By 6:22 p.m., Iris Bellanger had already missed two moments when all she needed to do was close her computer.
The first, Paul had sent a photograph of the table set at his mother’s: six white plates, a bouquet tall enough to hide half the faces, a bottle of crémant in an ice bucket. Beneath it he had written: *Are you really coming this time?*
The second, Salomé had put her head through Iris’s glass office door, bicycle helmet in hand.
“You can still leave. I won’t tell anyone you have a life.”
Iris had raised one finger without looking away from the screen.
“Two minutes.”
Salomé had laughed, because in Iris’s mouth two minutes was not a measure of time but a polite way of saying no.
Maison Orbe was emptying around them. In the large first-floor room, tracks of spotlights went dark in groups. The works for the July sale remained suspended in daylight turned gray beneath the glass roof: portraits, landscapes, two abstractions too large for the wall allotted them. The air-conditioning breathed unevenly. With every pause, the building’s silence seemed larger.
Iris was comparing three numbers.
The carrier’s release form said 417-B. The storeroom register said 417-D. The collection photograph showed something on the lead seal that could have been a B or a flattened eight.
Three signs, none solid enough to become a fact.
She opened the paper planner she kept despite shared calendars, reminders, and digital invitations. Black cover, cream edge, a loose elastic band she replaced every January without ever throwing out the old one. Paul said she trusted that notebook more than human beings. He exaggerated, but not enough for her to make fun of him.
On the page for Thursday, June 25, she had written by hand:
**6:30 p.m. — N… / deposit B**
End of excerpt. Discover the other stories in this universe.