No Saving Throw

by Kristin McFarland

  The mall, closed for fumigation after the smoke bombs last night, loomed dark and threatening over the street. I ran around the corner to the street entrance near my store, where the fountain’s splashing echoed through the basement. My hands trembled as I fished for my keys, and I dropped them twice before my fumbling fingers managed to insert the right key into the lock.

  I pushed the door open, leaving it unlocked behind me. It whooshed shut, closing me in the dim quiet of the basement. The stores were all dark, and the light from the doorway didn’t carry far into the building. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light from the scattered windows on the basement level, I could see a fluorescent light glowing somewhere in the central lobby, near the fountain. The water echoed eerily in the empty hallway, muffling the sound of my sneakers scuffling on the tile floor.

  I was alone.

  I maneuvered my way toward the central lobby. I felt my heart pounding in my chest as though it were a moth trapped in a lampshade, and my palms were sweating. I wiped them on my jeans. After the week I’d had, I was starting to think that the life of a super-sleuth was not for me. I’d gotten caught snooping in the office of my nemesis, I’d found no legally admissible evidence, and I’d made myself—briefly—into a suspect. Not what I’d call rolling high. And now, I was alone at the scene of a crime, hoping to stop another murder using only determination, my charming smile, and the tube of lip balm in my pocket. It wasn’t the best arsenal.

  José would tell me to get in character, consider my stats. I wasn’t off the charts in stealth, but I was reasonably fit and nimble, so my athletics had to be at least a little above zero. I may not have many points in investigation, but surely I’d leveled up in that skill line at least a little over the last week. I probably had a bonus or two for sheer insanity. No one would expect the humble shopkeeper to try to stop a murderer. And more than anything else, I had will.

  I wouldn’t let another of my gamers die. They were my tribe, my friends, my responsibility when they were in my store. I’d failed once. I would not do it again.

  When I reached the central lobby, where the fountain bubbled and sprayed, I peered around the corner of the hallway. The chairs were all stacked on the tables, and there was no convenient flashing sign that said, “This way to murderer.” I heard no voices, but I did see that the light was coming from the upstairs lobby, the main entrance where the security desk and Donald’s office were.

  If Paige and Craig were here, they’d left no signs.

  I opened the door to the stairwell with as little pressure as I could, praying it wouldn’t creak and give me away. I repeated my corner-check, looking around the doorframe in both directions to make sure no one would jump out of my blind spot to tackle me. People were always doing it in action movies, so I assumed it was a reasonable concern. I heard no one on the stairs, though, so I groped my way through the darkness up to the main floor.

  It was brighter on this floor, where gray light filtered through the windows. A flat, stale chemical odor permeated the lobby, residue of the smoke bombs from the previous afternoon. The air felt thin and stale in my lungs. I wanted to cough but settled for breathing heavily through my mouth. When I looked around to scope out the scene, I saw that the light over Max’s desk was on. There was a set of keys and a wad of cloth sitting on the surface of his desk but no one in sight. I crept toward it, listening with all my might to make sure nobody would catch me.

  The keys were Max’s or Donald’s, I thought, or maybe a spare set belonging to the janitorial staff—there were dozens of keys on several sets of rings, tiny labels sticking up here and there to indicate which keys went to which floor. The cloth proved to be a canvas bag, which seemed either innocuous or really freaking creepy. I saw no murder weapons, no note indicating a killer’s plans.

  Craig was not making my job any easier.

  Whoever had been here was nowhere to be seen. The desk was neat otherwise, Max’s chair pushed beneath it, the computer turned off. Maybe he was just here to do a routine check. Maybe I was wrong, and there was no nefarious plot to end the cover-up of Wes’s murder with a final killing.

  A woman shrieked somewhere above me, her voice echoing down to the lower floors. The sound died quickly, as if she’d had something stuffed into her mouth. I hit the wall by the elevator, my heart racing, and gazed up the elevator shaft. It was too dark to see anything, and with the light from Max’s desk shining in my eyes, I wasn’t sure if I could trust what I thought I saw—but it looked like someone had a light set up on one of the upper floors.

  I held my breath, listening, and a man’s voice came echoing down to me, distorted with distance and the interference of the fountain’s noise. He spoke rapidly in low tones, but the woman never replied. At least two people were up there—and I suspected one of them was Paige.

  I heard another muffled shriek, and I knew I had to move fast. My trip up the stairs seemed to happen in slow motion, the sound of my feet hitting the steps almost as loud as my pounding pulse and rasping breath. I stopped at each floor to peer out, but I thought the lights I’d seen had come from high up—at least the fourth floor. Never let it be said that Craig lost his flair for the dramatic when he quit LARPing. I suspected he was going to reenact the drama he’d performed with Wes, maybe make it look like Paige couldn’t live with the guilt.

  He was in for a surprise, though. There was one player left in this game, and even if he knew I was onto him, even if he’d tried to scare me off, he clearly wasn’t ready to kill me to keep his secrets safe. Killing Paige would be a cheap shortcut, and a rocky one at that. Craig had to be learning the first rule of adventuring: violence begets more violence, and trying to butcher your way out of a bad situation usually just causes more problems.

  On the fifth floor, I opened the door a mere whisper and looked out with one eye. Sure enough, I could see a light around the corner and down the hall, near the balcony that looked down onto the lobby. The light glowed the eerie blue of a cheap LED lamp, one of those bulbs that lives longer than most people can hang onto a flashlight. Faint sunlight filtered through the office windows on this floor, and the lights over the emergency exit sign did little to dispel the gloom. It was a horror movie waiting to happen, but I was no nubile victim waiting for my turn to die.

  I wished I’d had the foresight to bring a crowbar or a baseball bat or even just my phone, but I wasn’t in the habit of stopping crazed killers, so I hadn’t put a lot of thought into helpful supplies. I took a step back into the stairwell, considering my next move.

  My eyes fell on the fire extinguisher, hung just inside the door. It was bulky and awkward, but it might do the trick. If I couldn’t swing it, I could figure out how to spray it, and that might slow down Craig if he decided he wanted to attack me. I tugged the extinguisher free, staggering a little when it came loose. It was heavy, intended for use by someone much larger than me—and probably someone wearing turnout gear—but I could carry it menacingly across my body like a cross between a shield and a dwarven ax, and that was good enough for me. I tugged the pin loose and let it fall to the floor, the metal clinking noise deafening in the silence of the deserted building.

  Thus armed, I nudged the door back open with one foot and stepped out into the hallway.

  22

  NEAR THE BASE OF the balcony railing, I saw a slumped form on the floor, legs sprawled out, head resting on the tile. I darted forward, fire extinguisher cradled in my arms, and dropped to my knees, skidding to a halt near the downed figure.

  It was Nick, huddled loosely in a fetal position. My fire extinguisher hit the ground with a clang, but I ignored it, frantically searching him for signs of life. When I rolled him away from the railing, I saw that a gun lay on the floor beside one of his hands, and his arm stretched limply out toward it. I leaned over him, frightened, and nudged him with one finger. “Nick?” I whispered.

  He mumbled incoherently, like he’d been hit across the head, but I saw no wounds. I wondered, loo
king at his half-lidded eyes, if he was drunk or drugged. He didn’t seem in any shape to be shooting anyone—not that there was anyone to shoot. The LED lantern stood a few feet away, shining its cold blue light on us and the mirror-polished elevator doors, but there were no other signs of life. I glanced through the railing down toward the fountain, but it was too dark to see anything or anyone down below.

  I shook Nick a little harder. “Nick, wake up. Come on.”

  He mumbled again. I grabbed his shoulders and tried to shift him upright, but he was much bigger than I was, and his inert form was heavy and limp as a sack of sand. He was way too relaxed to support himself, even if I could get him seated.

  “Damn it,” I muttered. “Come on, Nick.” I nudged the gun away with one foot, scooting it back up the hallway with a metallic scraping sound. I pushed my fire extinguisher out of my path, then I grabbed his wrists and began to drag him toward the elevator. The lights were out, but if the fountain was running, the power was on. I couldn’t get him down the stairs, but I at least needed to get him to the security desk so that I could call the cops myself.

  I didn’t make it far. He was too heavy, and I scooted him only about a foot before I managed to slip on the tile and fall backward onto my butt.

  I swore again, then scrambled around to try pushing him instead of pulling. That’s when I saw the blood on the floor, a slow ooze from his head that marked the path of where I’d dragged him. He’d been attacked, then. I shuddered and crab-walked backward a few inches.

  “You’re disturbing the scene of the crime,” a voice said.

  I turned so sharply I twisted my wrist, and, with a gasp of pain, I collapsed back onto my rear. “Craig?” I said. I squinted toward the lantern.

  He stepped forward, and I saw that it was him. He was carrying someone—Paige, I realized. She was limp, too. Craig put her on the floor. I scooted back, frightened. I couldn’t see if she was breathing or not. “The scene of a crime you made,” I said. I rubbed my sore wrist, trying to be discreet. He didn’t need to know I was hurt.

  “I didn’t do this.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “No, I didn’t. Paige called me. She was frightened, said she thought her boyfriend was setting her up. I tracked her phone here. I found her down the hall, unconscious, and this boy with a gun.” He gestured at Nick and the gun on the floor beside Paige. “I surprised him, hit him in the head. I went back to see if Paige was okay.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Craig gave me a quizzical smile. “No? Why not?”

  “Why would you leave the gun?”

  “It’s not my gun.” His smile looked too clever by half. He had an answer for everything—or wanted me to think he did.

  “Donald told us everything,” I said. “We know you’ve been harassing him, trying to get him to sell the building, and we know you’ve been heading up the investments to do it. What, you’re going to use your commission from the sale to buy into it yourself? I’m not sure that’s legal, Craig. And you killed Wes to cover it up! I called the cops before I came here—they know everything.”

  “That’s quite a story.” He bent and touched Paige’s neck. He brushed her hair back from her face, and I could see how white she was in the dim light. She didn’t stir.

  “Is she alive?”

  “Yes.”

  He straightened and looked at me again. “So, what, you rushed over here to save them from me? Autumn to the rescue, armed only with a fire extinguisher and her wits?”

  “Something like that.” I got my feet under me and hauled myself upright, my back to the railing.

  Craig had the gun in his hand—he must have picked it up under the pretense of checking on Paige. My breath caught in my throat. I edged toward my fire extinguisher, though it wouldn’t do a thing against a gun. Nick stirred at my feet, groaning. Craig moved toward him. I took the opportunity to move to the side and grab my makeshift weapon, though I struggled to hoist it up with my damaged left wrist. I braced its bottom on my left forearm and wrapped the fingers of my right hand around the trigger.

  “You called the cops?” Craig asked conversationally as he rolled Nick to the side to look at his wound. “I hope they’re bringing an ambulance. He’s hurt pretty badly, and I don’t know what he did to Paige.” He glanced at me and gave me his fake-confused smile again. “Why do you have that, Autumn? I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “You hurt Meghan,” I said. I aimed the extinguisher at him. “Someone attacked her, lit the smoke bombs. If it wasn’t Donald, it must have been you.”

  Craig shook his head. “I swear, it wasn’t me. Maybe it was him.” He pointed at Nick with the gun, and I sucked in my breath.

  “Put the gun down, please,” I said. I tightened my fingers around the trigger of my fire extinguisher.

  “Or what? You’ll spray me?” He was still smiling. He started to stand, but when I flinched back, he froze, crouching. “Easy, okay? Look—” He put the gun down a few feet away and then straightened one vertebra at a time.

  I relaxed but only a little. “You haven’t convinced me.”

  “I shouldn’t have to convince you—I didn’t do anything.”

  “Meghan saw you move the smoke bomb to set off the sprinklers. She saw you destroy her computer. Why would you do that?”

  His smile faltered. “She was hurt—she couldn’t have seen anything.”

  “And Donald told us that Wes overheard you arguing. He overheard you threatening to tell the grant commission that Donald was trying to fix the competition unless Donald agreed to the sale.” I scrambled for the right bluff—I just needed him to start talking. Hopefully I could keep him doing so until the police arrived.

  But he wouldn’t take my bait. My accusation had definitely shattered his fake smile, but he didn’t start confessing, either. “Donald said that, huh? Well, you know he was fixing the grant contest for Meghan. Working with her behind the scenes to start their little party business, too.”

  “I know.”

  “Shouldn’t you be accusing him of murder, then? He’s the one who ruined things for you.”

  “I did,” I retorted. “But unlike you, he convinced me that he’s innocent. I could believe his story. Nick would never hurt Paige, not in a million years. You’re the one that planted the evidence in Paige’s car, aren’t you? The pen that stabbed Wes—that was your pen, wasn’t it? You kept it to hide it, but when suspicion fell on them anyway—I told you they were suspects—you thought you might as well frame someone else for your crime! And you almost got away with it!” I took a step back from him, appalled. I’d practically handed him Paige and Nick. It was my fault he’d been able to make the case against them so convincing. My mouth filled with hot saliva, and I wanted to hurl, but I forced myself to stay calm. “You took it one too far with the attack on Meghan. That was a mistake. You should have finished her off, too, but she saw you, and she came to me for help.”

  Craig said nothing. He stood over Nick’s inert form, watching me. He tucked his hands into his pockets. Nick stirred. I flinched, but Craig didn’t move. He just looked down at Nick, his face impassive. My wrist started to ache from the strain of holding my makeshift weapon, and I knew we couldn’t continue our standoff much longer. Someone had to cave.

  Distantly, sirens started to wail.

  “You really did call the cops,” Craig said. “I thought you were bluffing.”

  “They’ll be here any minute.”

  “You think they believe your story?”

  I nodded. “Why’d you do it, Craig? Why kill Wes? Even if he heard you threatening Donald, it wasn’t the end. You still would have made your sale.”

  The gun lay on the floor between us, out of reach for both of us. I saw Craig’s eyes dart toward it, but he didn’t move. The sirens came closer, echoing as they entered the narrower streets of downtown.

  “The sale would only go through if the developer could get the building at a
bargain price. I had investors, but not enough, and even dilapidated, this building isn’t cheap. If Donald got to make his improvements, we never would have been able to afford to buy it.”

  “He was just a kid.” My voice, thick with tears, remained steady and even. “So are Nick and Paige. They’re just children, finishing college, and you’ve ruined their lives.”

  “And mine wouldn’t have been ruined? If it got out that I was playing the market, trying to make a sale I had a financial interest in, I would never work again. My boss would fire me. No one would ever hire me.” He swallowed. “There’s almost a million dollars on the line, Autumn. And I’ll go to prison.”

  “A million dollars,” I growled. “A whole million—is that what a life is worth to you?”

  A few feet away, Paige whimpered. Startled, I almost dropped my fire extinguisher. She started to roll over, and I moved reflexively to check on her.

  Craig lunged.

  I shrieked and pulled the trigger of my fire extinguisher. The spray burst out from the nozzle and an explosive cloud of cold, cloudy white spread through the air. I heard Craig swear, but all I’d done was given him a blanket of milky fog to work in. I prayed it had obscured the gun, but I didn’t wait to find out. I let loose another cloud of billowing, stinking carbon dioxide and then dropped the extinguisher, making a dash for the hallway and the stairs. I made it two steps before I felt Craig grab my legs.

  I fell to the floor, coughing in the gas and kicking wildly with both feet. Craig grunted as I connected once, but I felt his hands reach for my torso and grope for my flailing arms as he tried to subdue me. Something hard hit me in the ribs, and I realized he had the gun in one of his hands. If he pinned me, he would kill me, of that I had no doubt. He managed to grasp one of my upper arms, his free hand tight as an iron band around my bicep. I could see his face now, red and livid with animal rage.