Chapter 6: Windshield

Minnie parked her little gray hatchback across from a glass tower on the lakefront.

It was a block from the water, and the rain had turned to mist on the windshield.

"Fourteenth floor," she said. "The corner unit with the lights on."

"That's the condo from the video."

"He told the couple they'd take it themselves. He meant it."

I looked up at the lit windows, and my chest hurt.

She turned off the engine and the heater died.

Within ten minutes our breath had fogged every pane of glass.

The console between our seats was narrow, and her knee kept touching mine whenever she shifted.

Neither of us pointed it out.

"Do you do this a lot?" I asked.

"Sit in a car with a man I barely know?"

"Sit and watch."

"Three weeks of Fridays," she said. "I'm very good at it."

She wiped a circle on the glass with her sleeve.

The Audi was parked at the curb below the tower.

The tower door opened, and Delaney came out in a gray sweater, carrying a cardboard box on her hip.

I knew that box, because I had packed my father's old paperback Westerns in it myself when he died.

"She was at my apartment," I said. "While I was at work."

"She still has a key."

"Those are his books. Those were my father's."

Delaney walked to a dumpster at the end of the block and heaved the box over the lip.

Paperbacks slid out across the lid and into the dark.

Slade came out behind her, laughing, and put his arm around her shoulders.

She reached up and kissed his jaw.

I had my hand on the door handle before I knew I'd moved.

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