Forgotten Groom in the Back Alley novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Elevator Chime

"Go if you need to," Hazel said.

She said it to the bank pages, in a level voice, with her thumb flat on a column of numbers.

"Look at me."

She did, finally.

"Five months," I said. "I haven't touched her in five months. She told me she was tired, and I believed her, because I believed everything."

"Then why does she say it?"

"Because she needs me in a car tonight, running."

My phone buzzed again, and it was Ned, whispering.

"Jude. I'm on the fourteenth floor. I'm working late on purpose. She's in her glass office, eating a salad, with Brodie on speaker. She's not in a hospital."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm looking at her. She just laughed."

I thanked him and hung up.

"Listen to the message again," I said, and held out the phone.

Hazel played it with her head bent.

Under Yvette's shaky breathing, at the edge of the recording, two soft notes rang, and then a flat ding.

"That's the elevator on fourteen," I said. "I rode it ten thousand times. She never left the building."

Hazel set the phone down very gently.

"She lied about a baby," she said.

"She lied about a baby."

"And you're not going."

"No."

She nodded, and stood, and began stacking the pages.

"It's late. I should check the projector. We shouldn't, tonight, with her calling you. Rule one."

I got up and took the pages out of her hands.

"Rule one says I don't use you to get back at her," I said. "It doesn't say you can hide behind it for a week, and you're very bad at that."

Her mouth twitched.

"Jude."

"You told me you stand at the back with a clipboard and somebody else gets chosen." I put the pages on the table. "I'm choosing. In the daylight. On purpose. Nobody told me to."

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