by Sharon Dunn
She folded her phone shut. Headlights revealed the gravel road they had just come down…and the silhouette of a man. Breath caught in Tammy’s throat. Even though he was mostly in shadow, Tammy could make out the outline of a gun in a holster on his belt.
The man walked toward her car.
Stenengarter’s footsteps tapped across the linoleum of the dark sporting goods store. Ginger prayed her irrational prayer. Please, God, make me invisible. She pressed her back against the wall. He was the God of the impossible. Please, please, please. Feet passed by with only a clothing rack between her and Stenengarter.
More footsteps, moving away from her. One by one, the fluorescent lights all the way across the store buzzed to life. Stenengarter checked the clothing rack close to her. Hangers scraped across metal.
She drew her knees up to her chest and pressed even harder against the wall. He’d find her for sure now. This was too obvious a hiding place.
The man walked away from the rack. Thank You, Lord.
Taking care not to bump anything, she crawled the four feet to the clothing rack that Stenengarter had just checked. Men’s coveralls surrounded her and draped to the floor. Now she could see the shoes of her pursuer, polished oxfords. Through a coverall-framed window, the counter and the promise of escape shone like a beacon.
She clutched her purse to her chest. The older man paced around the store. Feet came into view from around the archery display, then disappeared. She leaned back. Dumb move. Like that was going to make her less visible.
Her legs cramped. Calf muscles hardened and stretched. This was no way for a grandmother to sit, all scrunched up like this.
The polished oxfords came closer and checked the display ten feet from her. One step. Two steps. She scooted to the back of the rack. Rough canvas fabric of the coveralls rubbed against the back of her head.
Her pulse, rapid and intense, drummed in her ears. The shoes came one step closer. She could almost reach out and touch his pant leg. Her breath hitched.
The shoes turned slightly, then tapped on the linoleum, growing fainter.
One by one, the lights went off again.
What was he doing? Had he left by some unknown exit?
She listened until she could separate the buzzing of the mall lights from a low electrical hum. Listening. Waiting. Listening. Waiting.
Arleta and Kindra were in danger. Stenengarter must be gone. Might as well find the switch that opens the main door and bolt for the entrance.
She pushed the coveralls aside and crawled out of her hiding place. She rose to her feet, pivoted one way and then the other, tracing the outline of the racks and displays, looking for any movement. Too dark to see anything.
She reached into her purse and pulled out Earl’s pepper spray/flashlight. She felt for the flashlight end and clicked it on just long enough to locate the counter.
Then she bolted toward the counter, placing her hand in the same spot she had seen Stenengarter touch. She smacked the surface until her fingers touched what felt like a switch.
The abrasive rattle of metal broke the quiet. She ran toward the opening door. Something whizzed past her ear. The sting of warm blood alerted her to a cut on her earlobe. What was that?
She cupped her hand over her ear and looked up into a dummy dressed in camouflage hunting gear. An arrow stuck out of the canvas bag he had slung over his shoulder. The arrow probably had her blood on it.
She turned slowly to find the source of the arrow. Her breathing provided a backbeat to the next few seconds of her life, which seemed to last forever. All her senses clicked into overdrive.
The moment froze, and her mind took a picture of a tall man wearing night-vision goggles and placing an arrow into a bow. The man slipped behind the display of snowboards. She’d seen him long enough to register that white hair.
Stenengarter had nearly put an arrow through her neck—and he was about to take a second shot.
The man disappeared into shadow. Footsteps. The door reversed order in its tracks threatening to lock Ginger in her prison.
The electric door had maybe four feet left to go before it closed completely. It squeaked and rattled. With only a glance at the arrow and the maimed mannequin, she dashed toward the diminishing store entrance.
She leaned forward, half leaping, half crawling, stretching through. Her knees hit the carpet. She slid. Metal scraped against metal, and the door moved in its track. She pulled her legs through, but lost one of her leather ballet flats in the process. The door locked in place with a click.
Ginger pulled herself to her feet, stumbled and swaggered. Bleeding ear, one shoe, rug burns on her forearms and knees—wasn’t she just the picture of pretty? It took her only a nanosecond to register who she was and what she was doing. Then she saw the arrow on the carpet.
He’d actually taken another shot at her.
When she looked back into the dark store, Stenengarter had disappeared. He didn’t have to chase her. He could just call Jackson or Wheeler and alert them to her location.
Really, this was not fair. Three against one, and they had the keys to all the doors.
Arleta and Kindra. She had to find Arleta and Kindra. She had to get hold of the police, of Tammy, of Earl, the SWAT team, the FBI, somebody with firepower.
She stumbled in the direction Mr. Jackson had taken her friends, toward the far end of the mall and around a corner that held specialty shops. She ran past a maternity shop. Sort of ran. Having only one shoe created a big stride, drag foot, little stride effect. She’d really liked those shoes, too. So comfortable and you could dress them up or down.
The industrial carpet was roughly the equivalent of sandpaper on the bottom of her foot. She ran past the remainder of the shops, which were locked and dark. Far as she could see, Arleta and Kindra were not in any of them. Where else could Jackson have taken them?
She rushed toward the exit. The first set of doors opened, but the second, the one that would have allowed her to get outside and find some help, was dead bolted. Ginger stepped back from the locked door and rested her palm against her forehead.
Despair encroached on her thoughts, but she pushed it away. No escape. Think. She had to think. She was not dead yet. There was still hope.
If he was going to come after her, Stenengarter would be delayed a few minutes by having to unlock the metal door. She pushed back through the first set of doors. A different door with nothing written on it caught her attention. When she tried the knob, it turned.
This was the only place on this side of the mall that Jackson could have taken her friends.
Ginger’s ear stung from where the arrow had nicked it. Her elbows and knees flared with rug burn pain. When she looked down at her hands, they were trembling. No. Scratch that. She’d been mistaken. Her entire body was shaking, a delayed reaction to the trauma she’d just been through.
Oddly, despite the level of stress, she didn’t have any migraine symptoms. Thank You, God, for that little gift. Please help me find Arleta and Kindra and a way out of this mall that has become a prison.
She pushed open the unlocked door.
Even though she had no weapon to defend herself, Tammy’s hand automatically touched her hip. Rain spattered across her face. The man with the gun on his belt gravitated toward her. She tensed but kept her feet planted. He took another step. Her mind whirled, assessing possibilities for escape and defense. She had two people in the car who needed protection.
The silhouette of his vehicle was barely visible beyond the illumination created by her headlights. Could she get back behind the steering wheel before he drew his weapon?
The man with the gun stepped into the light.
“Captain Stenengarter, what are you doing here in uniform?” Friend or foe? Friend or foe?
“I was out on patrol. I saw your car pull out and followed it.” He touched his uniform. “I was trying to earn the respect of my men…and of my one female police officer. But I’m afraid it’s too late. I’ll have t
o resign for what I’ve done.”
Tammy shook her head.
“Twenty years ago my father was involved in a bribery scam as a city commissioner. Mary Margret Parker figured it out. Dad wants to run for office again. He asked me to bury this scandal.”
Stenengarter pulled his rimless glasses off and stood close enough so she could see his face. “My father’s money can buy a great deal. But it cannot buy respect.”
“Where is your father now?”
“He said he has some stuff to finish up at the shop.”
“The shop?”
“The sporting goods shop in the mall.”
“We have to get out there! That was the last place my wife went. She called and said she had found something connected with the murder. Something has happened to her.”
Tammy had been so focused on Stenengarter that she hadn’t heard Earl get out of the car. He stood by the open door, rain pelting his straw hat and soaking his shoulders.
She had a few questions for her boss. What was the extent of Stenengarter Senior’s level of involvement? Had he been the one to put the arrow into Mary Margret? Or had he simply used his son to bury the twenty-year-old secret that would ruin him politically? “We need to get out to the mall.” She had a lot of questions, but no time to ask them.
Stenengarter turned toward his car. “I’ll meet you there. I’ll call this in to the station so we can get backup if we need it.”
Ginger hadn’t realized how hard she had been running until she stepped inside the dark room. Her side hurt. She made a mental note that maybe she needed to work out at the pool six times a week instead of four. She felt along the wall for a light switch.
When she turned to assess her surroundings, a blitz of color and sparkle filled her field of vision. Five fully decorated artificial Christmas trees took up one side of the room to her right. Boxes with garlands and shining things heaping out of them lined the wall to her left. Santa’s cardboard workshop and velvet couch occupied the rest of the room. In addition to the neon 3-D deer and a Merry Christmas sign, the wall opposite her featured a blue door. But no Arleta or Kindra.
Ginger collapsed on the Santa couch and tried to shake off the hopelessness. What now? Her foot was freezing and sore.
The door she had just come through remained closed. For whatever reason, Stenengarter wasn’t coming after her. She had zigzagged and he moved a lot slower than her, but if he was coming after her, he should have been here by now. Maybe something had distracted him.
Her shoulders drooped. He probably knew this was a dead end, that she was trapped. She rested her head in her hands. If she was to find Arleta and Kindra, she had to go back out there—and be target practice for the archer and the gunmen. She was outnumbered and outgunned. A little help would be nice here please, God.
She lifted her cold foot and warmed it in her hands. This concrete floor may as well have been a sheet of ice. After rummaging through several boxes, she located a pair of elf shoes with bells on the end of the long curled toes. Charming. Oh well. Beggars can’t be choosers.
She stood up on her feet and rocked heel to toe. The shoes were surprisingly comfortable, kind of spongy. Of course someone who was on his or her feet all day lifting heavy children into Santa’s lap would wear supportive shoes. The bells jingled when she turned her foot sideways. Bouncing some more on the shoes cheered her. Good-fitting shoes were better than a prescription for Prozac. Her head cleared and a plan formed.
She pulled the bells off. Better to be silent than musical. Hope was not completely lost. She had one more door to open before she ran out of options, and then she would gather the strength to go back out into the mall.
Enjoying the cushioning in her shoes, she strode toward the blue door, twisted the knob, and pushed it open. She stood on the threshold of a small concrete room.
Other than having no windows, the main feature of the room was a series of monitors showing different parts of the mall. A worn office chair with a massaging pad was turned away from the monitors, facing the door. The room smelled of mildew and cigarettes. It seemed odd that there was no phone, but maybe the security guy carried a cell with him. Though she couldn’t pinpoint the source, water dripped somewhere, making a plonk-plonk-plonk sound. She’d heard it in the other room, too.
Wheeler must have either bribed or bullied the security guard to leave when he decided to make the mall his private torture chamber.
Most of the screens covered the common areas of the mall, the entrances and the long corridors. The larger stores also had their own monitors. She couldn’t see any of her three pursuers.
There were buttons beneath the monitors. Since only parts of the store were visible, the button must switch to a different camera within the stores. She clicked through the Macy’s men’s department, housewares, women’s apparel. Oh, they were having a sale on decorative T-shirts. She pressed the button again.
Movement by the makeup counter caught her eye. She leaned closer. A black-and-white image in a dimly lit store was hardly high resolution. But she’d bet her AARP discount that somebody was hiding around the counter. She studied every inch of the monitor. There it was again. Just the hint of motion. A flutter of a hand…or maybe a head.
Gradually, she separated shadow from substance. It was like studying one of those pictures where if you looked long enough, you could see two separate pictures—a very young lady and a very old lady—on the same canvas.
In this case, one old lady. Arleta’s pale skin slowly separated from the shadow of the counter and displays. The camera was positioned so it revealed the interior of the counter. No doubt designed to keep an eye on shoplifting employees. Most of Arleta was still in shadow, but her pale hands had slowly materialized.
She clicked through the buttons again, hoping to spot Kindra. Instead, she saw Jackson still holding the gun, swaying through the children’s section of Macy’s, glancing side to side.
The pace of her heart kicked up a notch. Her hands curled into fists. She had to get to Arleta before Jackson did. She unzipped the purse and wrapped her hands around Earl’s pepper spray-flashlight. Not much of a defense against a gun, but maybe she could find something on the way. It was a long trot from this side of the mall to Macy’s on the other end.
As she strode through the Christmas room, visions of being in one of her grandkid’s video games, where she dodged arrows and bullets, played inside her brain.
Arleta thought that for a woman of seventy-five she was pretty darn flexible. With minimal rearranging, she’d managed to scrunch herself into the cupboard beneath the makeup counter. Mr. Jackson’s heavy footsteps grew louder. It had been a risk to hide instead of keep running. The outside entrances were locked. There was no way out of the mall. She’d have to wait it out until morning.
Then, when the salesgirls came in the morning to open up—surprise! She would jump out and get them to call the police.
If she could keep her legs from cramping, she’d be safe and sound by sunrise.
The footsteps stopped.
Then she heard shuffling, a moving back and forth. Arleta pulled her knees up to her chest. Of course, there was only one hitch to her brilliant plan. She didn’t know where Kindra was. When they’d gotten away from Mr. Jackson, they had run in different directions. They had bolted when he turned his back to look for rope to tie them up with. Mr. Jackson had a gun, but he was unbelievably slow when it came to running.
The stink of perfume in the cupboard gave her a headache. She’d never liked the stuff. She wished right now that she had Annie. Then she would show Mr. Jackson who was the marksman. When he had found them in Lewis Hall, he’d grabbed their purses and dumped the contents on the ground screaming, “Where is it? Where is it?” Naturally she had thought he was talking about Annie.
Jackson had acted touched in the head, really frantic.
As he ranted and raved with sweat pouring off his face, it became obvious that the gun was not what he was talking about. Mr. Jackson was co
nvinced that they had the confession they’d just learned about hours earlier from Lyndon Chambers. Since her husband had worked in Lewis Hall, Jackson insisted that they had gone there to hide it, that she must know a secret hiding place.
Until Mr. Jackson mentioned it, they hadn’t heard the name Joe Smith.
Arleta pushed something out of her way that was digging into her hip. She ran her hand over it. Round flat disks, probably compacts. How had Mr. Jackson known where her husband’s office had been fifteen years ago?
If it stayed quiet long enough, she’d spell herself by sticking her legs out of the cupboard to stretch them. She listened to the sound of her own breathing. It only took a few minutes for her to realize that her greatest enemy was not going to be leg cramps; boredom got the top spot. There wasn’t even any decent reading material in here, let alone some light. Her mind kept wandering to Kindra. Was she safe?
If only Mr. Jackson hadn’t taken her purse. She always kept a paperback in there and a miniflashlight. Even if she could find one of those light-up mirrors, she was sure reading about the latest shade of rouge would be a real yawner. Ho hum. Who would’ve thought that fighting for your life would be so tedious?
She couldn’t hear footsteps anymore. No noise at all. She leaned a little closer to the cupboard door. With nothing to read or occupy her thoughts, Arleta thought about something she hadn’t thought about in fifteen years—the night David died.
Ginger leaned around the corner that led to the main drag of the mall. She studied the shops and corridors. No sign of anyone. She couldn’t be so lucky as to hope that they had decided to call the whole thing off and go out for pie instead. Something must have required their attention.
Still watching, she edged along the wall.
She slipped into a kiosk that sold sunglasses and goggles and peered above the counter to see if she could see anything.
Nothing.
As she was straightening, she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror that was set up next to a display of sunglasses. Bloody ear, armed with pepper spray, and stylish travel purse. Dirty Ginger to the rescue. Do you feel lucky?