Free Wages of Sin by Suzy Spencer

a frightened linger. A page of newspaper was closed in the door. Why would newspaper be on the floor? They didn’t even take the newspaper.
    She waved good-bye to her friend and rushed up to the apartment. Something’s not right. She swung open the door to find the living room completely empty. The cherry wood dining table was gone. The sofa. The cocktail tables. Everything.
    There was a note: “I packed for you. You’re welcome. I’m leaving and no one knows of this. I let the truck get repoed, and I’m getting something for myself.” Myself was underlined many times. “Have a nice life. Bye.”
    She walked into the bedroom. Chris’s clothes were gone; hers were on the bed. Her bedroom suite from her mother’s home was left. The housewares, which came from Pace’s deceased father’s home, were packed in boxes on the floor. The phone was disconnected.
    She raced out of the apartment, rounded the fence that separated apartment buildings, and beat on the door of Glenn Conway, who lived within walking distance.
    Glenn opened the door.
    Lisa’s face, scarlet with hysterical tears, greeted him.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “Where is Chris?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe he’s at work. What’s the matter?”
    Lisa was full of fear and anxiety. She thought Chris might be in Glenn’s apartment. She looked around, hoping he was there. She tried to spot some of his clothes, Coors beer caps, anything.
    “Lis, I don’t know where he’s at.”
    “You’re lying. I know you know where he’s at. You’re his best friend. Goddamn it, don’t lie to me!” She wept hard, heavy tears as her thoughts swirled at tornado speed.
    “Lisa, please calm down.”
    She pushed him. “I don’t wanna calm down. I wanna know where Chris is.”
    Conway grabbed Pace by the shoulders. “Calm . . . down. You need to calm down. I don’t know where Chris is.” His words were slow. “I don’t know.”
    Pace ran to her mother’s house, fear and adrenaline pushing her heart and legs so well that she was barely winded when she completed the four-mile run.
    She wept to her mother, “He’s gone. He left, and he took everything.”
    “What the fuck—that asshole,” replied her mother.
    Lisa’s words were unintelligible as they were sandwiched between hysterical tears.
    “Calm down,” said her mother.
    “I need to get my stuff out of there right away.” She worried that Hatton might return to the apartment that night and take the rest of her things. I hate him. I love him. I want to beat him up. I want to hug and kiss him. There were too many emotions. Lisa Pace took a deep breath as a wagon train of family members in pickup trucks drove to the apartment.
    She just wanted to be alone as they unloaded her possessions back at her mother’s house. But she paged the love of her life twenty times.
    In between pages, she noticed her ATM card was missing.
    Lisa Pace thought back. The last time she remembered seeing it, the card had been lying on the counter in their apartment, and Chris Hatton knew her PIN number. She phoned her bank.
    “Great,” Lisa muttered as she heard her account balance. It was 10¢. Just the day before, she’d been paid. Chris Hatton had taken her money, too.
     
     
    Finally Hatton answered her repetitive pages.
    “What d’ya need?” he griped.
    “What do I need?” said Pace. “I need you. I need to know where you are. I need to know if you’re okay. I need to know what the hell’s going on? That’s what I need.”
    “Well, I left you a note,” he said. “I left. I moved.”
    She begged and pleaded with him.
    “I just need some time on my own,” he responded.
    “You have a place to stay?”
    He told her the furniture was in a friend’s garage.
    She told him that he didn’t have to tell her where he was living, what was going on, or give her his phone number, but he did need to return her pages.
    “Okay.”
    Lisa Pace went back to her regimented life at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, with a