The bag had not changed.

Only the eyes looking at it, and the story those eyes were prepared to believe.

That was the thing Corwin would spend a long time sitting with afterward — not that he had been wrong about the facts, though he had, but that he had been so ready to assume the worst of a woman who had given him three years of flawless work.

The suitcase had been a test of what he saw when he looked at a quiet, tired, older woman doing hard work without complaint, and he had failed it, and the failure had nothing to do with flour at all.

Chapter 3 — The Phone Call

Then, a few nights before, he had overheard her on the phone by the back door.