Tempestuous (20 page)

“So what do we do now?” Ariel said.

“We either wait for this guy to hurt someone else….”

“Or we take matters into our own hands,” I said, finishing Caleb’s thought.

“But we can’t do anything without knowing who
or where
the guy is,” Chad said, thumping a fist into his palm.

“I’ve been thinking….” I said slowly. Caleb and Chad gave each other mock “uh oh, here she goes again” looks. “What about the security footage? Maybe there’s something there that would give us a clue.”

“Sorry,” Grady said, approaching us. “You’re about five steps behind me. That’s the first thing I checked, and there was nothing to go on. This guy is a professional.”

“But what if you missed something?” I said. “You’ve been down here since Caleb and I got locked in the storeroom. Maybe we ought to go check and see if there’s any sign of him on the camera feed from Radio Hut.”

“Even if we saw him lock you in, it wouldn’t give us any idea as to his whereabouts now,” he said, exasperated. “I’ve told you a dozen times, we need to stay down here and out of this guy’s way.”

“Caleb and I could go check it out while you keep an eye on everyone,” Chad said.

“No more Scooby Doo adventures,” Grady said, flushed to his roots. “I said we stay here.”

“Look, man, no offense, because I know you’re doing your level best to keep us safe, and I respect that,” Caleb said. “But what are you prepared to do to stop us?”

Grady considered the question for a minute, his arms crossed over his chest. I knew him well enough to predict that when push came to shove, not even an expert in origami would fold faster.

“Fine,” he said. “If you guys insist on playing gumshoe, then I’m going with you. No more civilians are going down on my watch.” Normally, I would’ve cracked a joke at Grady’s cop vernacular, but I was grateful to him for wanting to “protect” my friends when I knew being out in the mall with an actual criminal kind of scared the bejesus out of him.

“What about everyone else?” Chad asked.

“They’ll be fine down here,” Grady said. “You two would be more at risk out there on your own. Besides, I know how to operate the playback system. It will be faster with me there.”

“Thanks, Grady,” I said, giving him a hug of encouragement.

“Well, you’re not giving me much of a choice, are you?” he said. “Chad, Caleb, meet me in five at the foot of the escalator.”

I hid the fact that I was a tad
verklempt
as we bid farewell to the boys by joking about reconnaissance missions.

“Watch your back, and cover your wingman,” I said, hugging Caleb tightly.

“Ten-four. Roger that.”

Ariel, on the other hand, was visibly upset and warned a blushing Chad to be “über careful.” He leaned down to give her a kiss on the lips whereupon Caleb and I, realizing somewhat belatedly they were having what is generally deemed “a moment,” turned away to give them some privacy.

“Promise you’ll come straight back,” I said to Caleb. “Find out what you can and then book it back here so we can figure out a plan together. Don’t go rogue or anything.”

“Sure,” he said. “After seeing you in action all night, I’d be a fool to leave you out of any planning. Besides,” he said, “I haven’t quite given up on us as a package deal.”

“Okay, let’s do this,” Chad interrupted before I could ask Caleb to clarify his cryptic comment. As they headed toward the escalator to meet Grady, Caleb turned to wave back at me, handcuffs hanging from his arm. Why did I feel absurdly as if
my
arm were still attached to the handcuffs? Was it some sort of posttraumatic stress disorder symptom?

“I can’t believe we wasted our time talking about Brian when
this
was happening, you little PDA coquette!” I accosted a glowing but flustered Ariel as soon as the boys and Grady crested the first floor. “Details. Spill them. Now.” I was dying to know the sequence of events that had led Chad and Ariel to be all blatantly kissy-face. Hoping her story would prove a distraction to us both as we waited for the guys to return, I grabbed her hand and led her over to where Alfredo and Dinah were camped out on a plaid wool blanket. They were waiting for their polish to dry, reading
Cosmo
dating advice aloud to one another in fake British accents, an activity they eagerly tossed aside to join our impromptu gossip session. “Tell us evryfink, luv,” Alfredo said to Ariel in mock Cockney, patting a spot next to him on the blanket.

My coworker giddily explained that she and Chad had been lovedrunk virtually from the moment Caleb and I had left the food court following the concert.

“Oh, Miranda, it was incredible!” she said, her naturally pink cheeks flushing almost fuchsia. “He told me he’s been crushing on me for months but was too shy to come out and say anything!” I thought back to earlier when Chad had approached me on my break. Oh god, what a dolt I was! He wasn’t trying to ask me out—he’d been soliciting my advice for asking out Ariel! Considering Caleb and I had emerged from the stockroom incident unharmed, it was probably a good thing we were out of the picture for a while—it gave Chad a little time to make his move.

“He kissed me when we were in the photo booth. We were just goofing off, taking some silly pictures, and then it happened….” As Ariel confided in us, I could tell by the far-off look in her eyes that it had been her first kiss—and a stellar one, at that. “He called me ‘sweet’ and ‘perfect.’ I never even dreamed this was something that could happen. I mean, he could go out with any cheerleader or gorgeous girl that he wants to, but instead he wants
me
!”

Her eyes were dewy, and I could see the little one was overwhelmed by her joy.

“Oh Ariel,
you’re
gorgeous. Of course he would want you!” I said, on the verge of crying now, too. In addition to being beside myself with excitement for her, I was wistful, too, wondering if my own future would ever include a romance this good and sincere, unfettered by the trouble and turmoil I’d come to associate with dating.

“It’s my birthday wish come true,” Ariel said before sighing in happy contentment. “Those candles I blew out must have been enchanted.”

“Speaking of,” said Dinah. “How’d you enjoy the ice cream cake?” Alfredo and I concurred with Ariel’s rave reviews. “Did you let it stand on the counter for a few minutes to thaw a bit, so it’d be easier to cut? I told Grady to mention that to you.”

“Actually,” I said, a little confused. “It was already half-melted by the time Grady delivered it.”

“What?” Dinah looked perplexed. “But that’s impossible. I’d just gotten it out of the freezer when he came. It was rock solid. It couldn’t have melted in the five-minute walk back to the food court.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Maybe Grady had to stop somewhere else before he dropped it off here,” Ariel said. “He seemed pretty busy in the aftermath of the computer store break-in.”

“Nooo….” Dinah shook her head slowly, as if thinking back on the exchange. “He came by to pick up the cake a few minutes after eight.”

“Before the computer store got wiped out,” I said. “That doesn’t make sense. He dropped off the cake at nine, just like I’d asked him to. And I bumped into him running down Main Street about twenty minutes earlier. Why would he have picked it up from you so early, and what did he do with it?”

“Beats me,” Dinah said with a shrug. “Though he did seem a little distracted when he came by the bakery. He had a hammer with him. Said he’d been trying to crack the ice that had built up around the door to the loading dock.”

The visual of shattered ice made me instantly think of the smashed glass display cases in the computer store. I jumped to my feet in a panic.

“No!”

“What’s wrong?” Ariel said, standing up to join me.

I couldn’t believe that I’d failed to see it earlier: His agitation following the first robbery. His Chesire Cat–like comings and goings throughout the night. His insistence that we all stay confined to the food court. His convenient failure to make contact with anyone on the shortwave radio.

“Grady’s the thief,” I said, feeling a cold dread spread over me. “And Caleb and Chad have no idea.”

The peculiar thing about courage is that you can more readily summon it forth when something (or someone?) you love is at stake. Neither Ariel nor I took a moment’s pause to consider the jeopardy we were putting ourselves in by going after the guys. Grady’s M.O. was pilfering cash and pricey merchandise—but he also wasn’t above resorting to violence if anyone got in his way. The fact that Caleb and Chad didn’t suspect Grady in the least served as their best protection against him. Still, I wasn’t about to stand idly by knowing they were out there alone with the crooked mall cop. Certainly Caleb and Chad could take the scrawny security guard in a
mano-y-mano
struggle. But Grady was armed and, well, there was no telling what he might do if confronted.

“Whatever you do, don’t let on that we know anything,” I counseled Ariel as we approached the far end of the mall. “We’ll just act like our curiosity got the better of us. Grady’s used to my wandering ways, though he’ll probably be annoyed.”

“I hope they’re all right!” Ariel said. “I finally got the man of my dreams only to lose him two hours later. This is the most bittersweet love story since
Titanic
!”

“On second thought, you’d better let me do all the talking. Anyway, I’m sure they’re fine. Just play it cool. We can explain everything to Chad and Caleb once we get away from Grady.”

The inside of the empty security office was depressingly bleak. The only art
per se
was a dartboard studded with darts and a faded “wanted” poster featuring grainy black-and-white photos of people who’d bounced checks, presumably circa a time when people actually wrote checks. A crusty, ancient Mr. Coffee Maker gave off the pungent scent of burnt Folgers, and a ratty, taped-up office chair on wheels sat in front of a bank of six surveillance screens trained on various areas of the mall’s interior. Every ten seconds or so, the screens would automatically switch to a different area of the building: the interior of Cheeze Monkey … the food court … the kiddie playland … the dining room at Teasers.

On the desk in front of the monitors, a pale green, sticky slime sat in a coagulated puddle, and I could see that some of the liquid had earlier dripped onto the linoleum floor below.

“Here’s where he stashed your birthday cake while he was robbing the jewelry store,” I said. “He must have thought the cake would serve as his alibi.” Ariel was naturally concerned with far more pressing details.

“They said they were coming here to look at the surveillance footage. We didn’t pass them on our way. Where are they?”

“I’m not sure, but I don’t like it,” I said. We stared for a moment at the security monitors. Apart from our food court posse and a smattering of teenagers still camped in front of the entrance to Worthington’s, most of the areas the cameras spied upon were as deserted as a playground on Christmas morning. It was strange to view the mall from this vantage point and to be reminded that, at any time, whoever was on security detail could be watching our every move.

I didn’t know the first thing about operating the surveillance system, but Ariel’s gamer fangirl background gave her the wherewithal to figure out how to switch screens and zoom in and out.

“Nothing,” I said after a few more minutes of scrutiny. “We don’t have time to just sit here and wait for them to magically appear.”

“We could head over to Worthington’s and see if anyone’s spotted them down that way?” Ariel said.

As my mind grappled with my next move, my eyes vacantly settled upon an exterior shot of the building. Aside from the top half of a few hedges and a covered bus stop that I recognized as being located on the eastern side of the building, the image was a white blur. Specs of white moved across the screen—the snow was still falling, but only flurries now, not the giant flakes that had bombarded me this afternoon. I narrowed my eyes and tried to focus on the unblemished expanse of snow that occupied most of the monitor.

“See that top right screen?”

“The one looking outside?”

“Yeah. Can you zoom in any more?”

“Sure. But there’s nothing there. All I see is snow, and a lot of it. No wonder we weren’t allowed to drive home in that!”

She clicked a few keys on an ancient looking computer keyboard, and the screen turned completely white with an up-close shot of the snowy expanse.

“Don’t you see it?” I asked.

“See what?”

“Look closer, bottom left.” Ariel leaned her face close to the screen.

“Footprints?”

“I can’t think what else it would be. And the way it’s spread out, it’s not just one set.”

“It’s still snowing,” Ariel said, “Which means—”

“—those footprints are fresh!”

• • •

Based on the location of the bus stop, it was easy to figure out that the tracks were heading straight toward a utility door that led to the kitchen at Teasers. We hightailed it downstairs and started off in that direction, agreeing en route that there must be an innocent explanation for the boys’ change of plans. We just had to figure out a way to get to them before Grady suspected that anyone was on to him. I was still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that “Officer Doughnut,” as he was occasionally called, could be the culprit.