She was trying really hard to sound ecstatic when she told me “We are going to “The Alley” on a double date with Bobby and Jeff!”

“Who is Jeff and why would I want to go out with him?”

“He’s Bobbie’s cousin and will be visiting from New York. All you do is study and work, you need to go out and let loose a little. Come on it’ll be fun.” She was using that pleading voice that I always give into.

“I’m not 21 and don’t have any ID to say otherwise. Why would they let me in and what exactly is “The Alley”?

“It is in Newmarket Square. There are two parts to the club and we will be going to the Reggae side. Cindy is working there and Phil and Dave are at the door. I told them we were coming and they said just to walk up to the front of the line and they will let us in.”

“You seem pretty confident that I would go along with this.”

“Of course you’ll come. Otherwise I might get into trouble.” How anyone like Ann who is so sexy and hot can put on an innocent little girl type face and pull it off is beyond me. “Besides how often am I off on a Saturday night?”

“Whatever. You know how I feel about Bobby, and if his cousin is anything like him then I am going to kick him to the curb with a quickness.”

“Just give him a chance. How bad can it be?”

These are, of course, the famous last words that are always spoken right before everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

Finishing up the main storage had taken me almost three days. It is very frustrating trying to count things when people are constantly ‘straightening up’ the inventory. It occurred to me on the second day that this wasn’t just business as usual for them. There was a definite pattern to their methods. When I was getting ready to move to another section they would always be there right before me to ‘straighten and organize’ it to ‘help me’. I noticed that I seemed to be counting somethings more than once too.

I marked the outside on some of the cases on the sly, then noticed them again in a new location. When I finally got done I reported this to both Beth and Beverly. Beth did not seem to be overly concerned and said it was probably an “honest mistake”. Beverly seemed to agree with her so I thought it wasn’t a big deal. Beth was going on about her new granddaughter and said that her daughter would be out of work longer than she had originally thought.

Her niece was going to be taking over to help her. She thanked me profusely for everything I had done. I went back to the desk I used and set up my laptop to catch up on my lessons. I was deep into a macro-economics lecture when Beth left.

That’s when Beverly called me into the office and told me to sit down while she grilled me on their set up and how the place operated. I felt like I was in a stereotyped police interrogation room with no time for commercial breaks or a lawyer. Then she asked a question that surprised me.

“If you were there, how would you steal from them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes you do. How would you do it?”

“Not sure I know what to say here.” Not feeling very comfortable where this is going.

“Up until three months ago the company was making money. I know because I helped them with some accounting difficulties back then.” Difficulties? That is a term people use when things are on the shy side of legal. This is not what I expected.

“There’s no one else here. Just you and me.” Damn that woman has a flat ass stare. ‘Alright’ I thought, ‘if this is what you want to hear.’

“Something changed three months ago.