But I did, and Julian’s voice on the other end was strange, not the bored flat contempt of the night before but something tighter, higher, unsettled.

He told me I needed to come in.

Not for my shift.

Now, as soon as I possibly could.

When I asked him why, he hesitated in a way I had never heard from him, and then he told me that the night crew had been deep-cleaning after closing, breaking down the sections, pulling out the booths to sweep behind them, and that back behind the velvet corner booth where the couple had sat, wedged down deep in the gap between the bench and the wall, they had found something.

Not cash, he said, before I could ask.