Dean hesitated, glancing at Marcus, then, with visible reluctance, pulled the printed statement back toward himself and began typing the account information into his terminal — the name, the account number printed at the top of the page, the routine keystrokes of a lookup he could have performed at any point in the last five minutes had he chosen to.
The screen loaded for a moment. Then Dean's expression changed completely.
Dean stared at the screen for several seconds, his face draining of color in the particular way a person's face drains when they realize, all at once, exactly how badly a situation has gone.
"Edward Harris?" he said, the name coming out barely above a whisper, more to himself than to anyone else at the counter.
Edward said nothing, simply watching, with the same calm, unhurried patience he'd carried through the entire exchange.
It was at that exact moment that a man in a dark suit, drawn by the small commotion visible from across the lobby, approached the counter at a brisk pace — Gerald Whitfield, the branch's senior manager, a man who had worked at Meridian Trust for over twenty years and who recognized, the moment he was close enough to see clearly, exactly who was standing at the teller window.
"Mr. Harris?" Gerald said, his voice carrying a mixture of surprise and immediate, unmistakable deference, hurrying the last several steps toward the counter.
The lobby, which had already grown quieter as the small crowd of onlookers registered the tension building at the teller window, went almost entirely silent now, the particular hush of a room absorbing, in real time, a piece of information large enough to reframe everything that had just happened in front of it.
"Gerald," Edward said, his tone warming slightly, the first genuine softness in his voice since he'd walked through the revolving doors that morning. "Good to see you."
Gerald turned to Dean, his expression tightening with a mixture of alarm and dawning comprehension. "Dean — do you understand who you've been speaking with?"