Claire burst through the private room door and found Margaret standing by the table with her arms crossed and the man in gold rimmed glasses holding his phone screen toward the doorway like a weapon."Is this your establishment?" the man asked, his voice tight with barely controlled disgust.Claire didn't answer him. She looked at the phone screen. The video was paused on a frame of Margaret pouring beer from one bottle into another, her face clearly visible, the row of empty bottles lined up on the table behind her like evidence at a trial.The blood left Claire's face so fast she had to grab the door frame."Sir," she said, and her voice came out thin and cracked. She swallowed and tried again. "Sir, I am so sorry. I am deeply, deeply sorry for what you witnessed.""Sorry doesn't undo what I saw," the man said, adjusting his glasses. "That woman just told me to my face that she recycles leftover drinks and serves them to new customers. In a licensed bar. With a straight face.""I un

Meanwhile, Margaret had not changed. The promise she made to Claire had a shelf life shorter than the recycled beer she had tried to serve.Over the next few days, she cleaned. She mopped. She wiped tables and emptied trash cans. But her eyes never stopped scanning.She pocketed half smoked cigarettes left behind in ashtrays and tucked them into a plastic bag she kept hidden in her apron for Derek. She collected leftover alcohol from private rooms, pouring dregs of whiskey, vodka, and rum into a plastic water bottle she kept stashed behind the cleaning supplies in the utility closet. When the bottle was full, she planned to transfer it to the kitchen freezer, where nobody ever checked the back shelf.She was careful now. Quiet. Methodical. The supermarket incident had taught her one lesson, but not the one Claire had hoped for. Margaret hadn't learned to stop stealing. She had learned to stop getting caught.One afternoon, she finished sweeping a recently vacated private room and was