Chapter 16: Three Seconds

Roxie's POV

Lorne found me in the supply room, sitting on the desk between a box of toner and the cracker box.

He had a folded form in his hand.

"Which envelope," he said.

"The one with the fifty thousand dollars."

"Ah."

"I said three seconds in front of the buyer, and you didn't ask me what I meant."

"I knew what you meant."

"You counted, didn't you? In the stream room, when she put it on the stool."

He looked at the floor.

"Three seconds," he said.

"Why three?"

"It was the time between you looking at it and picking it up."

"Do you know what I thought in those three seconds?"

"Yes. I've had two weeks to build a theory."

"Tell me the theory."

"You thought: this solves everything. The loans, the headset, the roommate. And you were right."

"Wrong," I said.

He looked up.

"I thought: how much does fifty thousand dollars weigh?" I said.

"I had never held that much. I was curious."

"It's an envelope."

"It's an envelope! It weighs nothing! I was so disappointed."

"And then?"

"Then I looked at the room, and I thought: I'd rather have the stool."

"The stool."

"The stool was on my side. I'd already given it the job."

He laughed, once, and stopped.

"I owed you a question," he said. "I should have asked it on the day. I counted instead."

"For two weeks."

"For two weeks. I'm very sorry."

"You wrote it down," I said, because the form was sticking out of his hand.

"I wrote it down."

I held out my hand, and he gave it to me.

I read it all the way through, under the toner shelf.

Nature of incident: Other.

Description: I did not tell my wife about the loan.

I did not tell her about the four.

I counted three seconds.

Name of employee responsible: his own name, in capitals.

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