Left Behind at the Crosswalk of Life novel · Chapter 9 of 24
Chapter 9: Wife
Nobody in the room breathed.
I looked at the ring on Minnie's hand, and then I looked at her face.
She didn't look at me.
"Wife," I said.
"Ladies and gentlemen." Slade turned to the buyers and spread his free hand wide. "I'm so sorry for this scene. My wife and I are separated, and she's been unwell."
"I'm not unwell," Minnie said.
"She has followed me for weeks." He kept hold of her hand. "She films my clients. She's been sending that footage to my friend here, and she's edited it."
The woman in the camel coat folded her arms.
"She doesn't look unwell to me," she said.
"Thank you," Minnie said.
"The video didn't look edited either," the woman said. "It looked like you."
Slade's grin held, but a muscle jumped in his cheek.
"Sweetheart," he said to Minnie in a low voice. "Let's go in the kitchen and talk."
"Let go of my hand."
"You're embarrassing yourself."
"Let go," she said, and she wrenched it free.
He let her go, and he let it show on his face for just a second.
I had known that face for eleven years and had never seen it.
A man in the back set his quiche on a windowsill.
"I came to see a house," he said. "I'm not buying one from a guy who calls a woman his fiancée in an empty condo."
"It was a joke."
"It was a lie to a stranger," said his wife.
They walked out.
Another couple followed them, and then three more, and then the room emptied in a slow stream.
The catering man in the vest looked at the quiches, and he looked at Slade, and he took the whole tray with him.
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