Her frown deepened as she realized she couldnāt remember going home last night. She remembered responding to a break-in call at that womanās apartment. Her name escaped Maureen now, but she remembered what she looked like well enough, and also the layout of her place. But as to what she and Rauch had done after leaving the womanās apartmentā¦. She didnāt have a clue. Had she and Rauch been driving around ever since then? Again, she didnāt know, but she had a feeling that Rauch hadnāt been with her the entire time. Sometimes he was there and sometimes he wasnāt. Where he went or what he did while he was gone was yet one more thing Maureen didnāt know.
Maureen was divorced, and the two children sheād had with her ex were grown and long on their own. Sheād never remarried, so if she had been out all night, there was no one in her life to notice. The thought depressed her.
They were less than a mile from the mall when they hit a red light. Maureen braked to a stop and turned to look at Rauch, intending to ask him to explain what the hell was going on, because something sure as shit was. Rauch continued looking straight ahead, but before Maureen could speak, three slits opened in Rauchās neck. They spread wide, revealing red flesh inside, and they remained like that for a moment before closing. Maureen was revolted by Rauchāsā What were they? Gills? But she wasnāt alarmed by them. She had the feeling that sheād seen this happen before, had seen it a lot of times. She couldnāt remember when, precisely ā big surprise ā but she felt certain sheād witnessed the slits opening and closing before, sometimes faster, sometimes slower. And while she didnāt know for sure, couldnāt with her terrible memory, she thought sheād never asked Rauch about them, that it had never even occurred to her until now that she should ask, that something wasnāt right ā was in fact terribly wrong ā about her āpartnerā. But she still didnāt find the words or the will to speak. It was as if some kind of force was keeping her from thinking or talking about certain things, subjects that Rauch might not wish to address.
Rauchās neck gills opened and closed twice more before the light turned green and Maureen remembered to remove her foot from the brake and put it down on the gas pedal. The cruiser pulled into the intersection and neither Rauch nor Maureen spoke for the next few minutes. When they drew near one of the mallās entrances, Maureen slowed, hit the cruiserās right turn signal, and turned into the lot. The mallās official name was the extraordinarily pretentious Horizonās Edge, but no one seemed to remember why it had been chosen. Almost everyone in town simply referred to it as The Mall. Whoever had designed the parking lot had been overly optimistic. Maureen had never seen all the spaces filled. Even at Christmas, only a third to a half of the spaces were ever used by customers. Today was no exception. There were only a handful of cars in the lot, and almost all of them were parked close to the main entrance. The building was two stories high, long, and made of dull whitish-gray brick, which made it look more like a prison than a shopping center.
āPull up to the entrance,ā Rauch said. āUse one of the handicapped spaces.ā
It was illegal for them to park there, and while Maureen would usually never do such a thing on her own, she did so now at Rauchās command. She didnāt know why she felt compelled to follow the manās orders, but she was and she did. Once they parked, Maureen left the engine running, headlights and wipers on.
āNow what?ā she asked.
Rauch turned to her, and she saw that not only was the man smiling, he was holding a phone up, the screen facing Maureen. On the phone was a photo of a woman Maureen didnāt recognize ā a petite blonde dressed in a gray blazer and looking every inch the professional working woman ā her arm draped around the shoulder of a young brown-haired boy.
āWho are they?ā
Rauchās smile widened, and his neck gills began opening and closing rapidly, making wet flapping sounds, like the noises a fish might make flopping around on the bottom of an anglerās boat.
āTheyāre who weāve come here to see. Well, who youāve come to see. Youāve got a message to deliver to them ā a very special one.ā
Then he laughed, and after a moment, Maureen ā although she didnāt know why ā began laughing too.
* * *
Maureen walked through the mall, scanning her surroundings as she went. Situational awareness was important when you were a cop, and it had long become second nature to her. She took in the people ā mostly old folks and mothers with young children at this time of day ā walking past her, heading in the opposite direction. She glanced into the shops as she walked by, her gaze zeroing in on the registers to make sure no one was being robbed. People avoided meeting her eyes, and those who did looked at her quickly and then looked away. People treated cops like predators whose attention they didnāt want to attract, and while this response was one of the things she liked least about her job ā after all, sheād sworn to serve and protect these people, not frighten them ā their reluctance to focus their attention on her was useful now. No one questioned the presence of a cop in public. An armed cop. They just wanted to go about their business without said cop hassling them. This meant no one would think to stop her before she reached the play area, before she could complete the task sheād come here to do. She was a little fuzzy on why she had to do it, though. Rauch had explained it to her in the car, and it had seemed to make perfect sense at the time. But now that she was inside the mall, alone, she was no longer so certain of her mission. Maybe she should go back to the cruiser and talk with Rauch some more, make sure she fully understood what she was supposed to do, and why it was so important. Rauch had stressed that it was absolutely vital that she complete the task sheād been sent to do, that the Balance depended on it. Maureen didnāt know exactly what the Balance was or why it was so important, but Rauch had made a big deal of it, and Maureen saw no reason why the man would lie. She trusted her partner, even if she couldnāt remember when theyād become partners. Still, she didnāt feel right about the job sheād come here to do, felt unsettled, doubtful. Good cops knew when to rely on their gut, and hers was telling her she needed to rethink the situation, get a better handle on it, get some clarification. Because once she got to work, she would be fully committed, no take-backs.
She stopped walking, was about to turn around, when a recent memory flashed in her mind. She saw Rauch sitting in the front passenger seat of the cruiser, the upper half of his body turned so that he could face Maureen.
Do you understand what Iāve told you?
Yes, Maureen had answered.
Good. And just to make sure you donāt have second thoughtsā¦.
Rauchās neck gills had widened. Heād closed his mouth, tightened the muscles in his neck, and a chuffing sound had filled the cruiser as jets of black gas shot forth from the slits. A black cloud enveloped Maureenās head, cutting off her vision. The gas smelled sour and rank, like spoiled milk and rotten meat. Sheād been caught off guard, and she inhaled the noxious stuff before she could stop herself. As bad as the shit stank, she hadnāt coughed, and the cloud quickly dissipated. Sheād felt calm then, relaxed, compliant, happy ā even eager ā to do whatever Rauch asked of her.
The memory of that awful stench wiped away her doubts as effectively as if sheād gotten a fresh dose of the gas. Sheād come here to do a job ā an important one ā and she intended to see it through. She unsnapped the safety strap on her side holster, put her hand on the butt of her Glock, and continued on toward the play area.
* * *
āLook at me, Mommy!ā
Brian climbed on top of the bulbous yolk of a gigantic over-easy egg and jumped. Reeny watched as he landed on a section of egg white. The plastic was slick, and his feet slid out from under him and he went down on his butt. She rose from the bench where sheād been sitting, intending to go to him and see if he was hurt. But he got up laughing, stepped off the egg, and started running toward an equally gigantic waffle covered with plastic syrup and a plastic pat of melting butter. Her assistance not required, Reeny sat back down and marveled at how resilient children could be. Why couldnāt people keep that quality and take it with them into adulthood? It would make getting through life a hell of a lot easier.
Sheād intended to take Brian to the park after picking him up from preschool, but the rain had necessitated a change of plan. Instead, sheād brought him to Horizonās Edge. A silly name for a cheap, tacky place that always smelled like greasy fried food, popcorn, soda, and cotton candy. Unlike some kids, Brian wasnāt tired after school. He was always revved up, so Reeny took him to the park to burn off some of that energy before she took him home. If she didnāt, heād run around like a little lunatic and drive her crazy while she tried to make dinner. But the weather being what it was, sheād brought Brian to the mall today. More especially, to the play area, not far from the food court. And maybe its proximity to food was why it had been designed in such an unusual way. Instead of standard play equipment to climb on, jump on, or slide down, the area contained giant plastic sculptures of breakfast food: eggs, pancakes, waffles, sausage links, muffins, tall glasses of milk and orange juice, and even a mug of coffee. The drink sculptures were too large for children to climb, so they mostly ignored these, although occasionally some kids would chase each other around them. Running, climbing, and jumping were the primary activities children could engage in here, and while school-age children would tire of the breakfast sculptures quickly, toddlers and preschoolers didnāt need much in the way of outward stimulation in order to make their fun ā thank god.
There were maybe a dozen kids playing, a roughly even mix of boys and girls, running around, laughing, and yelling while their tired parents sat on benches positioned around the play area. Some, like her, were watching their children have fun, while most gazed down at their phones. She watched Brian fall into a game of tag with several other children, smiling at the easy way they played together. If only adults could make friends so easily. Brian looked like his father ā lean, narrow-faced, thick brown hair ā but he didnāt have his fatherās athletic grace, not yet anyway. Charles owned and operated a cleaning company called We Got It Maid. But heād been on both the football and basketball teams in high school, and now he ran several miles each morning and played doubles tennis with her at the weekends. She hoped Brian would inherit his fatherās physical abilities. Sheād been awkward and clumsy growing up, and she hoped her son could avoid having to deal with other kids teasing him because he wasnāt good at sports. Neither she nor Charles were shallow people, at least she hoped they werenāt. They didnāt judge others by their physical gifts. What was inside a personās mind and heart was infinitely more important than whether they could do a layup or hit a fastball. But the reality was that the fast, the strong, and the agile had an easier time of it in this world ā certainly when they were young ā and as a mother, she wanted her child to have the best life he could.
Her thoughts drifted toward Lori then. Her sister had been on her mind ever since their lunch earlier, and she hadnāt been able to concentrate on anything else. She was worried about Lori ā deeply worried ā and she wondered if sheād made a mistake by not staying with her after their talk at A Taste of Thai. Maybe she shouldāve canceled the afternoonās showings and invited Lori over to her house where they couldāve continued talking. Maybe she shouldāve tried to convince Lori to check herself into a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Loriās mental health had been good for the lastā¦had it really been seventeen years? But Aashritaās death during their senior year in high school had hit her hard, and it had taken her some time to recover. Sometimes Reeny thought Lori had only partially recovered. By unspoken agreement, they didnāt talk about Aashrita, but every once in a while one of their parents would bring up the subject, and when that happened, Lori became distant, distracted, almost as if she went into a kind of trance. Reeny didnāt need to be a psychologist to know her sister had unresolved issues regarding Aashritaās death. Sheād tried talking to Lori about it a couple times over the years, but sheād gotten nowhere, had only elicited blank looks and silence, so sheād given up. Now she wished she hadnāt. Maybe if sheād been more persistent, had been able to convince Lori to get help, she wouldnāt be having delusions about being persecuted by some otherworldly secret society.
Sheād texted Lori a couple times to see how she was doing, but sheād gotten no response. Sheād called and left voicemails too, with the same result. Sheād tried calling Get Moving! in case Loriās phone was dead, but no one answered. She told herself that Lori was there, just so busy helping clients that she hadnāt had time to get back to her. Sheād call or text when she got a chance. These thoughts, however, failed to reassure Reeny.
Maybe she should collect Brian and drive over to Get Moving! and see for herself how Lori was doing. If nothing else, it would make her feel better. She started to standā
āand thatās when she heard the first shot.
Reenyās head snapped toward the direction of the sound and her eyes searched frantically for its source. Someone screamed ā she didnāt see who ā and another shot split the air. More screams, and still she couldnāt see the cause for these cries of fear and shock. She thought she might be in shock herself, sitting frozen on her bench, gaze darting this way and that as she tried to determine the location of the threat. Her eyes fell upon a small body lying on top of the large plastic waffle. The girl lay face down, the back of her light blue T-shirt dark and wet with blood. Not far from the girl, she saw a little boy lying on the floor, arms splayed outward, the red ruin that had once been his face pointed toward the ceiling. Someone was shooting, she realized. At kids. Someone was killing kids.
She didnāt yell, didnāt scream. Instead she jumped to her feet and began running toward the last place sheād seen Brian playing tag with the other children ā over by the giant mug of coffee. Hysteria bubbled beneath the surface of her consciousness, and she fought to keep it at bay. She couldnāt help her son if she surrendered to the terror blazing like a wildfire within her.
Itās happening, she thought. Right here, right now.
These days, everyone in America lived with the possibility that they and their loved ones might get caught up in the wave of gun violence that had swept through the country over the last several years. Now it had finally come to Oakmont.
She didnāt see Brian as she ran toward the mug. She was aware of other people as only blurs or smudges, ill-defined objects that took up space but which couldnāt be identified or named. Some of these objects moved, some remained motionless. Some were quiet, and some made sounds as equally indistinct to her as their forms. And then just like that, everything snapped into place, and she saw children, saw mothers ā and even a few fathers ā running, some toward each other, some away, fleeing without intention or direction as they tried to escape death.
Another gunshot, and this time when she looked in the direction of the sound, she saw a middle-aged police officer standing in a shooting stance, gun gripped in both of her hands, just like cops did in the movies and on TV. Was she trying to stop the shooter? She saw the body of a young mother lying on the edge of the egg sculpture, her blood splattered on the white plastic, a squalling infant lying on the floor near where it had fallen. Reeny experienced a momentary impulse to run toward the baby, pick it up, and carry it to safety, but she shoved the feeling aside. As cold and cruel as it was, Brian was her child, and he was her first responsibility. She shut out the babyās cries and kept moving.
She called Brianās name, shouted it as loud as she could. She could barely hear her own voice over the tumult all around her, and she doubted Brian could hear her. Sheād just have to keep looking.
Another shot.
She winced, expecting to feel a bullet slam into her back, but nothing happened. Had someone else gone down, injured or dead? Another child or parent? She prayed the shooter had missed this time, but from what sheād seen of his work so far ā werenāt these killers always men? ā he hit whatever he aimed at. Maybe that last shot had come from the copās gun, though. Maybe sheād managed to take out the shooter. Reeny was tempted to turn and look, eager to get visual confirmation that this nightmare was over, that they were safe. All who hadnāt taken a bullet yet, that is. But she forced herself to keep moving forward. She couldnāt afford to take a chance that the shooter had been stopped. She had to find Brian, had to protect him, make sure he was safe.
She shouted his name again, loud as she could this time, and she almost burst into tears when she heard him cry out, āMommy!ā
Heād been hiding behind the giant sausage link. Now he came running around it toward her, tears streaming from his eyes. He held out his arms to her, wanting her to scoop him up and carry him away from this awful place, and thatās exactly what she intended to do.