He sat very still, his heavy hands flat on my table, his wire-rimmed glasses slipping slightly down his nose.

“You always were stubborn, Mara,” he said, his voice dropping into that low, paternal weight that used to make me lock myself in the bathroom.

“I have an early shift,” I said.

He stood up, took the envelope, and slipped it into his coat pocket without looking at me.

The latch of my front door clicked behind him, and I did not breathe again until I heard his footsteps fade down the gravel path of the courtyard.

By nine o’clock the next morning, I was sitting in a windowless office at the local precinct.