Andy looked at her failed call to Ben, the red bubble on the screen. She sighed and slipped into her car, shut the door. In the distance she could see Newler’s house over the wall of cypress trees. The lights were turning off, one by one, rising upward to what she presumed was the master bedroom. Though she hadn’t entered the house, looking through the deck doors she’d seen worrying signs about her old partner’s life. One stack of books on the side table in the living room. One dent in the couch. One set of scuff marks in the decking, beneath just one of the six outdoor chairs. She imagined him sitting out there flicking spent cigarettes into the wet bushes and staring at the distant lights in the dark, fancying himself a tortured Gatsby on the dock. Fear of what Newler was becoming put a recklessness into her.
She started typing out a message to Ben.
The script is there for a reason. Delete this message, and your last, and do not—