Everything he had believed two nights ago had been precisely backward.

He let the silence sit, and he let Silas hear his own confession hang in the air, and then, quietly, he began to ask the questions that would fill in the rest.

Chapter 13 — The Scheme

It took Silas less than ten minutes to lay the whole thing out.

On the morning drop-offs, he and the delivery driver set aside cases of flour, sugar, and oil before either of them signed the manifest.

Then they altered the bakery’s receiving copy so it looked like less had arrived, and blamed the gap on “supplier shortages.” The goods went, at a discount, to a couple of small unlicensed diners nearby, and the two of them split the cash.