He hefted one. “Like two shirts lighter per box.”
I slit the tape on the nearest case. Sizes and colors were correct, but when I counted, we were short ten hoodies per case instead of twelve. Multiply that by the pallet, and the number tightened in my gut. Someone had skimmed. Not at the factory; I thoroughly vetted my manufacturer. Somewhere between the freight hub and here, or, at here, under my nose.
Marnie swore softly. “We signed the bill of lading on count.”
“On pallet count,” I said. “Not unit.” Which meant that if we wanted to push it, it’d turn into a finger-pointing match between freight and fulfillment. Good luck with that.
The bell on the front door chimed. I straightened, hip complaining, and moved out to the retail floor. A man wandered in like he was just killing time, mid-forties, ball cap with an oilfield logo, wind-burnt cheeks, hands that had seen real work. He drifted past the headstalls and the barrel reins, pausing at the case of custom bits. I clocked his boots first, new but scuffed like someone had dragged them on gravel for effect. The wrong kind of scuffs.
“Can I help you?” I asked, easy.
He tipped his chin at the bits. “You cut deals on those?”
“I cut deals if you buy six at full price,” I said. “And if I know your horse.”
His mouth twitched. “Fair.”
He didn’t look at my face long enough to register recognition, but not enough to get caught in the gaze. The way men who don’t want to be remembered glance. He picked up a set of barrel reins, thumbed the braiding, and set them down again. “Busythis morning?” he asked casually, gaze flicking past me toward the office corridor.
“Nothing’s slow around here. Can I help you find something?”
He smiled like I’d just told him a secret, then shook his head. “Just looking.” He wandered another aisle, then left without buying a thing. When the door shut, the bell jangled too long, like someone had pulled it hard on purpose.
I watched the glass for his reflection. He didn’t go to a truck parked out front. He walked down the block and climbed into an older white dually idling in the shade, windows tinted darker than they should’ve been. It didn’t pull out.
Heat slid under my skin. I went back to the office and checked the alley feed. Rear lot, empty. Side street camera, grainy, low angle, enough to make out the taillights and nothing else. I jotted the partial plate I could see. Useless without a favor or a warrant.
At ten, Clay backed his freight rig to the dock, hopped out with his clipboard and his hundred-watt grin. “Morning, boss. Weather says we’ve got flurries by two, so I’m trying to earn my gold star early.”
“Earn it by telling me why we’re short ten per case on the Wrangelrs,” I said.
His smile slipped. “We pulled those direct from the hub yesterday.”
“On pallet count.”
“On pallet count,” he admitted, wincing. “You want me to raise hell?”
I should have said yes. I should have demanded a tracing ticket and every boring piece of paper that went with it. Instead, I heard my own voice come out carefully. “Flag it. Quietly. And if you hear anything weird on the driver channel, call me, not the group text.”
Clay studied me. “Trouble?”
“Just don’t want a mess on socials,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. It also wasn’t the truth.
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 throughthe 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.
