, and there was a long, narrow sidelight on the right of the door, the pane covered with a gauzy curtain.

He pushed the doorbell. Why not? He was invisible. If Josh opened up Dexter would clock him in the jaw, and it would be on.

Sonorous chimes rang throughout the house. A dog started yapping—annoying, piercing barks.

His wife had always wanted to get a dog. He hadn’t allowed it. A dog demanded time, money, energy, attention. A married woman had no business taking care of a dog; she ought to be taking care of her husband.

No one answered the door. He did not hear footsteps thumping through the house, either.

Barking, the dog pressed its nose to the sidelight curtain. He could see the outline of the animal’s small head through the fabric. It looked like one of those little Mexican dogs.

He rang the bell again, waited. No answer.

Turning away from the door, Dexter crunched through the bed of wood chips at the front of the house, went to the west side of the property. There was a first-level window on this side, covered with blinds, but if he lost his cloaking in the midst of his break-in, he would be visible to someone driving past.

He stalked to the rear of the house. A large wooden deck was attached to the back. It was furnished with patio furniture—a table, four chairs. A big barbeque grill, covered with a blue tarp, stood off to one side.

Dexter imagined his wife and her illegitimate jackass husband on the deck, grilling burgers and hot dogs and then sitting down to eat, like a happily married suburban couple. Fire licked his heart.

He was going to make the bitch suffer for this.

Beyond the perimeter of the back yard, the land was given to woods: pine trees, skeletal elms and oaks, bone-thin shrubbery. Wind howled like an avenging angel through the forest, nipped at Dexter’s exposed earlobes. His cloak had faded, likely due to his growing anger. It didn’t matter; the woods offered sufficient cover.

A French-style patio door opened onto the deck, the segments of windows covered with blinds. Dexter tried the knob. Locked.

His attempt at entry brought the attention of the little dog. It scampered to the door, barking.

Dexter put his lips to the door. “Keep up that barking, and I’m going to crush your head under my boot like a grape when I get inside.”

The dog whimpered. He heard the light patter of tiny feet as it skittered away.

Dexter unzipped his jacket and laid his fingers on the crowbar he’d taken out of his Chevy before he ditched the car at Tanisha’s. The tool jutted from the waistband of his jeans like a question mark.

He waited until the wind picked up again, and when it was at a high, reedy pitch, he swung the crowbar at one of the window panes in the door. Glass shattered, tinkled to the floorboards.

Dexter stuck his hand through the jagged maw. His fingers found the deadbolt lock, and twisted.

The door opened.