The margin clung to the page.
JJ slid the corner of her ledger under the lifted fold and used it like a dull knife. Cold ran through the leather so quickly her fingers jerked. She kept the ledger there anyway, wedged between the main text and the sentence somebody had hidden where a clerk's thumb could cover it.
"That margin is behaving like furniture with a grudge."
Omina placed one hand over the ledger spine without pressing down.
"Move slowly, or the drawer will charge interest."
JJ looked at the fold, then at the thin frost forming on her pencil.
"It is a margin with bad manners, not a bomb."
Heissman watched the paper tighten around the ledger.
"Margins are where offices hide bombs they can deny owning."
JJ paused, because the sentence deserved a pause even from him.
"I dislike how useful that almost sounded today."
"Then keep disliking it while you read carefully."
