Dearly Departing by Geoff North (book reader for pc txt) 📕

needed to find Dawn, and he wasn’t going to find her here. He started back the way he’d come—out of the arrival area and past the long corridor of airline terminals checking in travelers’ luggage to wherever the fuck it was they were going.

“Hey, guy!” Somebody called out. Tyler kept walking. “Hey, buddy!” It was coming from one of the long lineups behind him. Probably not for me. Just some loudmouth wanting to get someone else’s attention.  He shoved his hands deeper into his coat pockets and moved faster.

“Tyler! Is that you?”

He stopped instead of breaking out into a run towards the exit. He hadn’t done anything wrong—at least not here. There was nothing to hide. He turned and saw a middle-aged man with a frizzy mop of greying hair waving at him from the end of one of the snaking lines. There was something familiar about him. Tyler moved slowly towards him, trying to look as carefree and inconspicuous as possible. Where did he know this guy from?

“Sorry, it is Tyler, right?”

“Yeah… Tyler Wahl, Do I know you?”

The man excused himself to a few people standing in line behind him, allowing them to move ahead while he worked his way to the back. “I’m a friend of Ray Wallace’s.” They were now standing face to face, the only barrier setting them apart was the yellow nylon rope of the lineup. “Delbert Doole. We met last spring in Rokerton. You came down for a weekend with his daughter.”

He offered Tyler a meaty hand to shake. “Oh yeah, I remember now.” Tyler shook his hand. The fat asshole that came over to Dawn’s father’s place for a backyard barbeque. He drinks like a fish and thinks he’s the life of the party.

“How you been, kid? Are you still seeing Dawn?”

Tyler nodded. “For sure. Things couldn’t be any better.”

“Good to hear.” Delbert finally released his hand and studied him intently with his dark, beady eyes. “I haven’t seen you since. Thought maybe the two of you had gone separate ways. What brings you to the airport?”

Tyler thought a lie up quick enough. “Waiting for a friend from the States. His flight was delayed a couple hours. Where are you headed to?”

“I just got back from the Dominican Republic with Dawn’s dad yesterday. Bought myself a ticket to go back there, and I’ve been waiting around here for the last eighteen hours.”

Tyler could care less where the fat shit had been or where he was going next. The mention of Dawn’s father was the only thing keeping him there. “You saw Dawn. She picked her dad up here?”

Delbert shrugged. “Well I guess she did. Never actually saw her. Ray walked out of the airport with his luggage and I haven’t seen him since.” He started to laugh, and it made his Einstein hair waggle back and forth. “I hope she picked him up.”

Tyler had to be careful. He needed to find out where the two went without triggering the idiot off with more information than he needed to know. “I haven’t seen Dawn for a few days… I’ve been away on work. I thought she said something about picking someone up from the airport on the phone, but I lost that last part of it… service was bad, you know?”

Delbert Doole’s smile wasn’t as wide as it had been a few moments ago. There was a guarded, suspicious look in his dark eyes. Like a fat rat… Like a big, fat rat fink. He’s going to call someone. Dawn’s father.

“Yeah, I know what you mean. You’d expect in a country as rich as ours we could at least have better phone service, hey?”

Tyler nodded and pushed for more, fearing the flow of information would trickle to a halt in the next exchange or two. “I just got back from work this morning. Dawn wasn’t home. I’m kind of worried about her… what with her grandmother dying and all.”

The suspicious look Tyler thought he’d seen behind Doole’s eyes vanished. In its place was mild sorrow and genuine concern. “Yeah, I was sorry to hear about that. Ray said he was going to catch the next flight out to Kelowna, but like I said, I haven’t seen him since yesterday afternoon. Maybe they decided to drive out west. It would be cheaper than flying.”

“Maybe.” Of course, they had driven. Dawn hadn’t come home, and this moron hadn’t seen her father in almost a day. It was the only thing that made sense.

“Hey, kid.” Doole reached across the rope and slapped his shoulder. “Don’t hold it against me, but you look like shit. You should go grab some breakfast or at least head home and get a bit of shuteye.”

Tyler wasn’t hungry, and he’d slept too many hours away already. What he wanted more than anything was to punch this prick in his fat pillow gut and watch him drop. “Yeah, I’m tired as hell.”

Doole started reaching for his back pocket. “Hey, why don’t I give ol’ Ray a call right now for you, and see what’s up?”

Tyler held his hand out. “No, it’s okay. It’s still early. I wouldn’t want to wake him up or anything. Don’t worry about it, I’ll try calling Dawn in another hour or so.” Tyler stuck his hand out further and shook Doole’s hand again. “It was nice seeing you again, Mr. Doole… have fun back in the Dominican.”

“I plan on it. Maybe we’ll see each other again at another barbeque someday.”

Don’t hold your breath, fat-ass. “I’m sure we will.”

Tyler left him in the lineup without looking back. He feared Doole would be phoning Dawn’s father before he even had the chance to get back to his truck. Maybe not. The guy has other things on his mind. His flight south would probably be in another hour or two. He would have