On those occasions where merchandise did find its way into pockets, Alice did as she was trained, and verbally confronted the perp. Almost always, that was enough to do the trick. Every now and again, however, a perp tried to make a break for it. A quick call on the walkie was all it took to make sure property loss didn’t happen.
Never once had Alice touched a shoplifter, just as she’d been trained. Though, of course, after every shoplifting incident she thwarted, she was again reminded—by Scout, Sunny or Payne, and sometimes by all three—to not touch anyone.
Of course.
At this point, it was getting kind of ridiculous. No matter how efficiently she performed her duties, or the fact that property loss was now nonexistent, her employers had made it clear they didn’t trust her as far as they could throw her. In their eyes, she would always be what Payne had called her—a loose cannon with a hot temper and impulse issues.
Just like her father.
But other than that dark cloud on her horizon, Alice enjoyed her job, probationary though it was. It helped that she’d become friends with most of the Private Security International crew, though she wasn’t sure Luke Keyes could ever be called a friend. He was too eager to try to trip her up with his peculiar penchant for mind games, and it was obvious she was his current favorite toy. Worse yet, she had a sinking feeling he now knew her better than she knew herself. The proof she had for this suspicion was that he’d already asked her where she was going to put in her resumé once she walked away from House Of Payne next month.
It galled her that just the day before, she’d researched what it would take to enter the Police Academy.
Her wandering attention sharpened as the young woman with the kick-ass designer coat picked up a little piggybank with Tattoo Fund scrolled on its side. Casually, like it was no big deal, the chic woman slipped it into her coat’s slash pocket.
Showtime.
“That piggybank’s not yours yet.” Alice did precisely what she was supposed to do—loomed large in the woman’s path, trying to look as menacing as possible while unclipping the walkie-talkie from her belt, just in case. “Go up to the counter and pay for it, and then you may put it in your pocket. Either that, or put it back on the shelf and leave now. These are your only choices.”
“You… hellfire-born… bitch.” To Alice’s absolute shock, the mermaid-haired woman with the gorgeous makeup and snazzy coat suddenly turned into a shrieking maniac. She swiped an arm along the shelf of piggybanks, sending the entire display of cute ceramic piggies crashing to the floor.
Startled shrieks from customers and Chantal sounded as Alice hastily brought the walkie-talkie up. “Code red, code red, co—”
“Don’t you bring your hellfire demons to my party, Satan’s fucking whore-bitch!” Still screeching profanity, the mermaid-haired woman launched herself at Alice, going for her throat as if she had every intention of murdering her.
Holy crap!
Automatically Alice reared back, narrowly avoiding the woman who’d gone from zero to Lizzie Borden in a blink of an eye. For a heartbeat she considered a defensive arm block that rolled into a quick neck chop that would hit the brachial plexus nerve cluster and put the woman down for the count without doing actual damage. But that wouldn’t work. She had her orders—no touching. Under no circumstances was she allowed to do so, because the House hired other people to do that. People they trusted. They didn’t trust her. She was a loose cannon with a hot temper and impulse issues.
In other words, a Halliday.
But maybe, just this once…
We get sued for a jillion dollars because we knowingly hired a loose cannon with a hot temper and impulse issues, House Of Payne goes down the shitter, and you and I and everyone here is out of a job.
No.
Loki would lose his job if she touched a customer. She couldn’t.
She just couldn’t.
“Kill you, kill you, kill you…” The mermaid-haired woman sobbed in her rage, ignoring the gift shop’s exit and possible escape. Instead, she was hellbent on launching another wild attack on Alice, and this time she managed to knock the walkie out of her hand.
Oh, shit.
“Chantal, get everyone out of here,” Alice yelled, backing up and keeping eye contact with the woman while gesturing for Chantal to move. All that mattered to Alice now was that she kept the woman’s attention focused on her and protecting the House’s customers. “Ma’am, look at me, okay? Just focus on me, because I want to help you. If you’re on medica—”
“Shut up, whore-bitch demon!” The woman began grabbing glass beer mugs off a shelf and began hurling them at Alice as fast as she could. “I swear to God, I will end you once and for all!”
Shattering glass exploded all around Alice, some hitting her forearms and torso as she put her arms up to protect her head.
Oh, God. Oh, God.
If this didn’t end soon, she was going to be killed by a frigging beer mug with a stupid House Of Payne logo on it. What an embarrassing way to go.
Just as that thought flashed through her mind, a mug hit her hard on the left side of her head. A sharp ringing in her ears sounded even as she went down amid the broken glass, and in half a second the woman was on her.
Horrified, Alice looked up just in time to see a fist heading her way.
*
“While my client is not claiming legal responsibility for the incident that transpired earlier—and therefore will fight any litigation that may arise from said incident—he’s more than willing to compensate you for any damages that may have occurred.” Seated at a glossy conference table in Payne’s snazzy office, a scholarly man by the name of Charles Esteban reached into a briefcase, pulled out a sheet of paper, and slid it Payne’s way. Beside him, Sunny plucked it up and scanned it cursorily before handing it to Payne. “As you can see, this is a basic NDA, requiring your discretion in exchange for monetary compensation that can be negotiated as needed. I’m sure you understand my client wouldn’t want his daughter’s good name to be dragged through the mud over this…unfortunate event.”
“Unfortunate event?” Payne didn’t bother to glance at the nondisclosure agreement. Instead, he shoved it away so hard it skidded down the entire length of the gleaming table. “Jesus, are you fucking serious? An unfortunate event is getting food poisoning and tossing your cookies on your date’s shoes. This was a vicious attack on one of my employees. For fuck’s sake, just look at her.”
As one, the room turned to look at Alice.
Oy.
For her part, Alice perched on the edge of a low-slung black leather couch positioned against the office’s interior wall, with Scout seated next to her as she tried to get a Band-Aid on the cuts Alice had on her arms and hands. Every inch of her exposed skin had been cut to ribbons, thanks to the shattered glass that had been on the floor where she and the mermaid-haired woman had tussled. Scout was now on a second box of Band-Aids that Luke Keyes had scrounged up when Alice had point-blank refused to go to the hospital.
Despite her wariness of Luke, Alice was almost pitifully grateful he’d been onsite at the time of the attack. The woman who’d attacked her was clearly unwell, so it was a relief to have a specialist like Luke on hand. He immediately took charge of controlling the woman, while another member of the security team rushed Alice upstairs and out of public view.