I Queued Three Hours for Her, But They Didn't Wait Three Minutes for Me novel · Chapter 9 of 24
Chapter 9: Forty Minutes
The Griddle was a diner with red booths, and at seven in the morning it smelled like bacon and floor cleaner.
Marty was already in the last booth with a cracked laptop open in front of him.
He had a coffee he hadn't touched, and his knee was bouncing under the table.
I slid in across from him and put my headphones on the Formica.
"Why not your phone?" I said.
"Gabe's my roommate. He goes through my phone when I'm in the shower." Marty swallowed. "He doesn't know about the laptop. It's from the garage at work."
"What is it, Marty?"
"You know Tony's SUV has a camera inside it? For the rideshare. Camera and microphone."
I hadn't known.
"He forgot about it," Marty said. "He forgets it's on. Last week a passenger disputed a fare, and Tony asked me to pull the file off the card."
He took a small card out of his shirt pocket and pushed it into the side of the laptop.
"I found the whole Wednesday," he said. "I listened to it in my truck on Sunday. I threw up in the parking lot."
My hands had gone cold on the table.
"I laughed when you walked up that shoulder," Marty said. "I laughed with everybody. I want you to know I'm not asking you to forgive me. I just can't be the guy who knows and doesn't say."
He turned the laptop to face me and slid the headphones across.
On the screen was a grainy picture of the inside of the SUV, shot from the dashboard.
The time stamp said 1:44 p.m.
Dani sat in the front seat, and Gabe sat behind her.
Tony and Marty's doors were open, and on the recording I heard Marty say, "Back in forty, we're getting real food."
Tony said, "Need anything, Gabe?"
"I'm good," Gabe said. "Take your time."
The doors slammed.
For a few seconds, nothing happened.
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