He didn’t move right away.

He looked at Lauren’s stained leather boots, then back at my face, before heading down the hall.

I tapped my ring finger on my watch face.

“What’s in that envelope, Lauren?”

She went to the coffee table and set the white envelope down beside a bag of McIntosh apples.

“It’s an official cashier’s check for twelve thousand dollars,” she said.

The blue paper lay face up on the dark wood.