Story 07 – Part 1 – And He Wanders

“How’s my little princess?” Boomer cooed.

Lisa laughed from her seat in the shopping cart as her father made some strange faces. Boomer was definitely enjoying it immensely. It was always ‘take your daughter to work’ day for him. Lisa was starting to become quite the wiggler, though. She had mastered crawling and was already working on walking even though she was not a year old yet. Sometimes she would even babble half-formed words. Boomer and Tasha were competing to see what her first ‘official’ word would be.

“Daddy needs to buy the latest Laser Mounted Dinosaurs Watch the Classics, doesn't he pumpkin?” Boomer held the disc up to his daughter, but his eyes were quickly scanning the other shoppers in the electronics section. “Look. This one’s a double feature. Let’s see. The Lost Princess of….it looks like it pancake, or panelcake. Whatever. I think it’s a romance. The dinos probably laser it good. The other is Ninjas Vs. Pirates 4: The Revenge. Who’s getting revenge?”

“Da di di,” Lisa babbled.

“That’s right, princess,” Boomer laughed. “The LM Dinos.”

Boomer continued to entertain his daughter as he watched a man stick a few movies into his jacket. The store was crowded and the shoplifter was more concerned with being on the lookout for store employees than he was worried about the father that was enthralled with his daughter. His on-duty phone was in the shopping cart with his daughter, and so the man never realized a thing as Boomer completely alerted store security while making faces at little Lisa.

On days he had his daughter, Boomer the position of surveillance. On the few occasions that he did not actually have Lisa with him, though, Boomer was a little more active in security. That was fun, but he really did enjoy being with his daughter more. Besides that, he got his occasional adrenaline rush with the freelance agency.

“Well, we’ve got movies and groceries,” Boomer told Lisa. “What else does your mother want me to get? Looks like, well, do you really need more clothes? You’ve got more than me, princess.”

Lisa giggled as Boomer made a face and started directing the cart through the aisles. He had actually finished all of his required shopping. He still had an hour of work left, so the clothing corner of the store was always a good place to hang out. People had a strange tendency to try to walk out wearing clothes that still had the tags on.

After half an hour of aimless wandering, Lisa was starting to get restless. It was nearly her nap time, and she was getting ready to let the store know. Boomer kept his eyes open as he parked the cart next to a clothing rack and tried to calm his little girl down. He spotted no shoplifters, but a few people gave him some sympathetic looks.

With a flick of his eyes, Boomer spotted a few men who were milling around. They were not shoplifters, that was certain, but they certainly were not shoppers. While Lisa fussed, Boomer kept stealing glimpses of the men. The way they carried themselves hinted at some sort of security, but Boomer knew all of the security officers that worked for this store. There was the hint off being security guards, but that was more of an outward cover. Boomer did not doubt these men were hired to protect some sort of illegal activity.

Sometimes Boomer wished he was as sharp as Carmine. Carmine would probably be able to guess why these men were hanging around in a store as if they were looking for something not sold in retail. As far as Boomer could tell, they were looking for someone. With his daughter there, all Boomer could do was alert security to the highly suspicious men in the clothing department. Not like he actually wanted to follow them or stay around to find out what they were after.

The movement of the clothing rack changed Boomer’s mind. A child’s face peered out and immediately hid as it realized the men were still out there. Dropping Lisa’s pacifier, Boomer bent down and pushed a few of those clothes aside. The kid looked terrified and ready to bolt. When the child realized that Boomer was not alerting anyone, he relaxed only slightly.

“Are those bad guys after you?” Boomer asked quietly.

The child did not answer, but when Boomer saw his reaction it was more than enough.