And Corwin had looked at the two of them and gotten it exactly backward.

He had extended Silas the automatic trust that comes with a title and a salary and a young man’s confident manner, and had aimed his suspicion at the quiet older woman with the mop, because she fit the shape his fear was looking for.

It shamed him more than the lost inventory.

He had prided himself on being a fair man, a good boss, someone who saw his people clearly.

And when the test came, he had trusted the thief and suspected the honest woman, on nothing but the surface of them — the confidence of the one, the invisibility of the other.

Silas’s greed had cost him money, and that made him angry.