Trapped

TWELVE

Marianne stopped before the gate on the exit ramp and rolled her window down. She stuck her arm out and placed her key card in the feed.

The gate did not move.

She tried it again. And again. Tried to finagle it. She tapped it against the reader itself that bore the sign Thank You For Parking At NTX Industries—Where Progress Never Stops. She tried it once more. No dice.

"What the hell?"

Marianne sighed, leaving her card in the slot as she shifted into reverse and backed the van toward the nearest bank of elevators.

She and Renni got out. Renni headed for the elevator. Marianne took her arm. "This way."

They passed the elevators to a red security phone before a fire door. Marianne picked it up. She waited.

"Danny?"

There was no dial tone. It was supposed to buzz right through to security, but this time there was no answer.

"Danny?"

She hung up, exhaled. The urge to get out of this building was only growing. It went beyond just the desire to go home. Right now she specifically wanted to leave this place. Something felt off. Something felt wrong.

"Phone's broken," she said. "We'll have to go down there."

"So maybe I'll just stay here tonight and order in," Renni said. "You like pizza?"

"Funny."

Marianne pushed through the fire door to a corridor in between flights of stairs. When they emerged out of a narrow tunnel they were on the galleria levels.

The mall was dead. Afterhours, the piped-in Muzak had an ethereal effect. It washed over the dark, gated-up stores and vacant corridors, a fever dream under all that neon, a stark contrast to the peppy sound that accompanied the hustle and bustle consumerism of the day. But the escalators did stay running. And so did the fountains.

"These things go all night?" Renni asked.

"Convenient, isn't it?"

"The music too?" Renni shook her head. Marianne didn't tell her she was responsible for that.

"This place is weird, you know?" Renni said. "I think it's karma."

Marianne's attempt at a smile dropped when she saw something over one of the railings to a lower level of the mall.

"Don't look now," she said quietly, "but I think I see our jewel thief."

Renni swung her head around. "Where?"

"There." She indicated the level below them over the railing ahead. A man in a dark overcoat was walking down the hall, his back to them.

"Are you serious?" Renni whispered.

"Yes." Marianne was trying to keep a calm demeanor, but the pit of dread in her stomach was growing tentacles that spawned to the reaches of her flesh, raising the hair on her skin.

The gate not working, the phones not working...

And now this man in the dark overcoat. Walking the mall afterhours.

Security.

She just needed security.

"Are we in trouble?" Renni asked.