What she said made no sense. Her words came out as a whisper, but then she spoke more, and each time, her volume got louder. ‘Hide in the barn, Nicky . . . don’t be afraid of the spiders . . . hide in the barn.’

Her voice sounded like a child, far younger than she was.

‘I smell apples. Isn’t that funny? Apples!’

Cindy gestured urgently with her hands to make the woman stop. Others in the store hissed for silence. The woman didn’t hear them; she simply stood at the wall, shaking uncontrollably, retreating into some long-ago memory.

‘Climb up here with me, Nicky. Be careful! Don’t fall!’

Another voice murmured from a hiding place: ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’

And then another whisper, in rage and fear: ‘Shut up, you stupid bitch, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.’

But the woman was nearly shouting now. Turning them into targets.

‘Crows. I hear crows, Nicky. LISTEN TO ALL THE CROWS.’

Cindy felt around her pockets, but she knew she’d dropped her phone. Even so, she had to do something; she couldn’t wait. She spotted a lost phone just outside the doorway of the store, maybe three feet into the mall corridor. She leaned beyond the rack of coats where she was hiding, far enough to see through the store window. The gunman, wherever he was, wasn’t in view. She broke cover, crawling for the doorway, and stopped in its shelter.

‘NICKY, COME IN FROM THE RAIN.’

The phone was just out of Cindy’s reach. She listened for the warning alarm of the killer’s boots but heard nothing to give away his location. Maybe he’d fled. Maybe he’d gone down another corridor of the mall, hunting for new victims.

Or maybe he was waiting for her outside the store.

Cindy took a breath and dove. She scooped up the phone and rolled back into the protection of the doorway. It took no more than two seconds. Her body tensed, waiting for gunfire, waiting for the window to shatter into popcorn above her. Nothing happened, but the silence almost felt more ominous than the noise of bullets. Her chest hammered as if she’d just done her morning run.

She punched the numbers for Jonny’s cell phone. It rang, but he didn’t answer, and she realized he wouldn’t recognize the caller ID on the phone. When the call went to voice mail, she left a hushed one-sentence message – ‘It’s me, answer the next call’ – and then she tried again, hoping he’d pick up.

Finally, on the fourth try, he did. His words tumbled in a rush.

‘This is Jonathan Stride, who is this?’