The Mystery Shopper: A Petra Jensen Advent Story by Christoffer Petersen

Author:Christoffer Petersen [Petersen, Christoffer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aarluuk Press for Magical Christmas Stories
Published: 2024-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

5

Running was, Petra would say, her forte. Shaped and honed by Atii, every time she made Petra chase a suspect on foot, while Atii tried to cut them off with the patrol car. But running in the street was one thing. Chasing three young teens through a busy mall, weaving through and around, sometimes over shoppers and their small children, was something else. Petra knew how to run on icy roads, accelerating when she could use the crunchy snow on the sides of the road, or simply pushing it, not stopping, if she had to run on the black ice stretching across the street. But the stops and starts through the shopping centre, and the melted snow pooling on the linoleum floor, made life interesting. Petra’s long legs gave her the advantage, allowing her to pick up speed…

“Sorry!”

…until she bumped into another family…

“Really sorry!”

…and had to start from a sudden stop, again, more than once, as the boys raced for the moving staircase.

Petra reached for the radio on her belt, tugging it off the clip, just as the boys chose to take the escalator on the left. They tumbled into the shoppers coming up the stairs and slowed in the press of people and more than a few rough interactions involving elbows, fists, and a repertoire of cuss words in at least three languages.

The boys continued to fight their way down the up stairs, while Petra took her time, pacing them all the way to the bottom as she casually took her escalator down to the ground floor. The shortest of the three boys, possibly the oldest, leaped over the side before he reached the bottom. He crashed into a Christmas tree and cried out as he twisted his ankle. The youngest of the three rushed to the boy’s side. They had the same pointed chin, and Petra guessed they were related. The third boy kept running, avoiding the main entrance, and heading for a service door to Petra’s right.

“Brothers?” she said to the two boys. They nodded, and Petra pulled a pair of handcuffs out of the pouch on her belt. “Put these on,” she said, and tossed the handcuffs to the younger brother. “And stay right here.”

Petra paused for a second as the younger boy handcuffed his brother to the Christmas tree. It might have been funny. But the third boy was getting away. Petra left the brothers to it and took off after the last teenager.

The door was still ajar when Petra reached it.

She slowed, suddenly wary that if the boy was trapped, he might feel threatened, and Petra preferred not to get physical if she could avoid it.

She opened the door with the toe of her boot and looked inside.

The emergency light cast a green glow over the white walls in a long, narrow room. Petra spotted the ladder at the far end of what was clearly a janitor’s storeroom, complete with mops and buckets, and tools clipped to a wooden board on the wall. There was a ladder attached to the wall at the far end of the room, leading to a loft space.

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