He Locked Me Out and Let Her In novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Access Removed

At eight fifty on Sunday morning my phone buzzed in the Marlowe's lobby.

Guest access for Maddie Donahue has been approved, it said.

Under it, in small grey type, was a line I knew by heart.

By the unit owner.

I smiled at the screen.

It was the first time in my life I had been glad to read it.

"Her father's in the sitting area," the doorman said. "He asked that you come and sit."

"I'll stand."

"Yes, ma'am."

Reuben took a chair beside the desk with a paper cup of coffee, and said nothing, and that was the right thing.

Lydia's father sat on a leather couch near the elevators with a lawyer beside him, a thin man with a thin briefcase.

Behind them, against the wall, stood eleven cardboard boxes.

They were marked in black marker.

DEAN, SUITS. DEAN, SHOES. DEAN, BOOKS.

A woman I knew only as the neighbor on fourteen had come down in her robe with a coffee.

She stood by the mailboxes and pretended to read the junk mail.

At nine o'clock exactly, the revolving door turned.

Lydia came in wearing her camel coat and sunglasses.

She had a small bag over one shoulder and a face that had been put on carefully.

"Daddy," she said. "Good morning."

"Good morning."

"I'd like to apologize for last night. I was overwrought. Those women ambushed me." She took off her sunglasses. "I've had time to think. I'll see a doctor."

"Lydia, put your thumb on the pad."

"What?"

"The gate." He pointed with two fingers. "Go through it."

She laughed.

"Daddy, I live here."

"Go through it, please."

Everyone watched her cross the marble.

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