Norman

She had left her necklace on the bed.

I noticed it when I was getting up — a thin gold chain, small and delicate, curled on the white pillow like it had slipped off sometime during the night. I picked it up and held it for a moment, then closed my fist around it.

I would have to return it.

I shook my head softly at myself, got dressed, and checked out.

The traffic back to my apartment was brutal. I sat in it for forty minutes, jacket off, the morning heat doing its worst through the windshield, and arrived home considerably less composed than I preferred to be....