Chapter 9 #2
He nodded and went to work. The dock clanged, the pallet jack sang, and the hum of the warehouse surged back to life. Busy was good. Busy kept you from remembering that last night you’d pressed your spine to a steel partition, counted breaths, and prayed you’d hear boots you recognized.
By noon, Ty had the dumpster half-emptied onto a tarp. He held up a wad of shrink wrap, then a handful of zip ties, then, “Uh. Boss?”
I limped over. He’d found a small plastic bag jammed down in the corner, the kind you’d keep bolts in. Inside were four SD cards and one of my branded key fobs, the leather star I sometimes clipped to special orders. My logo stared up at me like a dare.
“Who throws those out?” Ty asked.
“No one,” I said. My mouth had gone dry. “Not unless they want us to find them.”
Marnie hovered. “What do we do?”
I took the bag and walked it back to the office.
My skin prickled the whole way, like eyes tracked me from the tinted truck around the corner.
I slid one SD card into the reader. Entry feed flickered to life, not black.
Clear. A figure in a hooded jacket moved under the camera angle, head down, gloves on, movements quick and calm.
He walked like a man who’d been inside before.
He reached up, popped the SD card, and replaced it with a blank one.
It took him fifteen seconds. He never showed his face.
I rewound. The timestamp read 02:11. Two minutes later, the front door latch clicked, and he let someone else in.
Smaller. A woman, judging by the height, the set of the shoulders.
She wore a ball cap and a scarf pulled high.
They moved together through the retail floor like a mapped route.
They didn’t touch the register. They didn’t force anything.
They walked straight to the office corridor, out of frame.
Four minutes later, they came back. The woman carried nothing.
The man had a roll of shipping labels in his hand.
“Copycat labels,” I murmured.
Marnie’s hand covered her mouth. “What did they do?”
“Either tagged boxes with their own labels or swapped ours out on a few high-value shipments,” I said. “Either way, someone downstream gets a stolen box, and the tracking looks like it went to the right place.”
“Why us?”
I stared at the screen. “Because we’re fast,” I said. “Because I ship more volume than anyone else within two hours of here. Because if you want to skim, you go where there’s motion and margins.”
I didn’t say the other reason thrumming cold behind my ribs: because whoever this was, knew me and the layout.
Knew the camera’s blind spot in the entry because we’d never moved the mount after the Christmas display last year.
Knew I’d come here this morning, limping on a bruised hip, pretending I could outrun last night with a clipboard and a label gun.
My phone buzzed again.
Unknown number: Should’ve stayed in Vegas, Mrs. Felder.
The words swam for a second, then sharpened. Mrs Felder. The ring went cold on my finger.
I took a screenshot. My thumb hovered over Lincoln’s name, then pulled away. Call him and he’d be here. Call him and I’d get exactly what I craved and exactly what I couldn’t stand: control I didn’t ask for.
Instead, I texted Lexie the screenshot.
Me: On my way.
“Going to lunch?” Marnie asked lightly, reading my face like a book.
“Meeting Lex,” I said. “Keep the doors locked. No walk-ins, appointments only until I’m back. If that white dually is still parked on Second, call Clay, ask him to block the dock with his rig.”
“You think that’ll scare them off?”
“No,” I said, grabbing my coat. “I think it’ll annoy them. I’m in the mood to annoy someone.”
The air outside bit at my cheeks. The white dually was still in the shade, engine idling like a lazy heartbeat. The ball cap man wasn’t visible through the tint. Of course, he wasn’t.
I unlocked my truck, tossed my bag in, then paused. On my windshield, caught under the wiper, someone had left a loop of braided barrel rein, cheap, knock-off leather, dyed a red that bled if you touched it. A charm dangled from the knot: a tiny tin star.
My brand. Their hands.
I didn’t flinch, I didn’t give the truck the satisfaction of a stare. I slid into the cab, locked the doors, and dialed a number I kept for when I wanted things handled without paperwork.
“Kipp,” I said when he picked up, voice smooth as a blade. “It’s Kristin. I need a camera upgrade and a couple of extra pairs of eyes. Quiet ones.”
There was a beat. No questions. “Tell me where,” he said. “We’ll be there by four.”
I hung up and finally hit Lincoln’s name.
He answered on the first ring. “Tin.”
“Don’t growl at me,” I said, and my voice came out steadier than I felt. “I’m fine.”
“Define fine.”
“Someone played games at the warehouse last night,” I told him enough to make him angry. Not enough to make him tear the door off the dually with his bare hands. “I’m meeting Lexie at the diner. Then I’m coming home.”
Silence hummed for a heartbeat. “Stay where people can see you,” he said finally, the command low and even. “I’m ten minutes out.”
Of course, he was. I closed my eyes and let myself want that, just for one second. Then I exhaled, opened them, and pulled onto Main.
As I passed Second, the dually eased off the curb. Not following. Not overtaking. Just sliding into traffic two cars back, like we were both headed the same direction by coincidence.
Sure. Coincidence.
My phone buzzed again.
Unknown number: You always did look better in red.
I flicked the message away without reading it twice, turned into the diner lot, and parked where the whole damn town could watch me eat a grilled cheese with my lawyer cousin.