CHAPTER 1: AISLE 4 CLEARANCE
The cart’s rubber bumper vibrated against the polished floor, blocking the narrow gap between the customer service desk and the automatic exit doors. Outside, August heat shimmered off the asphalt of the County Line Supermarket parking lot, but inside, under the glare of forty buzzing fluorescent tubes, the air tasted of stale wax, cold coffee, and ozone.
“You’re not stepping past that threshold, Holloway,” Brenda Sallow said. Her voice had the thin, raspy edge of a dry fan belt. She leaned her hip against the cart’s handle, her oversized dark sunglasses reflecting the overhead lights like twin pools of motor oil. She wore a bright coral jacket that smelled faintly of dry-cleaning chemicals, and her right hand held a smartphone clamped high, its camera lens aimed squarely at Marcus’s collarbone.
Marcus kept his hands low. His left fingers held the warm paper cup from the bakery counter; his right rested against his faded canvas work jacket, feeling the hard, familiar bulk of the brass circuit tester in his outer pocket.
“Move the cart, Brenda,” Marcus said. His voice was low, flat, carrying the gravel of a man who had been up since five in the morning pulling copper wire through damp crawlspaces.
“Not a chance,” Brenda barked, stepping around the side of the basket to narrow his angle of escape. A shopper pushing a stroller backed up three paces, her sneakers squeaking on the tile as the checkout queue in Lane Two went still. “Management might let independent contractors drag their greasy tool bags through this store without supervision, but I know what precision gear looks like. You’ve got two unbagged meter kits sitting in that tote, and nobody saw you at the electronics desk.”
“I don’t shop in Aisle 4,” Marcus said quietly. “I pay at the desk.”
“Lie to someone who doesn’t know how you operate,” she snapped, stepping closer until the synthetic fabric of her sleeve nearly brushed his sleeve. She raised her voice, pitching it toward the cashier stands where three teenagers in red aprons had stopped scanning groceries. “He’s got unbagged store property in that leather pouch! I saw him standing by the glass case twenty minutes ago, acting like he owned the floor!”
Marcus felt the cold prickle of sweat down his spine, but his face remained set like seasoned timber. He thought of his father sitting in the recliner back home, leg propped on three pillows, waiting for the prescription topical cream resting in the bottom of Marcus’s brown paper bag. He thought of the three hundred dollars in cash currently sitting in his pocket—money earned from eight hours of bending conduit in a humid basement—and the receipt tucked right beside it.
He didn’t pull the paper out. Not yet.
“You want to look in the bag, Brenda?” Marcus asked, his eye catching the silver glint of a tiny brass padlock hanging loose from the zipper pull of his utility pouch—a lock he hadn’t clicked shut since yesterday afternoon.
“I want management to search it before you reach that parking lot,” Brenda said, her finger tapping furiously against her phone screen as she zoomed in on his chest. “Or better yet, we can let the town deputy check the serial numbers.”
Marcus didn’t move an inch. He shifted his stance, grounding his work boots against the floor, and watched the small red recording dot flicker on her screen. “Call him,” Marcus said.
