The call came before Sloan’s coffee finished brewing.
The microwave clock read 7:00 a.m., and the kitchen still had that washed-out gray look that comes before the sun fully commits to the day.
The coffee maker clicked and hissed on the counter.
Outside, a neighbor’s SUV rolled slowly past the mailbox with headlights still shining, the kind of ordinary morning detail Sloan would remember later because nothing about the rest of that morning stayed ordinary.
When First Meridian’s main number flashed on her phone, she answered because banks did not call before business hours unless something had gone wrong.
“Sloan,” David Sterling said, his voice lower than she had ever heard it. “I need you to come into the branch with your ID.”
David Sterling was the downtown branch manager.
He was polite in the way career bank people are polite, careful with every word, measured even when somebody else was angry.
He had helped Sloan with her mortgage refinance.
He had handled a wire transfer after her grandmother died.
He had never called her before the lobby lights were on.
“What is this about?” Sloan asked.
The pause lasted less than two seconds, but it made her fingers close around the edge of the granite counter.