Chapters (57)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Foreword
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Praise for Linwood Barclay
- Also by Linwood Barclay
- About the Publisher
Even if Archie could find a way to that door, which appeared impossible now that the car was there, it had probably relocked when it closed.
“Rory!” he shouted.
His friend would come back, right? He could be waiting in the service corridor. Maybe Pamela would head back into the mall to look for other victims, and when she did, Archie could reach the door and tell Rory it was safe to open the door. If he shouted loudly enough, Rory would hear him.
If Rory was still there.
The Arrival whined. It was trying to back up, but its front fenders were now so badly crumpled they were pinching the front tires. The car couldn’t move, which meant that even if Rory was out there, that door wasn’t going to open.
Archie had to find another way out.
From where he stood, he could see out into the mall, where the occasional Arrival rolled by. The few cars he saw had not sped by. They were not driving erratically. It seemed to Archie that it was almost as if . . .
It was almost as if they were on patrol.
Archie knew, from his many visits to the mall, that the distance from the front of Victoria’s Secret to the escalators was not far. Thirty, forty feet, he reckoned. The escalators were right by the Foot Locker, where his mother always bought him his running shoes, always jabbing her thumb into the toe to make sure there was enough growing room to get a year out of them.
If he could reach the escalator, get to the safer lower level, he and Nick could catch their breath while they came up with a plan.
So Archie worked his way to the front of the store, darting from one rack of underwear to the next—at least those that were still standing—just in case any of the passing Arrivals happened to spot him in their peripheral vision. He got to the front of the store and tucked himself around the corner of the entrance so that he could scope things out.
“Oh no,” Archie said, looking up the mall to the escalators. He whispered to himself: “I don’t believe it.”
He was going to have to come up with another plan.
When Nick had became separated from Archie and Rory, he’d made a dash for the escalator, figuring the lower level would be a good place to ride out the storm. He wasn’t alone in thinking that. Dozens of shoppers were running for the down escalator, and when it became overloaded, others chose the up escalator, running down it at a faster rate than the steps were ascending. The kind of thing Nick used to do when he was much younger.