Crossroads — 2026-02-24 (Patreon)

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Chapter 03: ACTION NEEDED by Will Roberrtson

I was thinking about coffee, standing at the door to my office, when David Stewart waved to me as he was getting off the elevator. He didn’t hesitate coming my way.

“Busy?” he asked.

I pointed at the break room. “Coffee?”

“Sure. I just left Mr. Harris’s office.”

“The office in Queens? Jason’s going to have as much to do as we will.” We have a project that is about half reengineering and half new construction, so David’s going to be on the elevator a lot this year.

“Yeah, but there’s something else.”

He let me pour first. Then, when I set my mug down, he said, “Mr. Harris has an intern from Rowan U. He’s pretty sure she’s spending her nights in a homeless shelter. I told him you had met a woman who worked with homeless people when you went to Africa.”

I nodded. “Izzy Duffy. Why is she in a shelter?”

“We’re not sure how to ask. But you know housing is tough. On what we pay an intern, it would be hard to find anything.”

I nodded. ”It’s not the lack of money… it’s the lack of options.”

“Do you want me to call Izzy?” David asked.

I shook my head. “I’ll make a call.”

“Then what?” David asked. “How do you go up to a girl and say, ‘Hey, heard you live in a homeless shelter…’ What do we do next?”

I smiled. “I’ll make the call and see what Izzy recommends. She does this for a living. She’ll know how to go forward.”

Chapter 04: ACTION TAKEN by Shay Ryder

Izzy must be out of the office right now because she just got a call from someone she met in Africa and when the receptionist forwarded it, it came to my phone.

“Izzy, this is Will Robertson. Something’s come up here at NYC SysCo, and I wanted to run it by you.”

I rifled my memory, and the only thing I could think of was that Hannah works there, and he somehow knew Izzy. I’m supposed to be Izzy on the phone and in emails dealing with Habitat Housing work, so I just went with it.

I tapped into my well-rehearsed conversation repertoire. “Hi. What’s going on?”

“There’s a girl here from Rowan University doing an internship. We think she’s living in homeless shelters. We’d like to help her find something different. You said that’s what your Stop-Gap housing program does.”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s what we do. We work with employed homeless people to help them transition. An intern, you said?”

“That’s right. She works for another division. The partner over that is Jason Harris, and he said he could work out something like a housing stipend for her if her salary isn’t enough.”

Now, money and I have a strange relationship. I can do the math. It just doesn’t mean much to me. If you’ve been reading recent posts, I guess it’s obvious I have access to more money than I can wrap my thoughts around, so coming up short on rent is hard for me to grasp.

My thought was super simple. There are two more micro-apartments here. Move her in. If money’s a problem, I’ll tell Tom to send me a bill.

And yes, I know that would mean sending a bill to my family because I’m supposedly on a motorcycle off on a road trip.

“Mr. Robertson, I think I have an easy solution.”

The rest of this chapter is exclusive to Patreon.

I suggested the girl—he told me her name was Liza McDuffy—move in at Crossroads right away and we could work out the details over the next few days.

“How do we bring it up to her?” he asked.

He went on to say that they didn’t know how to go up to someone and ask if they were homeless and wanted some help. My first thought was that Devon could do that without breaking a sweat and the other person would feel like they had just made a best friend. But Devon—officially—is on the road trip, and I couldn’t figure out how to have the guy he’s pretending to be—Evan—get involved.

I went with my second thought. “Hannah Madison lives with us there, and she works for you. You know she’s great with people and all that. Talk to her and let her know what’s going on. I’m sure you two can figure out how to invite her to live here.”

Will made a little half-laugh sound. “Hannah would be perfect for that.”

“I’ll talk to Mr. Jenkins and Addison Magee and work out the apartment. I’ll tell Hannah, and she can pass the details back to you.”

“This sounds like a great solution,” Will replied. “I wasn’t expecting this. How soon can it happen?”

“As soon as Hannah can discuss her moving in,” I said.

I called Izzy immediately and filled her in. She seemed okay with the idea.

“That’s not at all what I would have done, but it’s probably a much better solution. Stop-Gap is meant to be temporary. She can stay at Crossroads as long as she wants.”

Well, I’m happy with the outcome. Being Mara Voss hasn’t been without challenges, but Izzy and I are working most of them out. I guess I should give everyone a full update soon, but I wanted to talk about this phone call.

I was feeling pretty happy that I could help someone out. Then I told Olivia what I’d done.

“Okay, you know that means everyone will have to call you ‘Mara’ and refer to you as ‘Mara,’ right?”

I thought for a second, then said, “To be able to help her out… It will be worth it. Mara’s a nice name.”

Olivia smiled.

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