No Way Out

by Melanie Jackson

  But the guy didn’t. He set his guitar case on the closest cash-register counter and opened it.

  With his back to the window, to block outside view, he took out a rifle.

  CHAPTER THREE

  He hoisted the rifle, cocked it, and aimed squarely at Mr. Rafferty’s head.

  My mind went into a panicky loop: Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

  I stumbled over to Mr. Rafferty’s phone console. Grabbing the receiver, I punched one of the many buttons for a line out. I jabbed nine-one-one.

  Nothing. Maybe I had to dial nine first. Okay, nine-nine-one-one.

  Nothing. The outside-line button I’d pushed hadn’t even lit up. The phones were out. When Jon had talked to his dad, he’d been using an intercom system. The intercom was still working, but that was it.

  I looked down the aisle. The gunman yelled something at Jon, who then locked the last front door and went back to join his dad.

  The gunman waved his rifle in downward motions, a signal for Mr. Rafferty, Jon, Rick the custodian and Gina to drop to the floor, out of sight of the street. Crouching with them, the gunman took a round metal object from one of his pockets. He fastened it to the end of his rifle.

  A silencer.

  The gunman spoke to Mr. Rafferty. The storeowner shook his head.

  The gunman raised the rifle. He glanced around. His gaze settled on one of the big, red, helium-filled balloons floating over each cash register. White letters on the balloons proclaimed, The savings are heating up!

  The gunman fired at the nearest balloon.

  Red balloon shreds flew down. Gina screamed. Mr. Rafferty started crying.

  The gunman yelled at Mr. Rafferty. His message was plain: cooperate with him, or his next target would be a human one. I didn’t have to hear him to understand that.

  Wait.

  I didn’t have to hear him – but I could if I wanted to. I could use the intercom.

  I sank into Mr. Rafferty’s plush, black leather chair. Which button had Jon pushed? I ran my eyes over the console.

  Bingo. A whole row of buttons was labelled with cashier numbers. Usually, I guessed, the cashiers would be calling Mr. Rafferty rather than vice-versa. They’d lean toward their speakerphones and ask for a price check, or approval on a return, or whatever. Having speakerphones kept their hands free: they could keep right on ringing stuff up and packing it. Very efficient.

  Too bad Rafferty’s wasn’t so efficient in security. I thought of my stepdad. In bragging about his security business, Alvin was fond of saying, “You gotta think of everything. You gotta cross the i’s and dot the t’s.” Alvin’s idea of wit.

  Alvin could teach Mr. Rafferty a thing or two about security – like not putting a sulky, conceited teenager in charge of it, just because the teenager happened to be your son.

  I stood up to check what number cashier the gunman was closest to. Five. I sat down out of sight again fast, not wanting to provide him with another target to practise on.

  I punched in the button for cash register five.

  “ … you’re gonna open the office safe for me, Rafferty.”

  The gunman had a mumbly voice, like he was talking through a mouthful of pebbles. In any other circumstance I would’ve practised imitating his voice till I got it down cold. I stored voices the way squirrels store acorns. As an actor, you need to be able to draw on a mental bank of voices, not to mention facial expressions, at a second’s notice.

  The storeowner, not as close to cash register five, was harder to hear. “B-but who are you?”

  The gunman chuckled. “The name’s Heck, old man. Short for Hell.”

  The guy was a regular walking Yuk Yuk’s.

  “Look, son, I’m sure we can sit down and … ”

  Mr. Rafferty’s voice faded. To shut him up, Heck was loudly humming some off-key tune. In other words, he wasn’t interested in what the storeowner had to say.

  Jon snapped at the custodian, “This is your fault. How stupid can you get, not checking the power? Did you want us to get robbed?”

  Really productive, Jon, I thought. You’re in Heck’s crosshairs – and you take time out to play the blame game.

  Rick began protesting, but Jon was on a roll.

  “Kind of a coincidence that this Heck dude shows up as soon as the power goes off, huh, Rick? Maybe you’re in this with him.

  “As for you,” Jon told Heck, “when you get to the office, you’re gonna find one of your own kind there. Another thief.”

  Amazing. The family business was about to get fleeced, and Jon was still fixated on me.

  “What?” Heck barked. “Somebody else is in here? I thought you guys were it.”

  He pointed the rifle at Mr. Rafferty’s head. “ENOUGH OF THIS CRUD. I WANT THE DOUGH NOW, OLD MAN.”

  I had to get hold of the police.

  Maybe Mr. Rafferty kept a cell phone in his desk. Quietly, so Heck wouldn’t hear through the speakerphone, I started opening drawers.

  I found the usual stuff: files, pens, pencils, a calculator. In a middle drawer, I found a rolled up set of blueprints, bound with elastic. I pulled the blueprints out.

  Dimly I remembered, at dinner the other night, Alvin telling Mom and me about how he started each security assignment. Blueprints in hand, he’d suss out a client’s building, whether it was business or home. He needed to consider all aspects of a building, its ins and outs.

  I have to get out of this one, I thought.

  And my brain hammered home the despairing truth: There’s no way out.

  Heck raised his mumbly voice a notch. “First, just so nobody gets any ideas about calling the cops, I want you all to throw down your cell phones.”

  I looked down the aisle. Gina was shaking her head.

  “Don’t play smart with me, toots,” Heck glowered at her. “I know you got a phone. All you girls do. Or maybe,” he smirked, “you want me to step over and do an extended body search for it.”

  Trembling, Gina withdrew a cell phone from her smock pocket and tossed it on the floor, joining the ones Jon, Mr. Rafferty and Rick the custodian had dropped.

  I cursed silently. I was the one person without a cell. And why? Because I was several shades of idiot, that’s why. Aware that my own cell would chalk up roaming charges if I used it in Winnipeg, Alvin had offered me a brand-new BlackBerry as a gift. And I’d refused it.

  Heck pulled a pillowcase from his back jean pocket and tossed it to Mr. Rafferty. “You’re gonna fill that with dough. I know you got lots of dough on Fridays: it’s bank deposit day, ain’t it, Rafferty old boy?”

  Heck chuckled at the storeowner’s bewildered expression. “What didja think, I’d come in here without a plan? I’d come in here ignorant?”

  “I’m sure you had a great plan,” Mr. Rafferty sighed. Even from here, I could see how pale he looked, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

  “No more delaying,” Heck barked. He waved the rifle. “Everybody, MOVE. But stay low, and stay where I can see you.”

  Led by the storeowner, with Heck at the rear, the hostages started down the aisle toward the office. They walked bent, arms swaying, like you walked in kindergarten when the teacher told you to pretend to be an elephant.

  This didn’t strike me as funny, though. It made me angry. Rifle or no, Heck didn’t have the right to treat people like that.

  It turned out I wasn’t the only one who felt angry. All at once Jon swung round, colliding with Rick the custodian, and charged at Heck.

  Heck fired.

  A body crumpled and fell.

  I ran to the office door, wrenching vainly at the knob. I’d taken CPR at school. I might be able to help, if I could just get out of here.

  I couldn’t see who’d fallen. Mr. Rafferty was in the way, leaning over and wai
ling. Heck forgot his command about crouching. He stood, aimed the rifle at Mr. Rafferty’s head, and yelled at him to shut up.

  Gina staggered away from them. She pressed her hands over her mouth. To stop from throwing up, I was guessing.

  Jon, I thought. It was Jon who got hit.

  Gina lurched behind the cosmetics counter. Lifting a wastebasket, she heaved into it. You had to give the girl marks for tidiness in the midst of a crisis. Most people would’ve just barfed anywhere.

  She glanced up and saw me. For an instant we stared at each other.

  Then somebody got up from the floor. Jon.

  It was the custodian who’d been shot.

  Jon pulled his dad aside, turning Mr. Rafferty away so he wouldn’t have to look at the body. But I got a clear view.

  Rick lay on the floor, motionless. Blood had soaked the chest of his gray overalls bright red.

  He was dead.

  I pressed my forehead against the glass and shut my eyes for a moment. When I opened them again, they were all watery.

  Now Heck was yelling at Jon, blaming him for what happened. Jon yelled right back. I had to hand it to Jon for nerve. Or else stupidity.

  Mr. Rafferty joined in, too, begging Jon not to make Heck mad.

  Setting the wastebasket down, Gina stepped out from behind the cosmetics counter.

  She hesitated, watching Heck, Jon and Mr. Rafferty. All three were so busy shouting, they didn’t notice her.

  Gina backed slowly down the aisle. At the first corner, she slid around and vanished.

  Good for Gina, I thought, even as I broke out in a fresh sweat on her behalf. I just hoped she could stay hidden.

  I had to get out of this office.

  I’ll smash the chair against the panes, I thought. That might work. Even if the chair just cracks the pane, I’ll kick the rest of the glass through.

  I grabbed the back of the black leather chair, then hesitated. Heck would hear the glass shatter. I’d be in his crosshairs in a matter of seconds.

  My grip on the chair leather loosened. My brain was hammering at me again. Your plan’s not practical. It won’t work. Accept the situation. You’re trapped on all sides.

  Outside the office, down the aisle, there was a sudden roar of rage.

  Heck had discovered one of his hostages was missing.

  I used the folded up blueprints to wipe my forehead. Heck would have a replacement hostage soon enough. Me.

  Trapped on all sides.

  Sides?

  I stared at the blueprints and thought of Alvin. My stepdad had something. Consider a building’s ins and outs.

  Sure, I couldn’t escape the office by any side route. But …

  I lifted my gaze to the ceiling.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was your typical commercial-building ceiling. Tiles were arranged on criss-cross metal slats, hiding the pipes and wires above.

  The tiles were fake marble, as opposed to the cheap foam-board type. Mr. Rafferty had gone for a high-end look. High-end – and, for my purposes, strong. This type of tile would support my weight.

  Heck’s yells grew fainter. I guessed he was stomping around different departments, searching for Gina. This bought me some time before he barged into the office.

  I just hoped Gina had bought herself some time with a good hiding place.

  I shoved the blueprints in a back pocket. Rummaging in the desk, I brought out a long ruler. I climbed up on the desk. Then I raised the ruler and pushed against the tile directly above me. I tipped the tile up till it slid diagonally off the ruler, on to the next tile.

  The resulting hole was about twenty by twenty inches. A cinch to get through – if I could just hoist myself.

  I scrubbed my sweaty palms dry against my jeans.

  I jumped, grabbed for the edges of the square hole, held on. This was not as easy as it looks in the movies. Blood rushed to my face as I tried to pull myself up and through the hole. I ground my teeth together, scrunched my eyelids shut and swore.

  Maybe not the standard bodybuilders’ technique, but it got one of my elbows over the rim. Then the other. I paused, gasping and swearing some more.

  Outside, Heck’s yells gained volume again. For now, he’d given up on finding Gina.

  “TO THE OFFICE, RAFFERTY. NOW!”

  And that got me up and over the rim. With all the grace of a whale getting beached, sure. But, in the circumstances, I wasn’t worried about losing marks for presentation.

  I pulled the dislodged tile back over its metal slats just as, below, a key grated in the office door’s lock.

  Jon’s puzzled voice floated up past the tiles. “I don’t get it. He was here. I locked him in. Jelly has to be here.”

  “ ‘Jelly’?” Heck jeered. “Maybe you’d like some ice cream and candy, too, rich boy.”

  Heck resumed his off-key humming. Whatever the tune was, the writer should sue him for mangling it.

  I was sprawled over the tiles – but also over a light pod set in the ceiling. If the light had been on, it would’ve blazed too bright for me to see through. Being off, the light pod was like a rain-drenched window: the three people showed through, if somewhat blurrily.

  If they looked up, they’d see me. I edged my body sideways, off the light pod.

  “He has to be there.” Jon was whining, like a kid who’d come down on Christmas morning sure he’d find a particular toy under the tree. Only the toy wasn’t there.

  “I’ve had enough outta you,” Heck warned, and Jon fell silent.

  Heck ordered Mr. Rafferty to open the safe. The storeowner sank down beside the safe. He spun the dial. I heard him whimpering.

  My gut twisted for Mr. Rafferty. Too bad his son wasn’t being a bit more supportive.

  Jon was busy scowling around the office. He just couldn’t accept that I wasn’t there. I had a feeling Jon was used to things going pretty much the way he wanted at all times.

  Brushing past Heck, Jon marched over to the door to check the lock. Seeing if it had been jimmied, I bet.

  I wondered how long it would take Jon’s wee brain to compute that I’d escaped upward. I decided not to wait around for this to happen. I’d seen enough to know what Heck’s standard response would be. Aim upward and fire.

  Raising myself on all fours, I crawled away from the office, and out over the store.

  I was heading for the opposite wall, which would be the front of the store. But it was not a direct route. I was in a maze. A huge silver air duct wound all over the ceiling like an overfed snake. I had to crawl a long way around one of its loops just to get back to the same spot on the other side. Black plumbing pipes jutted just over my head. Beneath me, clumps of black wires sprouted like vines. Every few feet they were bound with duct tape.

  The only light I had was the dim, silvery glow from the light pods. I had to be careful with every move. All I had to do was trip over the wires, and I’d thunk down on the tiles. I was still pretty close to the office. If they heard, Jon and Heck would be on me like ants on a picnic cake.

  Jon and Heck.

  I’d put their names together in my mind like they were a unit. Like they were working together.

  But they were on opposite sides. Heck was holding both Raffertys at gunpoint. He’d just killed their custodian.

  Jon might not be Mr. Charm School, but he wasn’t the heavy in this situation. Heck was. If an opportunity came up to outsmart or overpower Heck, Jon and I would be on the same side. I had to remember that.

  I just hoped Jon would.

  I stopped crawling and lay down. Not because I was tired. In thinking about Jon and Heck – there I went again, linking the two of them – I’d forgotten to concentrate on where I was going.

  I was totally disoriented. In a jungle of
pipes and wires, I had no idea which way was which.

  Then, from all sides at once, sirens screamed.

  The police!

  I pried a tile loose. The store’s gray light yawned up at me, dashed with whirling specks of red from the police cars outside.

  I bent my head and got an upside-down view of Heck storming out of the office. “How’d the cops get here?”

  In the office, Mr. Rafferty paused in filling the pillowcase with bills from the safe.

  Beside his dad, Jon protested, “It wasn’t me. It had to be Jelly. Jelly called the cops.”

  Except it wasn’t, much as I’d wanted to. Gina, I thought. She’d got to a cell phone somehow.

  “You saw me throw down my phone,” Jon called to Heck. “It couldn’t have been me, right? It was Jelly.”

  Heck just glared around, then strode back into the office.

  I tried to gauge how far I was from the front of the store.

  Rafferty’s took up a whole block. I was about a third of the way to the entrance. My ceiling route, jammed with pipes and wires, wasn’t exactly the fastest method of overland travel.

  Behind me, I heard a skittering noise, like the scraping of claws. A mouse? If I was a mouse, I wouldn’t waste my time up here. I’d hightail it to the wide-open, unstaffed deli department.

  Directly below me was a green-and-white change table, with stuffed bears grinning on top, and diaper packages and heart-decorated flannel blankets cramming the lower shelves. I was right in the oh-so-cute heart of Rafferty’s baby department.

  Ahead lay kitchenware, with electronics to the right and major appliances to the le–

  Wait. Rewind.

  Electronics.

  That’s how Gina had got to a cellphone. That’s where she was hiding. Just one section over.

  I had to get to her. We could both escape.

  I could jump down and land on the change table – if Heck and Jon didn’t see.

  I had to take that chance.

  I was about to lower myself when the front doors rattled loudly. Followed by pounding.

  At the centre front door, police officers were bashing their fists against the glass.