CARY Except for Rahul A. Patel, who's behind the counter 14½ hours a day, six days a week, the High House Food Mart was empty at 8:15 the night of Jan. 30.

That's when the man pulled out a gun and shot Patel in the right side of his chest and above the right forearm, before bolting out the door without any cash.

Investigators with Cary and Raleigh police and the Wake County Sheriff's Office think the man who shot Patel has robbed or tried to rob at least four other convenience stores since November, including one this week in which another clerk was shot and injured.

The holdups are a reminder of the vulnerability of convenience-store operators, who often work alone and are perceived as a quick source of cash.

Robbers struck convenience stores across the country 17,029 times in 2005, accounting for 5.7 percent of all robberies, the FBI's Uniform Crime Report says.

Only after he took a job behind the counter did he realize how much there is to keep an eye on: the gas pumps, where increasing prices have prompted a rise in customers' driving off without paying; the cigarette rack, where people sometimes try to snatch a pack; the cash register.

"You don't know what's going to happen," said Ashish Patel, 24, who runs the Grocery Boy Jr. on Kildaire Farm Road in Cary with his parents and an uncle, and is no kin to Rahul Patel.

In the most recent robbery, Tuesday night at Freddy's Gas Station at 5600 Atlantic Ave. in Raleigh, the store clerk, Alfredo Espinosa, 46, suffered gunshot wounds.

The other three robberies occurred Nov. 26 at the Star Mart in the Five Points district, Jan. 8 at Keith's Grocery at 13041 Falls of the Neuse Road and at the Phillips 66 in the 1000 block of North Harrison Avenue in Cary the same night Rahul Patel was shot.

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