a rehab facility,” Mara said.

“She also talks,” Mason said.

“Grant complained about money in the visiting lounge.

She told him when you came here.

Family gossip.

Useful thing.”

Grant stared at the floor, and Mara knew it was true.

He had turned their mother’s careless words into a map.

A map to Nora.

Corporate loss prevention arrived twenty minutes later.

The police came five minutes after that.

By then Lila had moved Nora and Mara to the small employee training room, away from the customers and the frozen lane.

She brought an ice pack for Nora’s wrist and sat with them until a woman named Dana, the regional loss prevention investigator, arrived with a laptop and a voice like locked steel.

Dana did not accuse Nora.

She asked her to start from the beginning.

Nora told it carefully.

The reset yesterday.

Mason standing too close.

Grant appearing at her lane with prepaid cards.

The way he placed them one by one, not like a customer buying gifts, but like a man following instructions.

The way he whispered that family helps family.

The way he saw her fingers hover near cancel and grabbed her before she could press it.

Mara sat beside her and kept one hand on Nora’s knee.

It was the only contact Nora seemed able to accept without flinching.

Through the glass wall of the training room, Mara could see Grant seated near customer service with Victor nearby.

Mason stood farther away, speaking fast into the air as if speed could rebuild authority.

Dana listened to the recording twice.

Then she asked Lila to pull schedule archives, camera stills, and override logs for the past ninety days.

Lila did it without hesitation.

The pattern emerged like a bruise darkening.

Mason had targeted part-time employees with thin protection.

Students.

Older workers.

New hires.

People with limited hours, probationary status, family needs, scholarships, medical bills.

He created unnecessary PIN resets, watched enough finger movement to guess or capture codes, then used desperate intermediaries like Grant to bring prepaid cards through the lanes.

When a transaction locked, the reversal wallet caught the funds.

If questioned, Mason blamed training mistakes and terrified the employee into silence.

Grant had not been the mastermind.

He had still chosen Nora.

That distinction mattered to the police.

It did not matter to Mara.

When an officer asked Grant why he participated, he finally lifted his head.

“I owed money.”

“To Mason?” the officer asked.

Grant shook his head.

“Not at first.

But he knew.

He said he could give me a quick way out.”

“And your niece?”

Grant’s face crumpled.

“He said she’d only get written up.

She was a minor.

They wouldn’t prosecute.

It would look like she gave me the PIN.

I thought—”

Mara stood.

Nora caught her hand.

Not to stop her out of fear.

To steady her.

Mara walked to the doorway of the training room.

“You thought what?” she asked.

Grant looked at his sister.

“Mara, I didn’t think he’d hurt her.”

“You hurt her.”

“I panicked.”

“You planned.”

He flinched.

“You knew her shift.

You knew where I would be.

You waited until I stepped away.

You put your hands on her.

You were ready to let her carry your crime because you thought she was young enough to