“Fucking asshole,” Kendra said. The fact Nathan assumed she was the thief was infuriating. There were five other employees on duty throughout the day, and all of them could just as easily be considered suspects. What about Amy? Or Jennifer? They had it in them. Not to mention the ample non-criminal explanations as to why the day’s count might be off: computer errors, human errors, magical incantations. The possibilities that didn’t include her were practically endless. To single her out was an insult and revealed openly, at last, Nathan’s long-held disrespect of her. He had been nursing it from the moment she came on. She had known it.

Kendra rolled over and climbed off the bed. She glanced passingly at herself in the mirror, sighting her wild, mouse-brown hair, her sultry but widely spaced eyes. She found her purse under a pile of towels on the chair and came back to the mirror and put on some eye shadow, a single tiny swipe of blue on each lid. Then she went to her drawer and withdrew a plastic box and popped open the clasp. Inside lay two worn twenties and a ten.

Yes, she had stolen the money. But did that give Nathan any right to suspect her of anything? As far as he knew, she was a model employee. She showed up on time every day. She was unfailingly polite. She was even responsible, she felt, for a goodly amount of return business, thanks to her charm and strong fashion sense. He had no reason to think anything but the best of her, and the fact he didn’t was a kind of betrayal of trust, not exactly on par with her own betrayal, but a betrayal nevertheless.

She jerked on her socks and stabbed her belt through the loops of her jeans. She was angry at herself most of all. She had been sloppy this time. She had taken the money and neglected to ring in a fake return as she normally did. But how could she have?

She’d been interrupted at every turn. First there had been the errand to the office supply store. Then she’d been stuck in the storeroom unloading new blouses for two hours. She’d never had a chance to cover her tracks, and she’d been waiting for the call from the store ever since.