Chapter 4

Two associates arrived within a minute, both of them young, both of them looking at Sloane and not at Ned. One of them was the cashier who had rung him up - Elise Nakamura, twenty-four, in the store's black holiday vest, with a name tag that had been straightened too many times.

"Elise," Ned said. "Register four. What time did you print my receipt?"

Elise's mouth opened. Sloane spoke first.

"Elise," she said, warm and terrible, "you're not being asked anything. You're going to stand there."

"Ask her," Ned said.

"Sir." Reggie's voice, low. A warning, and an apology in it.

"Ask her," Ned said again, and this time he turned, deliberately, to face Nadia Berenger rather than Sloane. "Ms. Berenger. There's a register tape in that drawer. It takes eleven seconds to pull it. If I stole the scarf, the tape will show no sale at 8:47. If it shows a sale, then this stops, and we all go back to our evening."

The floor went quiet in a way that holiday music can't cover.

Nadia looked at him for a long moment. She was forty-nine and strikingly beautiful - regal, black bob, high cheekbones - and she had the particular stillness of someone who has been in rooms like this before and knows the cost of every sentence she says.

"Elise," Nadia said. "Pull the tape."

Sloane stepped between them. She was taller than Nadia and she used it.

"Elise," she said, without turning her head, "if that drawer opens, you and I are going to have a conversation about your schedule in January. Do you understand me?"

Elise's face went the color of the marble.

Reggie moved. Not fast, not dramatically - he simply took two steps and put his body between Sloane and the register, and his hand came to rest on the counter, palm down, like a man closing a book.

"Ms. Ashford," he said. "Step back."

"You're relieved," Sloane said. Her voice had gone thin. "As of this moment. You can explain yourself to HR on Monday."

Behind her, the young man with the phone had stopped pretending. He was filming openly now, arm up, screen glowing. Ned saw the red dot of the recording light and thought, with a strange calm, that the parent company's legal department was going to be very pleased with this evening.

Somebody from the regional team was on the phone near the employee elevator, turned away, one hand over his ear.

Ned's hand had risen to his chest without his permission. It rested flat over the badge through the cardigan, over six hours of patience, and he made himself lower it.

Sloane saw. Of course she saw.

"He's done this before," she said to the room, and her voice found its warmth again, the performer's warmth. "Look at him. He's not even sweating."

Nadia stepped close to Reggie and spoke so quietly that Ned barely caught it.

"Reggie. What is that notebook?"

Reggie kept his eyes forward. "Not here, ma'am."