Javier taps her shoulder and then points across the way. On the other side of the second floor, across the mall, an open office door reads MALL SECURITY. Just inside, two uniformed men are sprawled facedown on the carpet, unmoving. One of them is bald except for a half circle of gray hair. Miranda has walked past him a dozen times, carefully looking neither at him nor away.

She had wondered if the coworkers of the security guard who took Amina were in on this thing. The dead men must be the answer. It looks like they were ambushed. If you have to die, is it better to be unaware until the end, and maybe not even then?

Miranda wrenches her gaze back to Cole. She pretends that the right-hand corner of her vision doesn’t work. That she can’t see the bodies in the food court, the bodies in the security office. That the lack of Oxy hasn’t left her shaking and nauseated.

Cole reaches the planter and rises to his knees. One hand pushes aside the leaves, and the other plunges in and then reappears with the rifle. It’s a dull black. The butt ends in a flat, elongated rectangle. Miranda guesses that’s so you can brace it against your shoulder. In front of the trigger sits the curve of the clip. The rifle looks all business. It’s clearly not meant for anything other than killing.

Cole starts to crawl back, but it’s hard to both crawl and carry the gun. He looks over at the food court, and after checking out its emptiness he gets to his feet. Pressed close to the wall, he starts walking back to them.

“I still say we need to know where the cops are,” Zulu says, his voice rising. “What if they’re planning an ambush to get us back for our ambush?”

“Let me try to raise Karl again,” Golf says. “Kilo, come in. Kilo. Over.”

One of the killers moves into Miranda’s field of vision. She sucks in her breath. If she can see him, he can see them. All he needs to do is look up and over. And with the jittery way he’s moving, turning his masked head from side to side, it seems quite possible that he will also think about the space overhead. They have to get out of sight. Now!

As she, Javier, and Grace creep backward, panic zaps through her. They have no way to warn Cole.

But when he sees them retreat, he drops to his knees. He scuttles forward, pushing the rifle ahead of him.

Miranda scrambles into the nearest office. It’s small, with just a desk and three chairs. The others follow. After Cole crawls inside, Grace closes the door before Miranda has time to wonder if the movement will catch the killers’ eyes.