The large screen TVs over the atrium beside her switched from a commercial to a neon-bright animated countdown. The game was about to start.
Morgan entered the food court, now had a direct line of sight into the jewelry store. No Clint. But a man was approaching from the stairs leading up from the atrium. His face was turned away from her, he was average height, average weight, and the way he moved…Clint, it had to be.
No way could she reach him in time. She raised her pistol. “Clint!”
All eyes turned to her as she marched toward the man. Several people in the food court yelled, mostly women calling their children to them, backing away from the crazy girl with the gun and the bloodstained coat. In her periphery, she spotted a few men actually step toward her, ready to play hero, but they quickly thought the better of it—smart men.
“Everyone, get out. Now.” She fired her gun into the roof to make her point. They scattered toward the mall exit behind her.
Clint paused, only long enough to twist a glance in her direction. Then he shifted his gaze to the atrium with its countdown clock. He turned and sprinted toward the store.
No luck. Morgan’s gunshot and the crowd’s shouts had alerted the store’s guards. Two now stood inside the entrance, the door sliding shut, locking Clint out.
He whirled. Before she could reach him, he vanished back down the staircase to the lower level.
Morgan took a step, following, when the countdown hit one and the world shattered around her in a blaze of flame, smoke, and screams.
<><><>
JENNA AND ANDRE rushed into the mall through the lower level entrance.
“Micah said he was in the security office,” Andre said, scanning the mall directory.
“You go meet him, I’ll keep an eye out for Gibson,” she told him. “If you spot anything on the cameras, you can direct me there.” She tapped her earbud.
“Got it.” He headed toward the office beneath the steps leading up to the main level.
She searched the crowd, most of them mesmerized by the computerized countdown on the screens above them. How the hell were they going to find one kid in this madhouse?
A shot sounded from the upper level. She looked up—amazed that so many of the people around her didn’t. Did they think it was a sound effect?—and spotted Morgan heading past the food court, aiming a weapon at someone out of sight.
“Andre,” she said into her microphone. “Upper level. Morgan’s found someone.”
“I’m on it.”
Before she could answer, she noticed a bright silver fire extinguisher sitting at the base of a pop-up kiosk selling organic soy candles. Kind of made sense, except...none of the candles were actually lit. She ran to the kiosk where the vendor was talking with a single customer. “Is that your fire extinguisher?”
He frowned at her interruption, but the urgency in her tone caught his attention. “No. It was here when I opened. Figured it was some kind of safety rule.”
“Get out. Now.” They hesitated. “Federal agent,” she lied. “Evacuate the area. Now!” The customer fled, and the salesman grabbed his cash box and followed.
Jenna scanned the area, looking for the closest fire alarm. There, on the wall near the AED station. She raced for it, had just pulled it, when a blast sent her reeling off her feet, her ears filling with pressure, muffling the sound, but there was no mistaking the flames shooting out in all directions from where the candle kiosk had stood moments before.
Footsteps and shrieks thundered through the floor—she shook her head; how had she gotten to the floor?—people ran past, clutching bags and children and phones.
Another explosion shook the building, this one farther down at the other end of the mall—or maybe it was the ringing in her ears making it sound that way. Jenna scrambled to her feet, fell again as someone shoved past her, then finally an anonymous Good Samaritan helped her back up. She lost him in the crowd as she blinked to clear her vision and tried to find Andre. He’d been on the stairs to the upper level, but she couldn’t see him through the throng of people.
“Andre!” she shouted. Then she realized she’d lost her earpiece. No way could anyone hear her over the stampede. She pushed her way toward the stairs. Smoke billowed from both ends of the mall.
A groaning noise, louder than the alarms, screams, and ringing in her ears came from above her. She glanced back just as one of the large screen monitors broke free of its cable and fell, landing in the middle of what had been, a minute ago, the children’s play area.
The crowd moved fast, quickly emptying, except for the wounded and those tending to them. She’d almost made it to the center of the atrium when she spotted a man moving slowly, turning in a circle, observing the chaos, a ghastly smile playing across his face.
Gibson Radcliffe.
Chapter 25