Chapter 4 - The 4 AM Stakeout
The digital clock on the dashboard of Jolie’s pickup read 4:02 AM.
The Amarillo streets were pitch black, drowned in a freezing autumn drizzle that turned the asphalt into dark, reflective obsidian. Jolie sat in the driver's seat, two blocks down from Strickland Hat Company, parked silently in the deep shadow of an abandoned grain elevator.
She had left Posie with Mrs. Higgins, her retired neighbor who had finally recovered from the flu. Leaving her daughter had terrified Jolie, but she knew tonight was her only chance. If Tandy Brewer filed that police report at the four o'clock board meeting today, Jolie’s business would be finished by noon.
Through a pair of hunting binoculars she had borrowed from Mrs. Higgins' husband, Jolie watched the front of the hat company.
At 4:18 AM, the same silver sedan she had spotted days earlier turned slowly onto Sixth Street. Its headlights were completely dark, navigating only by the dim yellow glow of the streetlights. It glided past the Strickland building, made a slow U-turn at the intersection, and backed into the narrow alleyway that separated the hat factory from an adjacent brick warehouse.
Jolie’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She set her binoculars down, grabbed her heavy winter coat, slipped her smartphone into her chest pocket with the camera lens pointing out, and stepped into the freezing rain.
She kept close to the brick walls, staying deep within the shadows of the building overhangs. Her rubber-soled work boots made no sound against the wet pavement. As she reached the mouth of the alley, she heard the faint, metallic scrape of an exterior lock being picked.
She peered around the wet brick corner.
A figure dressed in a black hooded windbreaker and dark work trousers was kneeling beside the Strickland company’s side entrance. The figure held a small flashlight between their teeth, working a set of tension tools into the deadbolt. Within seconds, the bolt clicked open.
The intruder slipped inside the building, leaving the side door propped open by a fraction of an inch with a small rubber wedge.
Jolie didn't hesitate. Pulling her phone out, she activated video recording and crept toward the propped door. Every instinct screamed at her to turn around and run, to call the police, to stay safe for Posie. But she knew how this worked—if the intruder fled before the police arrived, there would be no evidence, only another ruined pane and Jolie taking the blame.
She eased through the door into the pitch-black hallway.
The familiar, rich scent of cured felt, leather sweatbands, and old hardwood surrounded her. Up ahead, faint light flickered through the archway leading into the main showroom. Jolie slipped off her wet boots, moving in her wool socks across the polished timber flooring.
Through the wooden slats of a vintage display screen, she saw the intruder kneeling near the curved front windows. The person pulled a plastic squeeze bottle and a small foam paintbrush from a nylon tool pouch.
Jolie zoomed her phone camera in through the wooden slats.
The intruder pulled back the black hood to wipe sweat from their forehead under the dim light of the display cabinet.
Jolie almost gasped out loud.
It wasn't a stranger. It wasn't an outside vandal.
It was Tandy Brewer.
Tandy was carefully dabbing the thick, milky paste along the interior seam where the 1938 glass met the brass mounting frame, ensuring the chemical would eat the silicate from the inside out where exterior cleaning could never wash it away.
""Looking for a better shine, Tandy?"" a cold, deep voice cut through the dark.
May you like
Tandy froze, dropping the foam brush onto the hardwood.
From behind the tall velvet curtain of the private fitting room, Cullen Strickland stepped into the light. In his hand was a heavy industrial flashlight, its bright beam aimed squarely at Tandy's face.
