Chapter 4 - The Influencer’s Web
David and I both froze, our eyes locking onto the small pink electronic device in my eight-year-old’s hands.
"Chloe," I gasped, dropping to my knees. "Did you record her?"
"I was filming myself doing the silly penguin dance next to the cereal boxes," Chloe explained, tapping the screen with her small finger. "Grandma told me to send her a video every Tuesday. But right in the middle of my dance, the lady in the trench coat walked into the background behind me. The cereal shelf had mirrors on the end cap, Mom. Look."
David leaned over my shoulder as Chloe hit the play button.
The screen came alive with Chloe’s bright, laughing face, doing a goofy two-step dance in Aisle 3. But clearly visible in the mirror reflection of the end cap display just across the aisle was the beige trench coat.
The video quality was stunningly crisp 4K resolution.
The audio picked up Chloe’s childish giggles, but in the background, the woman’s voice was unmistakable. She was holding her phone to her ear, speaking into an earpiece:
*"...Yeah, Brad, I’m at the Oakridge location now. The security guard at the front is busy flirting with the cashier. The blind spot in Aisle 4 is still unmonitored; my guy checked yesterday. I’m grabbing the Swiss regenerative serum—it’s four hundred a jar. When I drop the cart, I’ll claim the retard working the aisle assaulted me. It'll create enough noise for me to walk right out the side exit during the chaos. Make sure the getaway car is idling by the loading bay."*
The word she used to describe Toby hit David like a physical blow. A vein bulged along his temple, his face flushing crimson with a mixture of raw grief and volcanic fury.
On the screen, the video continued. You could clearly see the woman—identified now as a professional thief running a calculated racket—reach into the locked cosmetic case with a skeleton master key, extract three gold boxes, and shove them into her oversized tote. Then, she walked directly behind Toby’s cart, lined up her boot, kicked the lock release, shoved the heavy metal structure with both hands into the glass shelving, and swiftly dropped the clipped security tags into the apron pocket hanging off the cart.
"That monster," David whispered, his voice trembling with absolute outrage. "She didn't just want to steal. She planned to frame a boy who wouldn't be able to defend himself."
"Who is she, David?" I asked. "Do you recognize her?"
David squinted at the paused frame of her face. "Her name is Victoria Sterling. She calls herself a luxury lifestyle influencer in Chester County, but our regional loss-prevention group sent out an internal memo three weeks ago. Two other high-end markets in Wayne and Bryn Mawr were hit with identical staged accidents. At both stores, an employee with special needs or an elderly worker was blamed for causing a major disturbance while high-dollar cosmetics vanished from the shelves. Both stores settled out of court to avoid bad publicity."
"She targets vulnerable workers on purpose," I said, cold disgust washing over me. "She knows they make easy targets because managers panic about public relations."
"She picked the wrong store today," David said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy calm. He pulled his store keys from his pocket and looked down at Chloe. "Chloe, you might have just saved Toby's life. Can you transfer that video to my phone right now?"
"Already doing it," I said, airdropping the file from Chloe's tablet directly to David's device.
Once the progress bar hit one hundred percent, David looked up at the ceiling, took one deep, centering breath, and straightened his manager's tie.
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"Sarah, take Chloe and stay two steps behind me," David commanded, his eyes blazing with purpose. "Let's go introduce Ms. Sterling to the consequences of her actions."
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