"Miss Willa," Nadine said softly, "we can go somewhere else. We don't have to stay."
"I know," Willa replied. "But I would like to buy it here."
Derek straightened and crossed the room to Curtis. He kept his voice low but not low enough. "Watch the wheelchair. Follow it. Don't let it out of your sight."
Curtis glanced toward Willa. "Sir, she's just looking at jewelry."
"Did I ask for your interpretation?" Derek said. "You do your job or you can find another one."
Curtis's mouth closed. He moved away from the wall and followed at a distance as Nadine guided Willa toward another display. Every step felt wrong. He could imagine how the sight of a uniformed guard trailing a wheelchair would look to a customer, and he knew exactly why Derek had wanted it. The humiliation was not an accidental side effect. It was part of the message.
Willa noticed the guard. She also noticed his discomfort. She did not mistake that discomfort for courage, but she recognized it as a beginning. People who had not yet stopped feeling ashamed of doing wrong sometimes still had a chance to change course. She hoped he would find a better choice before the day ended.
Nadine lifted a silk scarf from a nearby display and held one edge where Willa could touch it. "The fabric feels nice. You'd look beautiful in this color."
Willa ran her fingers over the silk. "It is nice. Too warm for me most days, though."
"You could wear it to Amara's graduation."
"If my hands will let me tie it." Willa gave a small smile. "Put it back, honey. I came for one thing."
They spent less than half a minute at the scarf table. Nadine replaced the scarf neatly, and Willa examined a pair of earrings on a nearby stand. Neither woman touched the wheelchair bag.
Patricia Ellis, however, had been watching them with an expression of growing interest. She had seen Derek focus on the older woman and understood that he expected support. She considered telling him the truth: the customers had done nothing at all. Instead, she walked quickly to him and bent close enough to whisper.
"I think the aide put something in the wheelchair bag," she said.
"You saw her?"
Patricia hesitated. "It looked that way."
"What did she take?"
"I'm not sure. Something from the display."
It was an invention, and Patricia knew it while she spoke. She had not seen anything leave a display, and she had not even seen Nadine touch the bag. Yet she also knew how easily a vague accusation could become a reason to remove a customer Derek disliked. She told herself it was not her responsibility to decide whether the suspicion was true. The lie felt smaller when she called it a suspicion, although nothing about the harm it could cause was small.