Chapter 1

Angela Ramirez was a girl born for trouble. She was headstrong and opinionated with little regard for authority or rules. She’d had trouble in school for years before finally dropping out soon after turning sixteen. Now nineteen years old, she had learned that she also had a taste for danger and excitement.

Her reckless and risky lifestyle was the bane of her father, a prominent Phoenix lawyer and Arizona state senator currently up for re-election. And it was his campaign that Angela would soon put into question...

It was a warm sunny Friday afternoon in Phoenix and Angela was on her way to the Desert Sky Mall. The mall was a little more than twenty miles from their beautiful home in the Paradise Valley neighborhood of Phoenix. Paradise Valley was the most upscale and affluent neighborhood in Phoenix and the Ramirez family had one of the nicer homes there. Yes, the family had money, which might have been part of her problem.

Angela’s parents were very high on the social register and enjoyed being the toast of the two. While Edward, her father, promoted his legal career as well as his political one, Maria, her mother, had her own circle of affluence to tend to. As a result, Angela was left to herself quite a bit. Her parents tried to ease their guilty conscience for leaving their daughter alone so much by giving her whatever material things she wanted. When she saw something she wanted, whatever it was, she just had to ask and it was hers. She had a closet full of expensive clothes, just about every video game system out at the time, they even bought her a new car, a Mustang convertible, when she turned eighteen.

With all that she had, the nice house, nice neighborhood, and the material things that she had been given, she was still terribly bored. Which was why she was headed to the mall. There were malls closer to her home, but she liked driving and it was a good day to put the top down on the convertible. She hoped to find something there to catch her eye and give her something to do. She needed a new distraction and the mall always seemed to calm and pacify her.

She pulled into the mall parking lot and found a parking spot close to the front entrance. It was early afternoon so there wasn’t a lot of cars in the lot – most folks were still at their jobs. Angela went into the mall and casually began walking down the center hall peering into the shops as she passed them. It was too early to eat so she walked right past the food court area and then went into one of the clothing shops.

That was when the trouble started. Angela was looking through the racks of nice clothes. She peered over the top of the rack and saw the young lady at the counter texting on her phone. With her preoccupied with her phone she wasn’t paying attention to what was going on in the store. This was Angela’s chance...

Angela had recently found a new, exciting “hobby” that she enjoyed – shoplifting. She made sure the value of the items she took wasn’t over $500.00 at a time, that way it would only be petty theft in the court’s eyes. Over that limit and she could be charged with grand theft which carried a much stiffer penalty.

For today’s haul, she picked out three or four cute tops and then walked back into the dressing room. She pulled a plastic bag she had gotten from one of the other stores from her pocket and stuffed the tops into it along with a receipt she had picked out of the trash can at the entrance to the mall. If anyone asked, she would just wave the receipt and they would think she purchased the clothes at another shop in the mall.

But what Angela didn’t take into consideration was the mall security guard who just so happened to be in the store checking up on things when Angela slipped quietly into the dressing room with the tops. He could see her reflection in the mirrors placed strategically to keep an eye on this kind of behavior and he saw that she didn’t have any bags in her hand when she went into the dressing room. Yet when she came out he saw the bright yellow shopping bag in her hand. Suspecting something was up, he followed her at a distance as she walked out of the store. Once she was out in the main hallway and had walked a short distance from the shop she had stolen the tops from, he stopped her.

“Excuse me miss, I see you’ve been doing a little shopping. Can I ask what it is you bought?” he said calmly.

“Just some tops ... see there’s this one, and this sparkly tube top, and this one here with the puffy sleeves,” she said, playing it cool.

“Very nice. And do you still have the receipt for your purchase?” he asked.

“Right here,” she said, holding the receipt up but far enough away he couldn’t read it.

“Can I see it, please?” he said.

Angela’s heart dropped. She hadn’t planned on being stopped like this! With no way out, she handed him the receipt with trembling hands.

“Excuse me miss, but this is a receipt from Famous Footwear, not Divine Boutique. Do you have another receipt ... one from the proper store for these tops?” he asked, remaining so calm it almost irritated her.

“No,” she said, looking down.

“You’d better come with me then, young lady,” he said, taking her by the arm. He led her to a nearby stairwell and together they went downstairs to where the security office was.

“Sit down,” he said when they got to the security office. He shut the door so they could talk privately. “Do you have some identification on you – a driver’s license perhaps or a state ID?”

She handed him her driver’s license. “Angela Ramirez, is it? Any relation to our Senator Ramirez?” he asked.

“He’s my father,” she said quietly.

“Ooh, that’s going to add a new wrinkle to this situation. Your father ... he’s up for reelection, isn’t he? This is not going to look good. Your father is a lawyer too, isn’t he? Once this gets out ... a lawyer with a shoplifting daughter, running for reelection ... not good, I’m afraid. You’ve gotten yourself and your family into a very sticky situation, young lady,” he said.

“Please Roger, can’t you just let me go?” she asked, reading his nametag. “You’ve got the merchandise and I haven’t even worn it. And I promise not to do it again. I swear it. Please just let me go okay?” she said, starting to get really worried now. The security officer was right – this would not look good for her father’s reelection campaign or his career as a lawyer.

“I’m afraid I can’t just let you go as easy as all that. I mean, my job may not be as glamorous as a top attorney or state senator but it’s all I have. And my job has reports and paperwork that I need to do, so it’s not so easy to sweep this under the rug. Now I need to take some pictures to go with my reports so stand over here and I’ll show you what to do. First I need you to stand facing forward.” He took Angela over to a blank spot on the wall and stood her facing him. He used his phone to take her picture.

“Good. Now turn to your right so I can take a side shot. Look straight ahead.” He took another picture. “Now turn around so I can get your other side.” And again he took a picture.

“For this last one, I want you to face me and hold up the tops you took. Hold them up just like this.” and he showed her what he wanted.

“Okay, now that I have the pictures I need, I have to do my report. I’m going to be asking you some questions and I want honest answers. If you try to lie to me or withhold anything from me, it will only make your situation much worse.”

He started off with general type questions – her full name, address, parent’s names, that sort of thing. He wrote down her driver’s license number, the hair and eye color on the license, as well as her weight. He took down her car make, model, and license plate number. Then he moved to more specific, incident-related questions.

“Now Angela is this the first time you’ve done something like this? And remember I can find out if you are lying to me.”

“No sir, I’ve shoplifted three other times at other malls,” she said quietly, her head hanging.

“I see. So this is a habitual thing.”

“I don’t know if it’s habitual, really. I just do it ... because it’s exciting and a rush. Sometimes I don’t even keep the stuff I’ve taken – I just give it to Goodwill,” she said.

“And do you always work alone or do you have friends or others that you shoplift with?” he asked.

“No, I do it alone ... I don’t have any friends.”

“Oh? Why is that Angela?” he asked.

“Because I’m Hispanic. I’m Hispanic and we live in Paradise Valley. Hispanics aren’t supposed to have the money to live in such nice neighborhoods. All the kids I know are white and I don’t fit in. Maybe if I lived in Central Village or South Mountain, I might find other kids like me. But not in Paradise Valley,” she said.

With his report done and the pictures he needed to accompany it taken, it was time to figure out what to do with his shoplifting suspect. “Okay Angela, I have what I need. Now I need to call your parents to come and pick you up. Then it will be up to the store whether to press charges or just ban you from coming in anymore. You will get notified if they want to press charges so you can get a lawyer if you want – although frankly, I would save your money. This is a pretty tight case since I caught you with the goods in hand and watched you go into the dressing room and come out.”

“Please Sir, don’t call my parents! My father is working so hard trying to win the election. If he found out what I’ve done ... it would devastate him!” she pleaded.

“Well, I can’t just turn you loose. If you don’t want me to call your parents then I will have to turn you over to the police.”

“The police! Oh God, that’s even worse! They will take me home and everyone will see the police car parked in front of my house. They will have to do a report which will get out and it will ruin my father’s political campaign and maybe even cause him to lose his job at the law office! Oh please, don’t call the police! Isn’t there something you can do to help me? Please, I’ll do anything you say! Please, I can’t ruin my dad’s political career! The people my dad’s running against will use this to smear his campaign! And it will all be my fault! Please!” she said, tugging on his arm in a frantic state.

Roger looked down at the distraught, pleading young girl. Angela was a very pretty girl with a lovely face and a very sexy body featuring an enormous set of DD tits. On this particular day, she wore a pair of tight jeans and an off-the-shoulder stretch-knit crop top. Because of the design of the top, she didn’t wear a bra and now in the cool basement, her nipples were poking into the top making little peaks to her impressive tits. Her fear of what could happen also bolstered her hard nipples and made her top all the more appealing to the guard.

Angela’s panicked appearance and her promise to “do anything he says” got Roger thinking ... and the thoughts he had running through his mind were not the ones found in his security manual! He knew what he was thinking was dangerous and could easily backfire and cost him his job, if not land him in jail. But Roger was single with no prospects on any horizon he could see. After all, a security guard is not high on the Women’s List of Enviable Occupations For Men list! And Roger was no Robert Redford, either – he was just an every day, ordinary-looking guy ... you would hardly look twice at him if you met him on the street.

So for him, this was an opportunity that was hard to pass up. “Actually Angela, I think there is a way out of this for you. I like your father’s political views and what he stands for. In fact, I voted for him in the last election and will do so again this time. So I don’t want anything to happen that will cause him to lose, or worse have to pull out of the election over some nasty family scandal.”

“Oh, I don’t either! I would feel just terrible if I was the reason he lost the election!” she said.

“I’m sure you would. Angela, honey, can I be honest with you for a minute?”