Gloria was huddled in the tight corner between the refrigerator and the cabinets, clutching her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth in pure terror.
"They're gone," Thomas said softly, crouching down next to her to bring himself to eye level. "For now."
Gloria looked up at him, her mascara running down her wrinkled face in dark, wet streaks. "They're going to kill me, Thomas. They know I take packages. Everyone in this whole neighborhood knows! They'll ask around, they'll find out it was me, and they'll come back and kill me."
"Nobody is going to kill you, Gloria," Marcus said firmly, entering the kitchen and crossing his arms. "But we do have a very serious, very immediate problem. You didn't just steal a pair of shoes. You just intercepted a major drug shipment for what looks like the largest organized crime syndicate operating out of the St. Louis area. Men like that don't just write off a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar loss."
Thomas stood up, running a stressed hand through his hair. "We need to call Officer Morales. Right now. We need federal authorities involved. The DEA, the FBI, whoever handles this level of high-volume trafficking." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
But Marcus stepped forward and gently but firmly clamped a hand over the screen. "Hold on a second, Thomas. Stop and think about this logically."
"What is there to think about?" Thomas snapped, his voice rising in panic. "We have six kilos of pure cartel cocaine sitting on my dining room table!"
"Exactly," Marcus said, his voice maddeningly calm. "And how do you think this is going to look? A private security investigator, conducting an unsanctioned, off-the-books neighborhood sting operation, suddenly ends up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cartel drugs locked in his own house? The police won't just say 'thank you for your service' and take it away. They'll interrogate us for days. They'll freeze your bank accounts. They'll put Gloria in a central holding cell, where the syndicate can easily get to her before trial."
Marcus pointed sharply toward the dining room. "Furthermore, the people who dropped that box know this specific address. They don't know exactly who took it yet, but they know it was dropped here. If thirty cop cars suddenly swarm this house with lights and sirens, the syndicate will know immediately that we're involved. They'll come after you, they'll come after your daughter, and they'll definitely come after Gloria."
Thomas felt a cold, clammy sweat break out on the back of his neck. He thought of Samantha, his bright, innocent seventeen-year-old daughter, who was supposed to be walking home from high school in less than two hours. He couldn't put her in the crosshairs of a cartel hit squad. He couldn't let a violent turf war erupt on the quiet lawns of Hawthorn Court.
"So what do we do?" Thomas asked, his voice trembling slightly, feeling completely trapped. "We can't just throw it in the municipal trash."
"No," Marcus agreed, his eyes narrowing as he formulated a plan. "We have to give it back."
Gloria let out a high-pitched whimper. "Give it back? To who? How are we supposed to do that without getting shot?"
Marcus began pacing the kitchen floor, his former military mind rapidly calculating probabilities, risks, and tactical advantages. "They're going to come looking for it. The designated runner was supposed to pick it up, and they didn't. They'll retrace the delivery route. They'll start aggressively asking questions. We need to control the narrative before they do. We need to make them think the drop was burned by a rival street gang, not intercepted by a neighborhood porch pirate."
Thomas stared at his friend like he had grown a second head. "Are you clinically insane? We're corporate security guards, Marcus, not undercover DEA operatives!"
"I'm a former Military Police officer who spent three grueling years tracking insurgent supply lines in Fallujah," Marcus corrected him without missing a beat. "And you happen to be the sharpest corporate investigator in the entire state. We can handle this. But we need to act right now."
He turned sharply to the sobbing woman on the floor. "Ms. Vance, I need you to focus. I need you to tell me absolutely everything you saw. Every single detail about that white van. Every detail about the man who dropped the box. Your life literally depends on what you remember."
This one was sealed with cheap, clear plastic tape.