Chapter 5: The Sample

I was back at my desk by 8:30 in the same cardigan, still smelling faintly of Cullen's soap.

I had slept two hours.

I felt wonderful, and I felt sick.

Hannah Averill's complaint had been sealed, he'd said.

Sealed meant someone with authority had signed something.

At Fieldstone, in the last four months, the only people with that authority worked for me.

I pushed the thought into a drawer and shut it.

I would deal with it when I knew more.

At 8:50, Whitney stood up in the middle of the floor and clapped her hands twice.

"Everyone stop. We have a problem."

The room went quiet.

"A sample is missing," she said.

"A walnut leg prototype for the Kessler account, worth four thousand dollars."

She let that sit.

"It was in the sample cabinet at six last night."

Her eyes traveled slowly down the rows.

They landed on me.

"The cabinet key was in the drawer next to the intern desks," she said. "Dara. Open your bag."

I didn't move.

"Why?"

"Because I asked."

"You haven't said why you think it's in my bag."

"I'd like to see it."

"You'd like to see it," I repeated, so everyone could hear.

I put my canvas bag on the desk.

It was light.

It had been light when I came in.

I had not opened it since the elevator.

"Anyone can look," I said. "Please. I'd like a witness."

Whitney came over, with a security guard behind her, a heavy man with tired eyes who plainly did not want to be there.

She unzipped the bag with her red nails.

She put her hand in and pulled out a polished walnut table leg wrapped in a gray cloth.

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