Shoplyfter - Aubree Ice 📢

Sandra held up a hand, her walkie-talkie crackling. “Yes. Could you please come with me for a moment?”

“Here’s how this works,” he said, his voice low. “You give me the merchandise. I write a trespass notice. You leave, and you never come back. No police. No record. Or… I call the cops. They search you. They search your bag. They find the $1,200 scarf, and you spend the night in a holding cell while your student loan debt accrues interest. Your choice.”

“The scarf? It was never in my bag. It’s still in the case. You can check the cameras—but oh, wait. You can’t. Because you turned them off in here during the ‘search.’ Standard protocol, right? Privacy.”

For the first time in fifteen years, Detective Morgan Cross had been out-thieved—not of a silk scarf, but of his dignity. And Aubree Ice walked out of Valmont’s with the only thing she had come for: the truth on a folded piece of paper, ready to be framed as art. Shoplyfter - Aubree Ice

Aubree pulled her sweater back on, but she didn’t leave. Instead, she reached into her jeans—the front pocket this time, the one he hadn’t checked because it was too shallow to hold a scarf—and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper.

“Ticklish?” he muttered.

Aubree let her shoulders slump slightly, the posture of a nervous teenager. Inside, she was grinning. Hook, line, and sinker. She followed Sandra past the registers, through a gray door marked “PRIVATE,” and down a cinderblock hallway that smelled of bleach and old carpet. Sandra held up a hand, her walkie-talkie crackling

“The bra,” he said, his voice flat. “Take it off. Or I call a female officer to do it for me. Your choice.”

“Aubree. Aubree Ice.”

She turned. He began a standard pat-down—shoulders, ribs, waistband. When his hands reached the small of her back, she let out a soft gasp. “You give me the merchandise

Sandra hesitated. “Sir, protocol says—”

She stood up and slung her tote over her shoulder.

Morgan unfolded it. It was a hand-drawn map of Valmont’s security camera blind spots, labeled with times and guard shift changes.

Morgan’s eyebrow twitched. He had expected crying. He had expected denial. But the invitation was new.