Becki heard him murmuring away, but it hardly registered. It was only background noise, like the whoosh of the air-conditioning vents.
A messaging program was open on the big iMac. Rog had been trading texts with someone named Bo. The most recent was a picture of Becki on her knees in slick silver panties, mouth open, hair blown across her face, leaning forward for some cock. Beneath that was Rog’s most recent text: At least I’ll always have this to remember her by. Plus, she LOVED it up the ass. I didn’t even have to ask. Second date.
And Bo’s reply: Shit, dude, I hate you. How come good things never happen to me?
Rog slipped into the office, saw her staring at the computer, and deflated.
“Okay,” he said. “I admit, that was inconsiderate. I shouldn’t have shared that photo with anyone. I was depressed and trying to cheer myself up by being callous and nasty. So shoot me for having feelings.”
Becki barked with laughter.
10:37 A.M.
When he heard the first shot, Kellaway slopped his coffee. He didn’t react to the second shot at all, just stood midway down the food court, head cocked, listening. Independence Day was barely over, and the thought was in his mind that it might be kids fucking off with some firecrackers. He’d managed to scald the shit out of his hand, but he made no move, letting the sounds sink in. When the gun went off a third time, he threw his cup at the wastebasket. He missed—the paper cup hit the side of the can and erupted—but he wasn’t around to see coffee going everywhere. By then he was running in a crouch toward the sound of pistol fire.
He ran past Spencer Gifts and Sunglass Hut and Lids, saw women and their kids crouched behind pillars and displays, and felt his heartbeat thudding in his eardrums. Everyone knew the drill, had seen it all on TV. Get down, be ready to run if the shooter comes in sight. Kellaway’s walkie-talkie awoke in a blast of noise, frightened voices, and feedback.
“What is that, guys? Guys? Guys? Anyone know—”
“Oh, fuck! Shots fired! That’s shots fired! Holy fuck!”
“I’m in Sears—should we lock it down? Can someone tell me if we’re in a lockdown situation or am I sending people to the exits or—”
“Mr. Kellaway? Mr. Kellaway, it’s Ed Dowling. What’s your twenty? Repeat, what’s your—”
Kellaway turned his walkie-talkie off.
A fat twenty-something—a kid who kind of looked like that actor Jonah Hill—was sprawled facedown on the glossy stone floor, just outside Devotion Diamonds. He heard Kellaway coming, looked back, and began waving one hand in a gesture that seemed to mean, Get down, get down. He had a wrapped sandwich or burrito in the other hand.
Kellaway dropped to one knee, thinking it had to be an armed robbery. He imagined men in balaclavas, using sledgehammers to smash the display cases, grabbing jewels by the fistful. His right hand went to the heavy iron on his left ankle.
Fat kid gasped for breath, was having trouble getting words out. He flailed one hand toward Devotion Diamonds.
“Tell me what you know,” Kellaway whispered. “Who’s in there?”
The fat kid said, “Muslim female shooter. And the owner, he’s dead, I think.”
Kellaway’s own breath whistled thin and fast. A fucking al-Qaeda thing, then. He had thought he’d left the black veils and the suicide bombers in Iraq, but here they were. He jerked up his pant leg and unsnapped the Ruger Federal that Jim Hirst let him have for a hundred and twenty bucks. He tugged its lovely weight out of the ankle holster.
Kellaway scuttled to a mirrored column at the entrance to the shop, pressed himself against it so hard his breath clouded the glass. He darted a look around the corner. Display cases divided the floor into zigzagging corridors. The paneled door into the private office at the rear was open. A black-tinted globe on the ceiling hid the camera that monitored the store floor. That wasn’t one of the mall’s cameras, which watched only common areas. That would be Devotion Diamonds’ private security. Kellaway couldn’t see anyone in the store, not another soul.
He moved, dropped to his hands and knees, and crawled into the shop. The air smelled of gun smoke. Kellaway heard a rustle of movement to his right, in the corner, near the fulfillment nook. He didn’t have a good angle on it, not where he was. He made it to the end of one Z-shaped display counter. The open office door was just a yard away. This was the moment. Maybe the last moment. He closed his eyes. He thought of his son, thought of George, saw him clearly, squeezing a stuffed penguin to his chest, then holding it up for Daddy to kiss.
He opened his eyes and came uncoiled, threw himself against the wall just to one side of the office door. He lifted the gun and swiveled to cover the fulfillment nook. The woman rose at the same time, a small, almost elfin Muslim in the hijab and gown, bomb vest strapped to her chest, bulging with explosives, and a silver trigger in one hand. He put a bullet through her center mass. The moment he did it, he realized he had shot right through the packed explosive, too. He waited for the spark and the flash, waited to be carried away in a clap of light. But it didn’t go off. She fell. The bullet had punched right through her and into the mirror behind her, the glass splintering in a red spiderweb.
Something clattered in the office, to his left. He saw movement at the edge of his vision, glanced, saw another woman. She wore a hijab, too, this one a pretty, flowered, gauzy cloth. She clutched a silver pistol with a lot of fancy filigree on it. This shooter was white, but that didn’t surprise him. They were pretty good at turning white girls into soldiers for Allah online.
There was a corpse on the floor between them, at their feet: Roger Lewis, the guy who owned the place. He was on his stomach, the back of his shirt soaked with blood. It looked like he had collapsed onto his desk, maybe grabbed at his big iMac to stay on his feet, and then slid off and rolled onto his face. He had almost pulled the computer off the desk with him. The big silver monitor was precariously balanced on a back corner, looked like it might crash at any moment.
The convert was so close he could’ve reached out to grab her. Some of her blond hair had come loose from the wrap over her head. A long golden strand was stuck to one damp, flushed cheek. She gaped at him, then looked into the next room, but from here she couldn’t see the body in the fulfillment nook.
“Your partner is gone,” he said. “Put it down.”
“You shouldn’t of done that,” she told him, perfectly calm.