Riley finished the pitch deck at half past two.
She had stayed longer than she intended, the way she always did when she came in on weekends, the building's particular Saturday quiet creating a kind of focus that the weekday noise never quite allowed. She saved the file, closed the laptop, put on her coat, and stood at her desk for a moment looking at the empty chair across the floor where Martin had been sitting that morning.
She had told herself, for the four hours since he had left, that it was not her business. She had told herself this with some conviction and moderate success, the way she told herself most things she did not entirely believe, filling the space between the thought and the doubt with the pitch deck and two more coffees and a brief exchange with the lobby guard on the way back from the bathroom. She had done a reasonable job of it for four hours.
