1 Chapter 1

It’s almost eight o’clock on a Friday night, one hour left until the mall closes, and the music store aptly called Da Hot Spot is jumping. Hip hop music pounds from the sound system, rattling the windows and drawing a young crowd. The aisles are jammed with kids, mostly high school age and up, rifling through rows of CDs, jostling each other for a turn at the listening stations, flipping through the poster racks, thumbing through the discount DVDs. Many of them aren’t there to buy anything—they want to be seen, so they stand in small little groups of friends and flick their collars, straighten their jackets, slick their hands through already perfect hair.

In a small city with little else to do, this is the place to be.

At one end of the sales counter, as far from the noisy cash registers as he can get, night manager Bill Jackson is hunched over a notebook, finishing up his leakage report for the week. By now, he no longer notices the din—the music, the chatter, the laughter and shouts and shrieks…he’s deaf to it. In his mind, he’s already skipped ahead to a time when the store empties out, the gates come down, and the staff cleans up the mess left behind, like a catering crew after a VIP event. The vacuum needs a new belt, he remembers, making a note of it on a stray slip of receipt paper close at hand. And the speaker behind the poster rack sounds a little scratchy, he’ll have to have someone come in to look at that…

“Hey, Bill?”

He looks up to find Angie leaning on the counter beside him. She’s a seasonal employee, only helping out for the Christmas break, but she worked there this past summer when she was home from college and she’s like a walking Wikipedia when it comes to music. The customers love it—if someone’s looking for a certain song but doesn’t know the title or artist, Bill directs them her way. She’s scary good. “A song about a waitress from the eighties?” he heard her say earlier in the evening. “That’s easy. ‘Don’t You Want Me’ by the Human League.” Then later, another customer with a different request—“A girl singing about taking a cab? On the radio now? Try ‘Party in the USA’ by Miley Cyrus or…hey! It might be ‘Waking Up in Vegas’ by Katy Perry. Check that one out.”

Now she stands so close to Bill, he almost thinks she’s flirting. Her arm rests against his and she cups her chin in her hand as she leans down to peer at his notebook. In a nonchalant voice, she tells him, “Don’t look now, but I think those guys over by the new releases are stealing something.”

Of course, Bill’s head swings up automatically and he sees them. Two young African-American guys in their twenties flip through the store’s newest CDs. One wears a long white T-shirt, even though it’s the middle of December and about thirty degrees outside. The shirt hangs down past his waist and, where the hem ends, Bill sees a thin strip of striped boxers above the drooping waistband of the guy’s jeans. His hair is a mess of curls, as if he hasn’t bothered cutting it for a few months now, and the end of a hair pick sticks out from it at a jaunty angle.

Bill knows it’s the other guy Angie suspects of shoplifting. He’s slightly larger, with darker skin, hair cropped so close it fades into his scalp, and a smoke-colored bubble jacket in a style that’s so popular nowadays. His hands are fisted deep into the jacket’s pockets, but Bill knows there’s plenty of room for a CD or two crammed down in there, too. The guy wears sweatpants and, when he turns, Bill sees a large bulge in the front that might be stolen goods.

Or it might be ten inches curved into a jock,Bill reminds himself. He’s always thought sweatpants show off a man’s best assets, and this guy’s hung.

The kicker, though, is the glance he throws Bill’s way before he turns back to his friend. Just a little look, nothing anyone could point out, but Bill saw it. From across the crowded store, those honey-colored eyes found his, and what he saw in their depths made his knees weak. Sweet Jesus. Ten inches, then. At least.

Angie nudges him in the side, breaking the spell. “He keeps doingthat,” she says with a frown. “Like he’s trying to make sure you’re not watching him or something.”

Or something,Bill agrees silently. Now that he caught the look, he knows what Angie must think it is. Glancing at his watch, he sees they still have a good hour left before closing. Then they have to clean up, and he’d planned to ask a few employees to stay and restock the shelves, and he still has the deposit to make…the last thing he needs on a busy night like this one is to make a scene over a potential shoplifter. And when it turns out Angie’s wrong about the guy…

Beside him, she hisses, “Should I call security?”

“No.” The last thing Bill wants is a bunch of mall cops storming the music store. Even without an arrest, news would spread fast. Most shop owners might like to scare off black teenagers who scope out their goods without buying anything, but those are Bill’s best customers and he knows it. If word gets out they’re shaking down customers, his business will dry up. Sales are already down because of file sharing and online retailers selling MP3s—if he loses the hip hop and rap sales base, who’s going to buy his stock? He can only sell so many country western CDs and Clint Eastwood movies before he goes under.