Free A Picture of Guilt by Libby Fischer Hellmann

and paid. As the blue-haired woman handed me my bag, I felt an overarching guilt, as if I’d been the one to shoplift. It even crossed my mind to pay for the two the other woman took.
    Instead, I left the store and trudged down the hall. I passed a colorful kiosk where a collection of nuts, sold by a woman who probably never shelled one in her life, gave off a pleasant, woodsy aroma. I moved on to the food court, bought a huge cookie with lots of chocolate chips, and wolfed it down. Heading toward the exit, I rationalized why I hadn’t intervened. Since the trial, I was finished with trying to do the right thing. I’d been hammered enough. Let someone else pick up the ethical gauntlet. I brushed cookie crumbs off my shirt.
    I hadn’t gone very far when I heard footsteps behind me.
    I stepped up my pace. So did the footsteps.
    I slowed. They did, too.
    At first I thought the shoplifter was behind me, but I couldn’t figure out why. Was she planning to thank me? Explain why she did it? She didn’t need to. I understood. I used to shoplift.
    Shoplifting involves cunning. And chutzpah . I’d had both, once upon a time. I knew the rush, the high, the shame. And knowing that, I knew there was no way she was behind me. She wasn’t ready to return the soap. Or even express remorse. She’d have to hit bottom first. I did.
    I kept walking.
    So did the person behind me.
    It was a beautiful fall day; the mall wasn’t crowded. So who was following me? The cashier from the gift shop? I didn’t steal the soaps, but I didn’t do anything to stop it. Maybe she’d noticed my tacit complicity and wanted to confront me.
    No. That was just guilt talking. I couldn’t take the moral high ground, but cowardice wasn’t illegal. Besides, what clerk would leave the store unattended? I stopped and turned around.
    Aside from a woman pushing a baby stroller, the hallway was empty.
    I made a three sixty. No one. Turning back, I caught my image in a shop window. I scanned the reflection for any quick, unexpected movements. I did see a silhouette half in and half out of a doorway a few stores back. It wasn’t the blue-haired woman, and it didn’t look like the shoplifter. I waited. The figure turned away from me.
    I started forward again. Within a few yards, the footsteps were back. I tightened my hold on my purse. Last year, my wallet was ripped off at a restaurant downtown. One man jammed the revolving door as I went through, while another squeezed into the same compartment as me. As I banged on the glass, yelling for help, the nearer man grabbed my wallet out of my purse. He took off when his buddy let go of the door. I wasn’t hurt, but within an hour they’d racked up three grand on my Visa.
    I ducked into a perfume boutique.
    “Can I help you?” A saleswoman suddenly appeared at my side, suspicion flooding her face.
    “No thanks. I’m just looking.”
    She planted herself in front of me.
    I took my time inspecting a display case filled with perfume, amused at the irony of the situation. Then I exited the store, pretending I had nothing more important to do than spend the afternoon window-shopping. The clerk’s sniff followed me out.
    I passed more stores, anxious, now, to get back to the car and go home. I had just reached a bend where a walkway angles off the main corridor when a hand clapped me on the shoulder.

C HAPTER T WELVE
    I spun around and wrenched free. I grabbed my purse, swung it backward, and launched it at a blond head. Thanks to the bars of soap inside, it connected with a resounding thunk. My pursuer staggered into the walkway and collapsed on the floor.
    “Please. Stop. Don’t hurt me.”
    I stepped back, hugging my purse until the machine-gunning in my chest slowed down. The blond woman cringed against the wall. We were a few yards down the narrow hall that jutted off the main promenade.
    “It’s all right. I won’t hit you again,” I said.
    When she tentatively looked up, I felt a jolt of recognition. It