Off Balance

Chapter 1

"Oh, glory be. Buy one, get one free on Häagen-Dazs Rocky Road."

Charlotte Wiggins counted the products in her cart. A few quarts of ice cream would put her over the ten-items-or-less limit allowed at express checkout. Well, tough. If the cashier gave her a hard time, she'd claim the ice creams should only count as one since they were all the same flavor. She scooped up four frosted cartons and tossed them into her cart.

When Charlotte looked up she caught a stock boy staring her direction from farther down the aisle. He quickly looked away and took up whistling, but Charlotte wasn't fooled. The Popsicles he was removing from the freezer case were the same ones he'd been stocking when she passed him seconds before.

Creepy.

She pushed her cart to the end of the aisle and around the corner. Seconds later Creepy Stock Boy appeared again, this time from behind the Cheetos display. He avoided her eye and immediately resumed his stock boy duties, but while Popsicles and Cheetos no doubt fell into the People-Who-Bought-X-Also-Bought-Y category, no way did they belong together on a shelf outside the freezer case, halfway down the chip aisle. As proof, he ran out of shelf space and pounded a few Doritos bags flat to make more room.

Very creepy.

Charlotte hurried to the front of the store where there was safety in numbers and glanced from lane to lane. Damn. This was more safety than she wanted.

At least the line for express checkout was short, only one cart ahead of her, pushed by a young woman in a dress fit for clubbing. Make that one teenager, not even legal drinking age, who had obviously been out partying last night and had yet to make it home.

The girl had a cart heaped full with no less than two hundred loose cans of cat food, which could mean only one thing: she was prepared to carry Charlotte's argument about like items counting as one to the extreme.

The girl rolled up to the register with a defiant expression. Not her fault. Defiance was the default strategy in the teenager playbook. Plus she had two hundred cans of cat food. Obviously she was well on her way to becoming a crazy cat lady. No, the cashier was the one who needed to be the adult in the room and point catwoman to a different lane.

But the cashier--Kaylee, according to her nametag--didn't seem overly concerned about rules. Seconds passed before she reluctantly set down her phone and picked up a can. Then instead of scanning in one price and counting cans, she proceeded to scan each in separately. Charlotte frowned. How could one person have so much trouble locating bar codes? Did she not realize they were in the same spot on every label?

Charlotte checked the time on her phone. She glanced around to see how the other lines were moving. What the hell? Creepy Stock Boy ducked when she caught him staring at her from two aisles over. Nope. Popsicles didn't belong in the candy rack, either. Enough was enough. She held her phone high and snapped a photo of him lurking.

As slow as Kaylee was at scanning, the pimply-faced bagger at the end of the aisle couldn't keep up, mostly because nearly all of his attention was focused on Kaylee, who did eventually finish ringing up the order. "That will be fifty-one dollars even."

Party Girl shook her head. "That can't be right. I only have fifty dollars."

"Yeah, no. It doesn't work that way. You want to put something back?"

"No."

The two stared each other down.

"Well, you're going to have to," Kaylee finally said. "You don't have enough to cover all this." Apparently she did believe in rules when they affected her.

Party Girl motioned toward the lacy negligee of a dress she was wearing. "Money doesn't matter to me. Does this look like the kind of dress a poor person would be able to afford?"

"Kind of."

"And we're only talking a buck. Can't you just let it go this time?"

"No. I have to turn in my drawer at the end of the shift. If it doesn't add up, it comes out of my paycheck."

Party Girl slammed her purse down on the counter. "Fine. Take one can out, then."

"They're buy one, get one."

"Okay, two then."

Kaylee removed two cans and keyed in the adjustment. "Fifty . . . and forty-nine cents."

"Close enough," Party Girl decided. She dropped a fistful of one-dollar bills on the conveyor belt.

Kaylee frowned and removed two more cans, then adjusted the order, picked up the bills, and started counting. "What the hell? There's only forty-three dollars here."

"Oh, for Pete's sake," Charlotte said. She dug through her purse and pulled out a ten. "There. Paying it forward."

Party Girl shot her a look. "Bitch, please. Didn't you see this dress I'm wearing? I don't need your money." She pointed to the four cans that had been set aside and asked Kaylee, "Since she's making up the difference, would it be okay if we put those back in?"

Kaylee looked up at Charlotte with a hopeful expression.

"No!" said Charlotte. "No, we can't," she told Party Girl. "You're supposed to be grateful and go."

Silence.

"Well, at least go."

"Fine. No need to get testy." The teen wheeled her cart away in a huff.

"Have a nice day," Kaylee called after her in a robotic tone. "Welcome to MegaMart," she added, which Charlotte realized had been directed her way only after she saw the bagger packing items that looked more familiar. Kaylee reached for the Häagen-Dazs. "Oh, I love Rocky Road."

"Me too."

"Price check on aisle two."

Once Charlotte finally got through checkout, she glanced around to see if Creepy Stock Boy was still lurking nearby. Let him follow her outside. She had an emergency alert siren on her key fob she'd been dying to try out.

She exited the store and stared blankly. Where the hell had she parked? She pressed her remote and followed the sound over two rows to where her teeny Jeep sat sandwiched between two huge vans. A man stood near her door, mostly hidden from view. Her finger moved to the alert button, but it wasn't Creepy Stock Boy. Not even close. He was a young man, kind of cute, who looked completely helpless as he struggled to open the door to his van while cradling two overstuffed grocery bags in his arms.

"Hang on," Charlotte said. She dropped her key fob into her pocket and stowed her cart. "Need an extra hand?"

His face split into a warm grin. Make that really cute. "Could you? That would be great." He backed up a step to allow her room.

Charlotte lifted the handle and pulled his door wide. For just one second it occurred to her that she was standing in front of a stranger's open van, mostly hidden from view of the public, with the stranger within easy pushing distance behind her. But she was safe, right? He couldn't do anything. Not with his arms full.

Something crashed to the pavement by her feet. His groceries!

The moments that followed seemed to pass in slow motion. Charlotte stabbed a hand back into her pocket. She pressed her alert button with her thumb while making a fist around her keys. A gasp of breath, heart pounding, she spun around swinging. The man's eyes widened. He grimaced as she connected with his cheek. Then that grimace morphed into panic as he fumbled and dropped the two bags he held cradled in his arms.

Which didn't make sense. He'd already tossed down his groceries before to free up his hands, hadn't he? How could they be falling again now?

Onto the pavement.

Next to Charlotte's purse.

That she must have dropped when she slid back his door.

Oops.

"Ow, what the hell?" he yelled. At least that's what Charlotte thought he yelled. Hard to hear, what with her emergency alert siren blaring away like a tailgating ambulance.

All eyes turned toward the ruckus, even two aisles over, where a teenager in a sleazy party dress stopped unloading one hundred ninety-six cans of cat food into her car to locate the source of the disturbance. What Party Girl should have paid more attention to was the open door of the black SUV parked next to her car. Rough hands clamped over her face and dragged her inside. The door swung closed with a bang. A strange man whispered in her ear.

"Hey, beautiful. Love the dress. I was watching you inside. I know you don't care, but the express aisle is for people with ten items or less."

She screamed, a weak muffled sound that barely escaped the hand clamped over her mouth.

"And you weren't very nice to that cashier, were you? Or that woman who helped pay for your groceries."

"Fuggoo," she managed to say.

"No, see, you have that backwards. Are you familiar with the concept of karma?"

She struggled against his grip. He sighed and spoke in a dispassionate voice. "Look, I'm not the enemy here. I won't hurt you if you do what I say."

She quit struggling and shot him the type of glare only a defiant teenager could manage, a waste, given he was unable to see her face from behind.

"In fact, I'm not going to do anything to you at all," he whispered. She eased slightly. "I'm turning you over to someone else for that."

Panic rose up inside her. She pried open her mouth and bit down hard on his hand.

"Ow! Dammit."

His grip loosened enough for her to squirm free. She threw herself against the window and screamed at the top of her lungs. An older man moseyed past with a dog on a leash. He gave no indication he heard as he stopped in front of her car and allowed his dog to hike a leg. She beat the glass with both fists. He completely failed to hear. The dog stared her down defiantly and watered her grill.

"Get back here." An arm snaked around her neck, pinned her tight. Sharp pain pierced her shoulder. She tried to fight, but her fury quickly burned away. Her limbs became leaden, her vision fogged. The last sight she remembered was that of her captor returning a syringe to his pocket.

"By the way," he said. "I despise cats."