Chapter 14: The Second Notice

Wylie's POV

On Tuesday at six in the morning I opened the email I had left alone for three days.

I did it standing up, in the kitchen, with my keys already in my hand.

The notice came from the testing board and it was short.

Candidate Marlow, J. Seat 14, Downtown Hall. Absent at close of doors. Seat released.

I read it three times.

Then I did something I had told eleven hundred bank tellers never to do to a customer's account.

I logged into the board's candidate portal with Jo's old password.

I had known it for two years, because I had picked it.

The roster page was open to anyone with a candidate login.

Seat 14, window side, Marlow.

Seat 41, back row, Coburn.

Next to Bailey's name was a time stamp for a wristband.

7:12.

That was before the doors closed, and hours before she climbed into my passenger seat with the band still on.

She had said she came to watch.

I put the phone on the counter and held the edge of the sink.

I thought, Bailey was nervous about the exam, so she sat it, and the rest was a coincidence.

I made myself say it out loud in the empty kitchen.

It sounded like every story I had ever heard across a bank desk.

The next question was the one I should have asked Bailey on Saturday.

Who set up the room?

I knew the answer, because I had hired the vendor and paid for it.

I called their office when it opened at eight.

A woman who knew me from a hundred trainings answered, and I asked for the booking record on Room 214.

"Is something wrong?" she said.

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