The Voyeur

                      The Voyeur
  By: Brenda Anderson

         “We have a runner!”
         He burst out of the north doors, nearly knocking an elderly Asian couple to the ground. His worn tennis shoes pound down on the damp snow in a rhythm similar to a heartbeat.  He gained ground on the son of a bitch, who wore a pair of pants about 4 sizes too large. The punk ass slowed his pace every few seconds in order to pull up his drawers. My associate picked up the pace for the last couple yards, though I couldn’t see them anymore.
         “He’s crossing the freeway right now!” Wilkes managed to speak over the radio through his gasps for air.
         Jesus. Please don’t follow him.
         “Don’t even try it, Wilkes.”
         “Wasn’t going to, Miller.”
         The police called my cell phone.
         “He just crossed I-5! He’s got on a pair of our shoes, and has a fragrance in his back left pocket. He may have ditched that already .”
         Wilkes was back near the store , almost breathing normal.
         “I almost had that bastard! Then he ran out onto the freeway like a goddamned psychopath!” he kicked the sidewalk with his foot.
         “PD will pick him up.”
         Slowly,  sirens came off of the freeway, and pulled into our parking lot. An officer jumped out of the car, and motioned  me to approach the vehicle. The kid sat in the cop car with his socks off of his feet.
         “Is this the kid?”
         “Yep. Can I get my shoes back?”
         The officer reached in the front seat and handed me the shoes.
         “Have a good night, officer. “

         Wilkes and I headed back to the office, and one of the other associates started into Wilkes the second we closed the door.
         “Dude, how could you let that prick get away from you? I would’ve crossed that freeway, who cares? Get our shit back.”
         Wilkes pointed to the shoes.
         “We did get the shoes back, dickhead. Good use your method would’ve been, huh?”
         They continued to bicker in the camera room. I took a seat at my desk, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, the phone rang.
         “Asset Protection, this is Mitch. Miller, it’s for you. It’s PD.” I pick up the line.
         “This is Cynthia.”
         “Hello Cynthia, this is officer Pratt from the Metro police department. I was just at your store picking up a shoplifter. I needed to remind you that your guys are not trained nor have authorization to cross a freeway in order to get their merchandise back. Got it?”
         “Yeah, I got it.” I wanted to kill him.
         “Wilkes!!”
         “Sorry Miller!” he said with a chuckle. “I knew you’d wanna kick my ass if you found out, I had to!”
         I walked into the camera room with my over and shorts report and smacked him on the head. He raised his arms to protect his head in a half-assed manner, and I continued to smack him.

                                                 ***

         His eyes were the same. They  looked like shaken snow globes in direct light. His teeth had a familiar roughness to them as well; too crooked and worn down to just be from  poor dental coverage. What had changed was his lips. They were pulled tight by his jaw muscles, whereas for so long, his face had a natural  looseness to it. 
         “Mr. Wilkes, do you know why I brought you into my office this evening?”
         He smirked. He leaned back in the stiff chair that he himself bolted down to my office floor years ago.
         “I see. So we going to play this game now. Ok, let me give you your next line: No ma’am, I couldn’t tell ya why you brought me back in here tonight.” He bit his lip, and winked.
         His arms rested against the backs of the chairs, waiting for my next move. I pursed my lips, nodded my head, and leaned back in my swivel chair, playing with my ring. I rubbed my leg; it was still sore from last night. This was going to get ugly.
                                                              ***

         I wasn’t the one that originally hired Wilkes onto the team; he was already a valuable asset before I even knew how to apprehend a shoplifter. In fact, I was the newbie in the beginning. I needed to clock several thousand hours of training  before the company would give me my own store to run, and they wisely decided to put me in the mammoth of all stores. At three stories high (four if you count the penthouse), and over ten thousand square feet per floor, the store is an oversized factory of retail heaven, at least on the sales floor side. The stockroom, on the other hand, was a goddamned train wreck. Refrigerators, tractors, and televisions all fought for limited space, and lined the walls of the stockrooms. This type of compact stockroom left potential for hundreds of hidden crevices and cravats, which to  employees with unlimited access, it meant a place to misbehave in private.

         On my first day of training, I knocked on the door to Asset Protection, and a bulky boy in an oversized shirt opened the door, his foot jammed in the doorway just enough to allow his head and leg through the crevice. He hovered at almost a foot taller than the top of my head, and had oversized muscles that tried to show their shape through his baggy shirt. I took a sharp breath.
         “What do you need?” he said.
         I stuck my hand out for him to shake. He looked down at it, took a quick look at my pinstriped suit, and closed the door.  I knocked again, this time a bit firmer, and he opened it again, this time with his arm leaning against the door frame.
         “Hi, I’m Cynthia Miller, the new Asset Protection Manager in training. I am training with Suzanne….Suzanne something.”
         “Andersen. Suzanne Andersen”
         “Right.”
         He let me in, eyeing me as I stepped over his foot in my heels. The office had three rooms. The room to the left was a typical office, with a desk, computer, files, and a chair, with papers strewn across the table. To the right of the formal office was a wide open room, with blue walls,  a desk, computer, office chair, and three plastic chairs in front of the desk, in the corner. I took a closer look, and realized they were chained together.
         “Why are the chairs chained?” I asked the guy.
         “Because people are assholes.” His arms were folded, and he leaned against the wall in the camera room, wiping his hands on his khakis every once in a while.
         Straight ahead is the camera room, which is five rows of glowing black and white screens,  two computer screen- sized color monitors, and two more color monitors bolted to the wall. The hum of a heavy-duty fan overpowered the mild murmur of white noise radiating from the monitors. Two leather chairs sat next to two gadgets that looked like overgrown remote controls.
         “What are those?” I pointed to the gadgets.
         “Those control the monitors.” He demonstrated how the cameras could zoom in on customers and associates alike. You could get close enough to read text messages and see acne scars. I took a seat next to one of the monitor controllers, and had my turn at the wheel. There were cameras everywhere: the receiving dock, back stockrooms, lunchroom, every nook and cranny on the sales floor, and even on the roof. I had no idea stores had so much camera coverage of their associates.
“So, you going to run in those?” He nodded towards my heels. I shrugged my shoulders.
“I could just take them off, right?” I smiled.
He nodded again. “My name is Wilkes. Mitch Wilkes. “ He started to head for the door.
“By the way, if you’re going to fit in around here, start wearing jeans.” He turned back around to face me.
“I hope you aren’t easily offended, by the way.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think I am. Why?”
He laughed. “You’ll know soon enough.”
                                                            ***
         During my first couple of days at the store, I spent what little free time I had asking about Wilkes. I had already heard some harrowing stories. There was the time he had a gun held to his head during a bad stop, and he  got the guy on the ground, beating the shit out of him before letting him go. Then there was the time that he stopped a group of five thugs during a stop-by himself-and had them all in handcuffs before PD arrived. If there was a new hire orientation, and they came into the office to do their Asset Protection tour, he would threaten them, claming that he would personally fire them if they disobeyed a rule. When he toured the store on his daily walkthrough, associates would clamor to leave the area, or they would stare down at their shoes, keeping their eyes on their work, pretending to not even notice his glare. During one stop I witnessed, the cop pulled me aside.
         “You kids don’t realize what kind of shit you  get into sometimes until it’s almost too late“ She nodded toward Wilkes, “you guys are damn lucky to have that guy on your side. If he was a couple of years older, I’d recruit him for our department.”

         As I learned more about shoplifter apprehension and the concept of alert signals, I noticed every day events in an entirely different angle. Mothers would leave their children unattended, allowing them to run around the store and get lost,  while mommy is too busy shopping . Meanwhile, she’s too distracted to notice that her child is on the other side of the store, crying alone. Men wearing ties and slacks would pick their noses and then  head out to the mall, probably to buy a quick lunch. If I had a penny for every time our office got a call about another shit needing cleanup in the women’s fitting room, I‘d be a millionaire. From hardly offensive behaviors such as wedgie picking in public, to blatantly abusive behaviors such as slapping a wife in the face when she was a smart ass, people tend to act their worst when they believe they aren’t being watched. But they are. We are all are being watched, and the people watching from the eye in the sky are just as fucked up as the rest of us. If a corporation will hire people like me to partake in omniscient judgment, we are all screwed.
                             
                                                   ***

         One morning, a couple weeks before black Friday, Wilkes and I apprehended a group of four juveniles, all with criminal records. As we waited for the police to arrive, we decided to handcuff all four kids to the chairs, just to mess with them a bit. We sat back in our computer chairs, waiting for PD.
         “Way to be, Miller. Maybe you’ll be able to keep up after all.” He patted my shoulder, and he smiled.
         His grin reminded me of playing in the dirt, making mud pies, pretending cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, and playing shoot em’ up video games (though I’m sure he still does that).  Everyone loves a hero. Nothing is more of a turn on than a man who is willing to tackle another man to the ground for a job well done. Now, I know that usually men love doing this type of thing anyway, but it’s different when it’s FOR something like an I-Pod, or a tie. That seems to make it all the more tangible, more believable. After PD took the boys away, we settled back down in front of the camera monitors. My leg brushed up against his pants, and I scooted a bit closer.
                                                 ***

         I started coming into work early every morning, just so I would get alone time with Wilkes. We would shoot the shit, talk about everything from our favorite colors , to which chicks looked hot on the camera monitors. On one particular evening in late November, when our store was open until 11pm, he gave me a late night tour of the store, which included the roof. You have to climb up a spiral staircase first . This room is quaintly nicknamed  “the penthouse”. It looks like a boiler room, only everything is dripping with water like it’s broken. The slabs of wood look completely soaked through, like they should be rotting away . Next, there is a thick metal door onto the roof, where you then have to climb up a narrow ladder, onto a more slender portion of the rooftop. It was very dark outside; the stars were covered by thick rain clouds. He climbed the ladder behind me.
         “Are you doing ok up there?”
         “Yeah, I’m fine. ” My palms were sweating.
         “Ok, just checking on you.”
         He then led me to the ledge of the roof; you have to crawl over the first walkway to get to the actual roof. I guess it’s better safe than sorry when it comes to a building this high up. If you are going to jump off, you have to be determined to do so. I would’ve bumped into the first barrier, but before I could step all the way back, Wilkes grabbed my sides, and stopped me. He started pushing me forward.
         “Stop! What are you doing?!” He kept inching me forward, as I tried to step backwards. We were at the very edge now, with my foot touching the edge of the roof.
         “C’mon, it’s fun, look how far away the bottom is, you’ll be fine! It‘s an amazing view. ”
         “Stop!” I elbowed him in the stomach, desperate for him to get my point. “This isn’t funny!” He let go.
         “It wasn’t supposed to be funny.”
         I climbed back over to the inner roof, and headed back down the ladder.
         “Let’s just get back down now.”
         He caught up to me, and as we stepped off the ladder, he put his hand on my back.
         “Wait, let’s not go back in just yet.”
         “I don’t want to get caught, Wilkes. It’s probably not a good career move to be up here for too long.” I opened the door back to the penthouse, but he slammed it shut. The late evening breeze kicked the door shut quicker than it opened.
         “No, not yet.”
         He grabbed my hand, and led me over to a part of the roof that was shrouded in complete darkness. There was no roof lighting in this corner, and the clouds covered any chance of lighting from the sky.
         “Do you see it?”
         “See what?” My eyes got used to the darkness, and I saw a small shack in front of us.
         “What’s this for?”
         “It’s where the maintenance men store their tools.” He pulled on the padlock, and it opened.          “Fortunately for us, they  forgot to lock it up correctly.”
         He led me into the cramped room, and all I could see was one large pair of cement-coated shears hanging up on some  rusted nails in the wall.  In the corner was an old wooden table, covered in pieces of nail and splintered wood. He picked me up, and set me on top. He began to kiss me, his hands wrapped around my waist. He stroked the back of my neck, which is my spot. With a little bit of attention to that area,  I will lose my mind, no matter how threatening the consequences. Thank goodness for me,  the breeze kicked up again and swung the shack door open. I woke back up out of my daze, and pulled away, looking up at the door.
         “We really should get back.”
         “Why?” He continued to kiss me, and I tried to pull away.
         “Because.” I attempted to jump down; his grasp on me tightened. I tried again, this time with more force, but his hands stayed still. This time, I successfully got off the table, and walked back to the penthouse door, and swung it open. I did not wait to see if Wilkes was going to join me, and I headed back down the twisted staircase.
         “I’ll lock the penthouse” he said behind me.
         
                                                 ***
         Wilkes adjusted his pants; he sat in those bolted  chairs for 2.5 hours, and still nothing. Not one word. He’d shrug his shoulders every once in a while, but even then he was tight-lipped.
         “Would there be a reason why someone would say that they saw you on the back dock last night?”
         He rolled his eyes, his arm crossed . He adjusted his pants again. He stared at me, moving his eyes up and down. They would dwell on my chest for a second, but would always gaze into my retinas a moment later. I swallowed, and leaned back in my chair, playing with the ring on my finger.
         “That’s your tell” . He finally spoke, and with a clear voice. He pointed at my feet.
         “What’s my tell?”
         “Your ring. That’s what you play with when you are worried about being caught.”
         I leaned back in my chair again. My damn leg still throbbed. I rubbed it, trying not to itch the stitches. I rubbed my finger, where a single silver band sat on my middle finger. My boyfriend had a matching one. 
         “How could you do this to me?”
         “Intimidating me won’t work, you know that.”
         I reached for the desk phone, but he got to it first, pulled it out of the wall, and placed it in the chair next to him. Pieces of paint fell on the carpet near the hole.
         “You were saying?” He motioned towards me.
         It was my turn.


                                                 ***
         Around early summertime, Suzanne announced her early retirement from the company. She had had enough, and despite our tight-knit team, no one could figure out why she left with no warning, not even  two weeks notice. The district manager needed a quick replacement, as inventory was fast approaching, and though most of the time someone  new to Asset Protection would get a smaller store as their first assignment, they handed me the keys to the office nevertheless.

         A couple weeks went by, and our numbers dropped dramatically from the beginning of the month. I spent each morning getting the absolute basics done; over and shorts report, answering emails, filing paperwork, and making necessary phone calls. Anything beyond that was left to the fishes. Piles of papers stacked up on my desk; the pile got so high that I began to use the interrogation room as an extra storage room. The only time of the day that my desk was clean was in the early morning or late evening, when I was pressed up against it by my associate Wilkes. Our favorite spot was in the camera room, where I’d be up against the wall, keeping an eye out for other associates or the store manager at the door. About a week into our affair, we almost got caught by my district manager. He has a key to every one of his stores, and his visit scheduled for 6pm that evening slipped my mind as Wilkes nibbled the back of my neck. The door handle jiggled, and right as Wilkes jumped off of me, in walked the district manager,  his travel bag in hand. He took one quick look at the condition of the office, and of Wilkes sitting in the chair, and informed me that we needed to have a chat. “Chat” being a euphemism for a performance write-up, of course.
         “This office has gone to hell since you’ve been in charge, Cynthia.”
         He’s never been one for sugar coating things, I guess.  I was now on a probationary period of three months; if the store’s stats got any worse in that time period, I would be demoted to a smaller store. This should’ve been the first sign that my job was in serious danger.

         The next week, an associate asked to speak in private about an incident back in December.
         “Why did it take so long for you to come forward if it’s that important?”
         “ I thought nothing of it, really. I mean, an off camera count? That type of thing happens all the time. People miscount things all the time.” I stood up.
         “You mean you’re telling me that our counts have been off for six months?” Could Suzanne really have missed such a glaring error?
         “I’m sorry I didn’t tell  you earlier. Like I said, I thought nothing of it.”

         After digging into my camera counts notebook ( I had copies of all the counts the whole time, and am baffled that someone still updated it), I noticed a poignant pattern-every Saturday, the count was erased, and the same number from the last Tuesday was written over the eraser marks. God damn it, I thought, someone’s been taking us for a long time. I put a monitor on the receiving dock, and parked my ass there for my entire shift. Nothing out of the ordinary, though I did see one of my associates hitting on a girl from the fragrances department, and needless to say, they weren’t discussing receiving discrepancies.

         Around 9pm that night, Wilkes came by the office to make the weekly schedules ( he had kept that prestigious position from when Suzanne was manager) , and we headed over to a spot on the second floor of the receiving dock,. The little nook  had makeshift benches from palletized wood. Suzanne turned this spot into a high value lock up, due to lack of space or ideas on where else to put it. He grabbed my shirt, pulled me to him, and began to bite my lip. He picked me up, and placed me on top of a wooden shelf. While I waited for him to unzip his pants, I noticed a hole in the chicken wire surrounding the lockup, right where the screws came together in the metal bar.
         “How long has this been here?”
         He peered over the metal shelf. His pants were still around his ankles.
         “No idea.”
         He pulled a camera out of his pants pocket.
         “You ready for your debut shot?” He ginned from ear to ear.
         “My, my, what a kinky boy you are.” I gave him a shy pose by kneeling down slightly, holding onto my knees.
         “Oh come on, you can do better than that!” He pestered me for another pose. I gave in, leaning my head back to the side and blew him a kiss. The shutter flashed, and the bright light blinded me for a moment. I blinked a few times, but the spot that blotted out Wilkes’ head would not fade.
                                                 ***

         I called up Suzanne the next morning, and asked her about the camera counts, and the hole in the lock up.
         “I built that lockup myself last fall, so I know there was no hole. As for the camera counts, I’ll admit, it was a long time since I took a look at those myself.  I always had an associate reconcile the counts for me, and if anything seemed wrong about the numbers, they were supposed to let me know. You know how that can go sometimes, I’m sure.”
         As soon as we hung up, I pulled out the camera count notebook. There, in black ink, was the initial list of who did the camera reconciliation. There, in a scribbled cursive, was an MW for December. I flipped the ext page; another MW for January. And February. I turned to the next page. March through June, MW.

         The next evening I went back into the high value lock up. I was going to do the camera reconciliation myself. I began counting. 4 Quickzoom cameras in the lock up; the count page says there are 15. 3 DSLR’s in the lock-up; the count claims there are 9. I should’ve been doing this count myself for months, or at least going back to validate it. I finish the count, and realize that we are off by over 55 cameras. I look for a seat on something; a box or a shelf, anything so I can try to think. 55 cameras. I’m so fired. There’s no way I can keep my job after losing 55 cameras, especially when my title is “Asset Protection Manager”. I grab my count sheets and decide to just call up the district manager myself, and give my two weeks notice. As the door swings shut, I notice a piece of plywood, alone on a massive wall of chicken wire. That wasn’t there yesterday, I thought. It was wired into the neatly trimmed hole that I found while on my back last night. The cameras are being stolen, and shipped out overnight. It was a no-brainer when I thought back to the hole in the lock-up. Why didn’t I see this earlier?

         I head back to my office, but decided to take a detour on the way. I stop by my favorite thinking spot in the store-the upper roof. I went  up the spiral staircase, through the dripping wet penthouse, and out into the night. It was really warm out, and with the tar-covered concrete absorbing heat all day, it was about 10 degrees hotter up here than inside. I glanced at my little shack, in the very corner of the roof.; it’s so small in comparison to the black night surrounding the building. I took the ladder up to the upper level, climbed the first section of the roof, and perched on the very ledge, my back against the metal chimney. The view from above is crystal clear, with the open skyline lit up in the setting sun. Stars form on the horizon. The cars on the freeway in the distance flutter around, waiting for their destinations. I close my eyes and sigh. There’s no way it could be him, it’s got to be someone else.

         I head back down the first ladder, to the shack. He’s there, his arm up against the wall, just like that first afternoon I saw him in the office. He grabbed my waist and began to ravage me, ripping off the buttons to my blouse. He held me close for just a second, looking down at me. His eyes sparkled with gold specks, like stars. He began kissing my ear and neck. My eyes roll back, but before they closed, I spotted a speck in the corner; it was off-white, with a base at the bottom. And hanging down from the back, I saw it:  a wire. I let him finish, not wanting to arouse any suspicion.

         After he left for the evening, I started playing with my camera system; I quickly realize I know little about it, despite working in this office for nine months, three of those as a manager. I punch random numbers into the system, half hoping I wouldn’t find it there. But there it was, camera number 177 (our  camera monitors stop at 70). There, staring back at me, was the shack. It was dark on the monitor, but I could make out the slit of dusk through the opened door, pushing through the crevice. Was it on 24 hour record? I pulled up my computer system , and started milling through the days, trying to figure out which cameras were on record. There is a recording for this evening on camera 177, and I press “play”.  The monitor clicks over to a familiar scene: I’m fucking one of my associates. I continue to search through the computer system, and find an entry for camera 177 from 24 days ago. I hit “play”, and see him with a redhead. She’s bouncing up and down, and though there is no sound, I assume she’d be moaning. I found a third entry for 29 days ago; this time, it was a woman with long black hair, pulled back in a tight ponytail. I hit “delete”, and turned off all the cameras for the evening. I sat in the dark for a moment, and let it sink in.  It was the most expensive pornography I’d ever seen. The black monitors knew it all; it’s funny how they seem to know all the answers, even with nothing on their screens.

         After moping for a couple more minutes in complete darkness, I decided to use my misery in a productive manner, and do a final sweep of the store and its perimeter before I closed the building. As I approached the dock, I noticed a small box under one of our drop trailers. I got closer and picked it up. An empty camera box.

         I ran back into my camera room, and flipped the switch. The monitors came alive, restless from their short nap for the evening. Once they warmed up, I pulled down the 24 hour camera for the receiving dock onto the main monitor. I started as far back as our system could go-30 days-and began observation. There was nothing out of ordinary for about five days of footage. But on day six, my answer appeared. The timestamp said 0600 hours, which is right as the opening associates arrived for their shifts. A shadowy figure, scampering across the already dark screen, opens the dock about a foot, and begins pulling boxes out of the darkness, stacking them in front of the dock door. Another unknown person grabbed the boxes. Another stack. Another. Then another. Five stacks of about four or five tiny boxes leave the dock. I spot the man in black leaning against the metal dock door. Though the only lighting came from a slim grey sliver from underneath the dock door, I knew that stance anywhere. I backed away from the camera room, my back skimming the wall. I pace around my office, frantic to come up with another explanation, besides the obvious.  It may not have been him; I could’ve been seeing things. Maybe he was called in early and no one told me, and he was helping unload an early morning truck. But the answer was right there. The camera never lies. It took every bone in my body to not break the tape into tiny pieces, and just pretend that I never saw it. But once you see the truth, it’s too late to go back. I turned the monitors off again, and sobbed in the darkness for the second time that evening. I had to gather myself up, and continue on, though I no longer wanted to play this game.

         I had to begin a plan of attack for the next day. I knew I had to interview him, but what would I say? I’ve had successful interviews ; I’ve gotten written confessions in the past. But,  the tricks, the rules, he knew them all. Every twitch of or blink, he’ll be able to interpret and translate. How do you beat one of the best? Before I could answer that, the door opened. It was Wilkes, in a grey hooded sweatshirt. His eyebrows were drenched in sweat, and he wiped his face with his sweatshirt sleeve.
         “What are you doing here so late?
         It was a pointless question; I clearly knew the answer.
         He reached into his pocket, and out came a butterfly knife. He whipped it open with one swift whap.
         “I’m sorry Cynthia; I really had no idea you’d be here.”          
He tried to grab my arm, but I pull away in time, and attempt to reach the front door of my office. Before I can grab the knob, he shoves me into the interrogation room. I run back to the doorframe, desperate for the door. He intercepts, and picks me up by the waist. As I’m hanging off of him like a rag doll, he flings me onto the bolted chairs. Before I can protest, he has the knife to my face.
         “You look so pretty on camera, Cynthia. I’d hate to be the ruin your good looks. Maybe we should just keep this little theft fiasco between you and me, eh? You don’t give a shit about your job anyway.”
         “You are wrong about that! I have cared about my job! I just cared about-” I paused.
He sat next to me in the chairs. He placed his hand on my chin, and set the knife down.
         “About what?” he said.
         “About you.”
         He smiled, and looked into my eyes. His eyes were not soft anymore; they were crystallized ice cubes.
         “That’s so nice of you. Now lets get back to business: are you going to tell anyone about our situation here?” I bit my lip.
         “Of course not.”
         He kissed me. I wanted to push him away, turn him in to PD, and watch while he rot in prison for a couple of years. But I had a feeling if I did that, I’d end up leaving the interrogation room in a body bag. And in a way, I wanted him to kiss me, to feel him next to me one more time, before I  called the police.
Suddenly, pain spilled out of my leg, and instinctively I grabbed it. I looked down. In my leg, was the butterfly knife. I looked at Wilkes.
         “A little encouragement.” He got up and headed toward the door.  “I’ll be here at my normal time tomorrow. See you then.” He closed the door.
         I am shaking and sweating. I’ve never been in shock before, but I’m sure this is what I’m experiencing. I quickly decide that since I know so little about anatomy and medical issues, that taking the knife out myself would be a bad idea. I grab onto the tops of the chairs, and pull myself up on my other leg. I hop over to my desk, with the help of the wall and the doorframe holding up most of my body weight along the way. I grab the phone. I call the ambulance, and lean against my desk while I wait for an aid car. How could he do this to me? The pain is affecting my whole body; I cant even form full thoughts, it’s all muddled over with the pain filling in the blanks. I looked  down at my leg. The knife was finely etched, with spirals and swirls inscribed in the handle. There were some initials on the knife blade. I could only see some of the letters, since the other part of the knife was buried into my flesh. However, there was just enough of the blade sticking out of my leg to clearly see two letters: MW.
                                       
         The next day, he came into work as planned. I was in the hospital all night, having my leg stitched up, but I had to get to work. I had an interview to conduct. As soon as he clocked in for the day, I told all the other associates to leave. They all left, and it was just Wilkes and I. I told him to take a seat in our interrogation room. He smirked, and took a seat.
                                                           ***
         I decided it was time to be proactive; otherwise, we would never leave this room.
         “Mr. Wilkes, where are the cameras?”
         He shook his head.
         “You know I wouldn’t take from you.”
         I took a breath, trying to keep the tears bubbling out of my throat at bay.
         “So why did you do it, Wilkes? Didn’t have anyone to borrow money from? What was it for?” He smiled.
         “It was for you, Miller. It was all for you.”
         I shot out of my chair, slamming against the table, My thigh was bleeding again; I could feel the dampness rubbing against my skirt.
         “You fucking liar!”  I start to lose it. I see him looking at me, completely blank. He blinked.
         “I know. Now let me go home.”
         “You didn’t answer me. Why did you do it? Who did you need to pay off? Your girlfriend, did she find out about us? Wanted money or merchandise as compensation for your bullshit?”
         He leaned back in his seat and cleared his throat, wiping his palms on his shorts.
         “It wasn’t my girlfriend.” He looked down, his head hung in between his legs, like a dog. I had him. Yes! I got you to confess! Now tell me why!
         “Then who was it, Wilkes? Who would make you do such a thing?
         “Your boyfriend. That’s who made me do this.” He had to be lying.
         “That’s shit, and you know it. You’ve never talked to him in your life; how could he make you steal cameras?”
         “He wanted…compensation.”
         “Compensation? What was there to compensate?”
         “Everything, Cynthia. He never saw us together once, but it doesn’t always take seeing a truth to know it‘s there.”
         I sat back down. Was he right? I tapped my foot, while he sat there, staring back at me, rubbing his shorts with his palms. Then it hit me; that’s Wilkes’s tell. He rubs his palms on his pants when he’s lying. I’ve got you . I smiled.
         “Sit down” I said. He took a seat. I passed him the document. The confession statement. 20 black lines on a blank sheet of 8.5x11 piece of paper. Handwritten words from Wilkes’s on this single piece of paper will either bring admiration, or condemnation.
         “It’s time to give me your statement, Mr. Wilkes.”
         “You want me to condemn your own boyfriend, Miller? Because that’s what I’ll do, if you don’t let me leave.”
         “You’ll do what you want, regardless. You know that, Wilkes. Now” I nod towards the pen,          “write your statement. Start out with the date of when you took the first camera.” He threw the pen at me.
         “You think you know the answer? Then you write it!” he headed for the door. Instead of trying to stop him from leaving, I pick up my cell phone, and make a phone call.
         “He’s coming out now” I said.
                                                 ***

         
                                                 ***
         He headed out of the office, and  out the closest exit, which is right outside Asset Protection. The Metro Police, along with the Fire department were in the parking lot, their sirens howling. Ahead of the bunch stood a familiar face-Suzanne.
         “Get down on the ground!” The police came up on Wilkes, guns pulled.  Wilkes complied, his heavy body slowly backing down onto the concrete below him, hands up, face down. Suddenly, the fire department bursts into our doors, past my office, and head out onto the sales floor. I follow them.
         “What are you doing?! Get out of my store! You’re going to scare away customers!”
         “Ma’am, the suspect in question has allegedly lit your roof on fire.”
         I stop mid-step.
         “What do you mean my roof is on fire?”
         “Ma’am, he lit your roof on fire. He tried to burn the store down.”
         I turn around and walk outside, into the line of fire. I pick him up, despite the shouts from the police officers ahead.
         “Why the roof?!”
         “About the camera…”
         “What?“ I shook his arms.
         “The camera-” he began, but suddenly changed his mind as he slumped back down  the concrete. I cradled his jaw in my hands.
         “Thank you.” I set his head back onto the concrete.
         I walked up to one of the police officers at the scene, and pulled the butterfly knife out of my pocket. The hospital found a way to keep it in one piece.
         “Give this back when he gets out of jail. He’ll know who it’s from.”
                                                 
         After the firefighters extinguished the blaze, I went back up to the roof. The floor was charred from the fire earlier, with chunks of burnt plaster crumbling off the walkway.  I went into the shack, which was still standing, despite Wilkes‘s attempt to burn it down. There, in the corner, was the camera. It had melted, and though it hung down by a wire, was completely useless and inoperable. I pulled it out of the wall, wire included. I carried it up the metal ladder, to the upper roof. It was dark out now; it took the fire department hours to get the blaze out. I climbed over the inner roof, and out to the edge, camera in hand. I stood above the concrete below. My store was closed for the day; we stayed open until an hour ago, since only the Apocalypse will close down a department store. I took a big breath and a quick look around the parking lot; there was no one here but me. I let my arm swing back, and let the camera free fall, its black remains smashing onto the ground below, unrecognizable to the onlookers that would pass by it tomorrow morning.

         When I return to my office, I notice Wilkes backpack still sitting by my desk. I pick it up, and its contents flew out onto the carpet. Cameras. Roughly 30 or more cameras, all different types, just sitting in his bag. At the bottom, a stack of computer paper. I took a look at the paper; they were all pictures of him with different women: with me, with the blonde, with the long dark haired woman, with a redhead. I flip to a picture of us in the camera lock-up, and it hits me: if he’s not holding the camera, who is? I throw all the pictures back into the backpack, and open up the other pockets. It’s time to find out a name, and what department he’s from. As I’m about to start digging through  the bag, my phone vibrates on my desk. It’s my boyfriend.

         “When are you coming home?”

         “I’ll let you know. Sometime soon. Love ya.”

         As I hit the red “end” button on my phone, a picture flies out of the backpack. I drop my phone in horror as I stare down at a photograph of Wilkes and I together. There, in the corner left of the picture, was the blurred image of a hand with a silver band on his middle finger.