Everyone in the store stopped their act—whatever it was they had been doing—and watched. The employees were putting on a real show; nobody on the first floor, and few on the second floor, wanted to miss it. Even AJ, who avoided any kind of attention if he could, had found himself pulled by the gravity of the scene. He was on the edges of it, but he was still there. Imogen was still glaring, alternating between Daniella and Eli. Rinn’s whole face was coated in horror.

None of them could avoid this now.

“Are you in some kind of trouble?” Jo was trying to understand, clearly. She had that focused look on her face as she stared at Eli. She had her hand on her hip. Her whole posture indicated—I want to be on your side, Eli.

So of course, Eli didn’t take the peace offering. “No.”

Jo slumped. She was still standing up, but there was a heaviness to the way she stood. Like she’d need to sit down in a minute. “Then this is all just a big joke to you? Is that it? Is this store a big joke to you? Am I a big joke to you?”

Eli shook his head—slow and sad and serious all at once. “No. I was trying to help.”

Jo was having a hard time believing him—Daniella could tell from the furrow in Jo’s eyebrows and the way her bottom lip was jutting out in a small, silent protest. And to be fair to Jo, it was a pretty unbelievable thing to have to hear, to have to swallow and comprehend and then come out the other side and find belief in.

“You were trying to help, so you stole nine thousand dollars.” Jo said this slowly, just to make sure she was correctly repeating back what she had understood.

Even Daniella’d had some trouble with that one.

“It made sense at the time. I really thought I was helping. I really wanted to save the bookstore. I saw that it was going under, and I wanted to help. I get that I didn’t help. But, I wanted to, you know. That’s all I was trying to do from the very beginning—to help.”

Jo turned away from Eli for the moment. His earnestness in this was a difficult thing for any of them to swallow. Jo looked at the crowd. Looked for other employees. “Who all knows about this? Daniella? AJ? What about you—Imogen? You’re the one who was holding the goddamned books.”

Daniella expected Imogen to throw someone else under the bus. To make sure they took the heat instead of her.