CHAPTER 3: MANAGER INTERROGATION
Marcus Brooks’s rubber soles made no sound on the linoleum as he cut through the crowd at Register 3. His blue Westside Market vest was crisp, the silver-and-black name badge pinned slightly crooked over his left pocket. At twenty-nine, his eyes possessed the peculiar, flat exhaustion of a man who spent ten hours a day mediating micro-crises between store directives and suburban entitlement.
He didn’t rush. He stopped at the head of the register belt, his left hand tapping the small black receiver clipped to his collar.
“What’s the hold-up on Three, Sarah?” Marcus asked the cashier. His voice was quiet, steady, and practiced in the art of de-escalation.
Before the young clerk could open her mouth, Patricia stepped directly into Marcus’s personal space, her neon-encased phone thrusting forward until the camera glass was four inches from his vest.
“Marcus, thank goodness you’re here,” Patricia said, her tone dropping the screech and adopting the smooth, conspiratorial intimacy of a peer addressing a superior. “I’ve been holding this lane for five minutes. We have a severe policy violation. This individual brought six bulk multi-packs of clinical formula up from the back, completely ignoring the two-unit customer limit posted in Aisle 4.”
Ethan didn’t move. He remained wedged against the plastic divider, his hands resting flat on the cold metal trim of the conveyer belt. He watched Marcus’s eyes. He saw the shift manager scan the scene with practiced efficiency: the six cartons on the belt, Ethan’s quiet, unblinking posture, the crowd of four shoppers holding raised phones behind Patricia, and finally, Patricia’s knuckles white on her cart handle.
Marcus turned his head slightly toward Ethan. “Sir, do you have a receipt or a pharmacy slip for these?”
“The pharmacy clerk placed the order manifest under the register drawer,” Ethan said. His voice was low, devoid of defense or anger. “Account ending in seven-four-nine-two. It was staged at eleven-forty.”
“It’s a fake!” Patricia interjected loudly, turning to face the waiting shoppers as if commanding a court room. “Marcus, he’s using generated app codes! You know as well as I do that resellers use third-party ordering bots to bypass inventory caps! I demand you confiscate these six items immediately, return four to the floor for legitimate families, and flag his personal account in the regional system!”
Marcus frowned, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a black leather-bound manager’s tablet. “Ma’am, let me check the internal queue first.”
“I am a member of the Westside Commerce Advisory Council,” Patricia declared, her voice rising again, crisp and rhythmic. “I have filed three formal reports this month regarding inventory leaks in this exact location. If you process an illegal bulk clearance right in front of me, I will personally file an administrative grievance with Regional Director Hayes before two o’clock.”
At the mention of Regional Director Hayes, Marcus’s thumb hesitated over the tablet glass.
Ethan noticed the micro-flinch in the manager’s jaw—a tiny tightening of the masseter muscle beneath his ear. It wasn’t fear of Patricia’s anger; it was the recognition of a familiar, grinding headache.
Marcus tapped the tablet screen, opening the store’s internal customer service portal. He typed in Ethan’s phone number, reading off the screen as the database loaded.
“Order number 88-Delta,” Marcus muttered, his eyes skimming the digital ledger. “Six cases… cleared by Pharmacy Tech Miller at 11:38 AM. Pre-paid under medical clearance voucher.” Marcus raised his head, looking at Patricia. “Ma’am, the system shows this was an authorized pre-order. It didn’t come off the retail shelf limit.”
“That is impossible!” Patricia snapped. Her face turned a blotchy, mottled pink around her collar line. She reached out and slapped her open hand down on the tablet screen, blocking Marcus’s view. “Your pharmacy tech made an error, or this man misled them! I saw him walking down Aisle 4 with those cases in his cart! He pulled them off the endcap display!”
Ethan cleared his throat softly. The sound was small, but in the tense lull of the register lane, it acted like a steel pin dropping on tile.
“Manager,” Ethan said, looking directly into Marcus’s tired eyes. “Check your tablet’s internal flagged-customer log for the name Vance-Giles.”
Patricia froze. Her hand stayed plastered against the tablet screen, her fingers rigid.
Marcus blinked, confused by the sudden shift. He pulled the tablet back from under her palm and tapped the search bar, entering the surname Vance-Giles.
Ethan watched the manager’s expression. He watched as Marcus’s eyes widened slightly, reading through a dense list of internal store notes that had nothing to do with Ethan’s formula.
“Three corporate complaints filed this month,” Marcus read quietly under his breath, his voice barely audible over the hum of the freezer units nearby. “Claiming missing promotional vouchers… requesting cash refunds for unverified stock shortages… three separate manager overrides issued at customer service…”
The decoy secret hung in the air between them—a paper trail of habitual corporate leverage and weaponized complaints designed to squeeze free store vouchers out of flustered shift supervisors.
Patricia’s posture shifted instantly. The polished, civic-minded authority vanished, replaced by a sharp, defensive edge.
“That record is an administrative error!” Patricia hissed, leaning across the counter so close her breath misted on the glass casing of the scanner. “Those complaints were fully validated by corporate support! You have no right to display internal notes in front of unauthorized customers!”
“I didn’t display it,” Marcus said, his voice hardening by a distinct, measurable degree. He looked at Patricia, then down at the blue-bordered investigation tag still dangling from the zipper of her tote bag. “You brought up regional policy, Mrs. Vance-Giles. But according to these notes, you’ve been red-flagged for review regarding corporate voucher claims.”
“That has nothing to do with this man hoarding formula!” Patricia shouted, her voice breaking into a high, raspy register as she realized the crowd behind her was listening to every word. “He intimidated me in Aisle 4! He shoved his cart into mine!”
“Check the overhead feed,” Ethan said calmly, pointing his index finger up toward the black dome camera above Register 3. “Aisle 4 junction and this lane. Ten minutes ago.”
Marcus looked up at the camera dome, then back at Patricia, whose chest was heaving under her floral tunic.
“Step back from the register, Mrs. Vance-Giles,” Marcus said, his tone dropping all customer-service warmth. “We’re going to review the feed on the back monitor right now.”
