Not much.

Just a flicker, quickly gone — the small involuntary adjustment of a person who has just learned that one of the things he was counting on to stay hidden has not stayed hidden.

It lasted less than a second.

But Cordell had spent eleven years watching faces at that counter, and he saw it, and he understood exactly what it meant.

What struck him, even in that moment, was how fast the man recovered — how the flicker vanished and the reasonable, aggrieved expression slid smoothly back into place, and the voice through the glass never lost its patient, put-upon warmth.

Cordell had interviewed hardened people before, career criminals who lied with their whole bodies, and even most of them had tells, cracks, moments where the mask slipped and stayed slipped.