Left Behind at the Crosswalk of Life novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Rest

The stranger's footage shows weeks of hotel doors and a condo viewing; Maggie arrives with a bat, and Slade texts an invitation to his open house.

I let her in because my legs wouldn't carry me up the stairs alone.

Minnie set her wet umbrella in the sink and her phone on my kitchen table.

"Sit," she said. "You're gray."

I sat.

She pressed play, and the screen showed a hotel entrance in the dark.

A black Audi pulled to the curb.

Delaney got out of the passenger side, and Slade walked around the hood and took her hand.

The time stamp said last Friday, 10:14 p.m.

"I stood across the street from that door for three Fridays," Minnie said. "Same car, same hotel, same hour."

I watched Delaney lean into him under the lobby lights.

She was wearing the green dress I had zipped her into that morning.

"You could have called me," I said.

"I don't know you, Nolan. I didn't have your number."

She swiped to the next video.

It was daylight, in a glass condo on the lakefront, with a leather couch and a view of the water.

Slade stood in the middle of the empty living room with his arm around Delaney's waist.

A couple was touring the unit behind them.

"My fiancée and I love this floor plan," he told the couple. "We'll probably take it ourselves."

Delaney laughed and held up her left hand and showed them a bare finger.

"Not yet," she said. "He keeps teasing me."

I put my hand over my mouth.

"Fiancée," I said.

"That was Tuesday," Minnie said.

The third clip was Slade alone, in the car, on the phone.

"No, he's nothing," Slade said to someone. "He's a nurse. He pays for everything and he thinks it's love."

I made a sound I didn't recognize.

Minnie turned the phone face down.

"That's enough," she said.

A key scraped in the front door.

I hadn't locked it, and I hadn't heard anyone on the stairs.

"Nolan Hatch," my sister's voice said from the hall.

Maggie came into the kitchen in her CTA jacket, with a casserole dish in one hand and an aluminum bat in the other.

She was five foot four and she filled the doorway.

"The neighbor downstairs called me," she said. "She said Delaney left with a suitcase and a man in an Audi. Who is this?"

"Maggie, this is Minnie."

"Minnie who?"

"Minnie," Minnie said.

Maggie set the casserole on the stove and kept the bat.

"And what is Minnie doing in my brother's kitchen at one in the morning?"

"She was at the crosswalk," I said. "She pulled me out of the street."

"She was at the crosswalk," Maggie repeated. "On purpose."

"Yes," Minnie said.

I looked at her.

"I was standing there on purpose," she said. "I've been watching those two for three weeks."

Maggie's eyes went to Minnie's left hand and the gold band on it.

"Where's your husband?"

"Traveling," Minnie said. "He works Wednesday through Sunday."

"Convenient."

"It's why I had Fridays free."

Maggie tapped the bat against her palm, and Minnie didn't look at it once.

"Why do you care what that man does?" Maggie asked.

"Because he did it to someone else I know," Minnie said. "And I'm done standing on corners."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the one I have tonight."

Maggie looked at me.

I looked at the table.

"She filmed it, Mags," I said. "Hotels, a condo. He's calling Delaney his fiancée to strangers."

Maggie put down the bat.

She picked up Minnie's phone and watched the whole thing in silence, and her jaw worked.

When it ended, she laid the phone down very gently.

"I'm going to kill him," she said.

"Not yet," Minnie said.

"Watch me."

"If you kill him, he's a victim, and you're a woman with a bat." Minnie turned to me. "Here is what I need from you, both of you."

"You need something," Maggie said.

"Everyone does." Minnie held up one finger. "Don't call them."

A second finger.

"Don't text them. Don't post anything. Don't ask for the money back."

"That's my money," I said.

"Which is why you'll get it. Let them think you're broken." She looked straight at me. "Slade believes you're the man who waits. Let him keep believing it."

"For how long?"

"Until I tell you."

"And who are you to tell him?" Maggie asked.

"Someone with a lot more footage," Minnie said.

She picked up her umbrella, and I stood too fast.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

"Give me your last name, at least."

"No."

"A number, then."

She took my phone off the table, typed ten digits, and handed it back.

"Minnie," she said. "That's what you get tonight."

She went out, and the front door clicked shut behind her.

Maggie stared at the door and then at me.

"I like her," she said, "and I don't trust her."

"Same."

"Eat something."

She dished out casserole onto a plate I hadn't asked for.

My phone buzzed on the table beside it.

I read it twice, because I couldn't believe he had the nerve.

Slade: Come to my open house Sunday, bro. Delaney feels awful and wants to apologize in person. Bring an appetite, there's catering.

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