The Abandoned Wife novel · Chapter 5 of 24
Chapter 5: Elevator Eleven
I gave them fourteen minutes and one number.
Gilchrist would buy the note and the equity at fifty-one cents on the dollar, and Tom would step down as chief executive the day we closed.
The board chair said it was an insult.
I said it was a rescue with a price tag, and that the answer was due Friday at noon.
Tom said nothing at all.
He sat staring at the back of my hand on the table.
When I stood, the whole room stood with me out of habit, and I took that as a good sign.
I reached the elevators at a steady pace and pressed the button for the garage.
The doors of car eleven slid open.
I stepped in, and a hand slapped the rubber edge of the door before it could close.
Tom came in sideways, breathing hard, and the doors shut behind him.
We were alone.
The only sound was the hum of the cable.
"Dara," he said.
"Ms. Salter."
"Stop it. Please. Stop it." He pressed both palms against the brass rail as if the car were tilting. "You're alive. You've been alive for three years. Do you know what that has done to me?"
"No," I said. "Tell me."
"I've gone to your grave every Sunday. I sat beside your headstone and talked to you."
"It's a lovely grave. I'm told the stone is marble."
"I stood in that church and I couldn't breathe."
"You breathed fine," I said. "Your voice carried to the back row."
His face crumpled and he put his hand over his eyes.
He cried quietly.
The numbers over the door counted down past thirty, past twenty.
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