CHAPTER 1: AISLE FOUR
The air in aisle four smelled of floor wax, powdered bleach, and the damp wool of too many coats trapped in a heated building on a rainy Saturday.
Marcus Holloway kept his hands flat against the cold chrome bar of the cart. His knuckles were gray from the rain outside, the skin cracked along the creases. Under his canvas jacket, the brass key fob from his former office pressed hard against his ribs—a heavy, useless piece of metal that had belonged to a desk five hundred miles away until three weeks ago.
He didn’t move fast. When you were living on eight hundred dollars of severance and a dwindling checking account, speed was an expensive luxury. He compared the two red cans of instant coffee on the middle shelf. Eight dollars and forty cents for the brand his father used to drink; six twelve for the store brand with the dented lid.
Behind him, a wire basket scraped against the metal shelving with a sharp, metallic screech.
“Some of us actually have schedules to keep,” a voice said. It wasn’t loud, but it had the hard, polished edge of a summons.
Marcus didn’t turn around immediately. He set the six-dollar can into his cart next to the white loaf of bread and the small jug of generic detergent. When he finally pivoted, the pastel trench coat was already two inches from his elbow.
Patricia Gable didn’t look at his face. Her eyes scanned the worn cuffs of his canvas coat, the mud drying on the heels of his boots, and the sparse items in his wire basket. Her hair was cut in a rigid, blonde wedge that didn’t move when she tilted her head. She held an oversized leather handbag pressed against her ribs like a shield, her French-manicured fingers digging into the calfskin.
“You’re blocking the entire section,” she said. Her tone was flat, calibrated for an audience that wasn’t there yet. “People need to get through.”
The aisle was six feet wide. Marcus’s cart took up less than twenty inches near the shelf edge.
“There’s room,” Marcus said. His voice was raspy from disuse; he hadn’t spoken to anyone since the clerk at the gas station six hours ago.
Patricia took a deliberate step forward, her high heel clicking sharply on the linoleum. Her shoulder clipped the canvas sleeve of his coat as she reached past him, snatching a glass jar of night cream from the top shelf without looking at the price tag. She dropped it into her wire basket with a heavy thud, then turned her body just enough to force Marcus’s cart back an inch against the shelving unit.
“Some people don’t belong in an express-service neighborhood,” she muttered, her eyes locked on the space above his left ear. “It’s about standards.”
Marcus watched her hand rest on the strap of her bag. He noticed the slight twitch in her wrist—a sharp, nervous movement that didn’t match the cool posture of her trench coat. On her wrist, a thin gold watch caught the harsh overhead glare, its band worn down to the base nickel on the underside.
He didn’t argue. He pulled his cart back, giving her three feet of clear floor.
She didn’t move away. Instead, she leaned closer to the shelf, her shoulder hovering near his open jacket pocket as she pretended to inspect a display of box hair dye. Marcus felt the faint rush of cool air as her hand brushed past his ribs—a movement too close for a stranger, too deliberate for an accident.
When she finally turned her back on him and marched toward the front registers, Marcus reached down to pull his jacket straight. His fingers caught on a loose thread near the hem, but deep inside the right pocket, beneath the cold brass key fob, his hand brushed against something that shouldn’t have been there: a small, smooth square of unsealed plastic wrapping that smelled heavily of lavender.
