Three, Two, One, I'm Gone novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Unstable One

Paige's email nearly costs Delia her transfer in Cleveland until the owner, Wade, approves it, then goes quiet when she says Grant's name.

On Monday at eight in the morning I stood in the lobby of Easterling Group in Cleveland with a suitcase and a transfer letter.

I had fourteen dollars in my wallet and zero in the bank, because Grant had taken every cent.

The woman at the HR desk read the letter twice and did not look up.

"Ms. Fenwick, your relocation is under review."

"Under review since when?" I asked. "I got the confirmation Friday."

"Since Saturday afternoon."

She turned her monitor toward me.

On the screen was an email from a woman I had trusted for three years.

It had no subject line, only a video attached and one paragraph.

*As a concerned friend, I think your new hire should be watched. Delia is unstable and can turn violent. She attacked me in my own home on Saturday.*

I read it standing up, with my mother's brooch pinned inside my jacket.

The video was forty seconds long.

It showed me on the courthouse steps, gripping Grant's sleeve and begging, cut off before anyone said why.

Paige had added a caption in white letters.

*Desperate girl, 5 minutes before the wedding.*

It had four hundred thousand views.

"I didn't attack anyone," I said.

"The company has a conduct policy," the HR woman said. "I can't override it."

"Then who can?"

"The owner can," a man's voice said behind me. "That's me."

I turned around.

He was tall, in a dark overcoat, with a paper cup of coffee in one hand and a thin scar through his left eyebrow.

He looked about thirty-five, and he looked like he had not slept much either.

"Wade Easterling," he said. "I bought this company in the spring, and I still sign the transfers myself. It's a bad habit."

He shifted the cup to his left hand and held out his right to me.

"You're Delia."

"I'm the unstable one," I said.

"Not that I can see."

He leaned across the desk and deleted the email with two clicks.

"I watched your video twice on Saturday night, because my assistant forwarded it with a flag on it."

My stomach dropped.

"Then you saw all of it."

"I saw a woman ask a man the same question three times," he said. "I saw the man refuse to answer her. I saw a crowd treat that as her problem."

"So?"

"So the man never moved," Wade said. "I'd have left in ten minutes. You waited forty."

A hot, stupid lump rose in my throat, and I swallowed it down.

"It was a game," I said. "He wasn't allowed to move until someone said go."

"Who was the someone?"

"The woman with the phone. The one who sent this."

Wade nodded slowly.

He did not say anything for a moment.

"Her email says you hit her."

"I took something back that was mine," I said. "In front of three witnesses, and they were all filming. I can get you the clips."

"Do that," he said. "But I don't need them."

He turned to the HR woman.

"Ms. Fenwick's transfer is approved. Her start date is today."

"Yes, Mr. Easterling."

"Her first month's rent at the corporate apartment is on the company. Give her the key card."

"That wasn't in my offer letter," I said.

"It's in it now."

I opened my mouth to refuse, and then I thought of the zero in my bank account and closed it again.

"I'll pay it back," I said.

"You'll do no such thing."

He started walking toward the elevators, and after a second I followed him with the suitcase.

"Mr. Easterling, why are you doing this?"

"Wade."

"Why, Wade?"

"Because I read forty-five emails a day that say people are unstable," he said. "Almost none of them come with a video of the person being calm."

I stared at him.

"I was not calm."

"You were, though. You asked once, and you held your voice level, and then you left."

"I was shaking."

"Your hands were," he said. "Your voice wasn't."

The elevator opened.

He pressed nine.

"The apartment's on nine. The office is on twelve. Elevator rule, by the way, is that you can take it any time, but you can't talk to me on it before ten a.m."

"Why not?"

"I'm not a person before ten a.m."

"You've been very kind so far."

"That's the coffee," he said. "It wears off."

It was the first time since Saturday that I laughed and meant it.

He heard it, and one corner of his mouth moved.

We stopped at nine.

He held the door with his shoulder while I stepped past him with the key card the HR woman had pushed into my hand.

"Settle in. Come up at ten."

I stepped out into the hall, with the suitcase and the brooch and a new key.

Then he said, "Delia."

I turned back.

He had one hand on the door and was looking at the floor, not at me.

"The man on the steps," he said. "What's his name?"

"Grant Sutter."

The coffee in his cup shook once, a small ripple, and he steadied it.

His face did not change.

He just stood there a moment too long.

"Wade?"

"Ten o'clock," he said, and let the elevator door close.

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