Forcing myself not to grin, I placed my palms on the counter. “Ma’am, I’m looking for someone, and I wanted to find out if you may have seen him.”
“Oh, goodness,” she muttered, placing her hand on her chest. “I can help if I can.”
I gave her the same description I’d given everyone else. This time, rather than shrugging and shaking her head, she frowned and put a hand on her hip. “Hmph, I knew that guy was up to no good.”
My good-natured grin vanished, and I leaned forward, hungry for information. “You’ve seen him. You know who I’m talking about?”
“Couldn’t miss him. He’s a sneaky little asshole. Chased him out of here about three days ago. Stole a pair of pants and a couple of T-shirts. He’s got to be the one you’re looking for. I filed a report, but you all didn’t act like it was a big deal.”
“We?”
“The cops,” she said, exasperated. “You all.”
“Oh, right.” In my excitement, my cover had slipped my mind. “Well, it’s a big deal now. You said three days ago. Does your store keep surveillance footage that far back?”
She nodded and smiled proudly. “Yup. Got our system hooked up to the cloud a while back. It’s all there.”
I wasn’t entirely sure this woman really knew what the cloud was, but I was happy to hear I might actually get a look at this guy.
“Ma’am, would you mind if I saw that footage?”
“Sure, sure, hang on.”
She walked away and called for someone to come watch the front, then she led me to the store room in the back. In the far corner, a small desk and chair made up the shop’s office. A few scattered papers and two empty cans of diet soda sat beside a desktop computer.
She sat down and logged in. “Let me pull the security tape up.”
A few minutes later, she had the program up, and a live shot of the store appeared on screen. The footage was broken up into four windows showing different camera angles. One showed thesales counter and register, another with a shot of the sales floor, a third at the front entrance, and a final shot of what appeared to be a rear delivery door.
“This is it,” she said, turning in her chair.
“Do you happen to remember exactly what day he came in?” I asked hopefully.
She grimaced. “I don’t. It was three days ago, though. I know that for sure.”
“Do you mind if I scan through the past video?”
“Sure, Officer,” she said.
She showed me the control buttons and left me to work. Sitting on the vacant chair, I proceeded to rewind the feed. I didn’t wholly trust the woman’s memory. Just to be sure, I went back five days, played the recording back at three times normal speed, and sat back to watch.
The days went by in jerky, fast-forward movements. Shoppers milling about the store, the woman I’d spoken to, and a few other employees milling about adjusting merchandise, sweeping, dusting, and talking to customers. After an hour, I finally found what I’d been searching for, paused the tape, rewound it, and played it back at normal speed.
I’d been right about her memory. It had been four days ago, late afternoon, when the man came in. I noted his disheveled appearance, ratty hair, his head twitching back and forth, jumping at the slightest sound. He flitted from rack to rack, browsing in a spastic and twitchy way. He looked like a meth-head in need of a fix.
The sales lady appeared in the frame and tried speaking to him. Since there was no audio, all I could go off was the physical interaction. She approached hesitantly and said something. The man snapped his head around and snarled at her, baring his teeth as he spoke. The grizzled, overgrown beard obscured his mouth, making it impossible for me to read his lips.
As he grabbed a few hanging items from a rack, the woman again tried to say something. She pointed a commanding finger toward the door. Moving with the speed of a shifter, the man lunged past her, almost knocking her aside, and ran out the door with his stolen goods. Within a second, he was gone. He’d only been in the store for about seven minutes.
Rewinding the tape, I tried to find the best shot of his face. I paused the screen at the moment he turned and growled at the woman, then zoomed in. His eyes were wild with madness and the rage that accompanied going feral.
As I stared into those eyes, I wondered if that would ever be me. Would I one day become some slavering, bestial monster? More beast than man? As much as I didn’t want to believe it would happen to me, it was the fate of most lone wolves. Suppressing a shudder, I looked away from the screen.
Beneath the desk, I found a color printer and printed out a picture of the guy. I could keep that for reference, but I needed more to go off. Tugging my phone out of my jacket pocket, I snapped a picture of the face on the screen, then pulled up my contacts. The final contact in my phone had no name attached, just a long list of numbers, longer than a typical phone number. An untraceable VoIP designation number. I opened a text thread, then sent the picture.
As I waited, I stared at the screen, and my thoughts drifted to the woman I’d met a couple of days ago. Cameron Torres. The wound on the back of her neck flashed through my mind. I was almost positive it was more than a cut or scrap. I’d seen the fading teeth marks. If my hunch was correct, things were going to get much worse very soon for Ms. Torres. I made a mental note to try to contact her again.
My phone rang five minutes after sending the picture.
