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out, making Joel and me jump, until we realized it was a blank fired by the hit man who had suddenly appeared, gun extended in black-gloved hand. I recognized him as a character actor who frequently played heavies, but I couldn’t bring his name to mind. A “shopper” tumbled over the side of the escalator, apparently shot, and landed on an inflated mat below. The stuntwoman bounced off the mat and gave a thumb and forefinger okay signal to someone I couldn’t see. Anya screamed and I resisted the urge to cover my ears.
    “She’s got some lungs on her,” Joel said.
    I slid him a sideways look, but I didn’t think he intended the double entendre.
    The screaming went on and on and it took me a moment to realize it wasn’t only Anya Vale screaming anymore.

Six
    • • • 
    The sound came from the first floor, somewhere near the theater wing. Before the thought had even coalesced, I was zipping toward the elevator on my Segway, Joel jogging behind me. As I stabbed the button to descend to the first floor, an irritated voice yelled, “Cut!” and someone else asked, “What’s that infernal racket?”
    The screams had stopped by the time I exited the elevator on the first floor. Someone grabbed Joel to ask what was happening, but I kept going. The movie people were behind me, milling about and setting up for another take, apparently willing to forget about the screaming now that it wasn’t messing up their shot anymore. I wasn’t.
    With the mall not open to customers, and the movie people clustered near the atrium, the halls at the north end of the mall were deserted. I glided silently down the Macy’s wing, peering into darkened shop windows. Nothing seemed out of place. Barred by the closed grille at the Macy’s entrance, I turned around. Back in the main corridor, I was heading to the theater wing when a choking sound came from the narrow hall on my right, a spur that led only to bathrooms, service corridors, and an emergency exit.
    I had barely turned into the hall when the door to the men’s room burst open. A man in a green jacket appeared and tripped over the yellow plastic “Closed for Cleaning” sign sitting near the door, righting himself before he fell. He looked around wildly—I’m not sure he even noticed me—then lunged for the door at the end of the hall, hitting the release bar and bolting into the parking lot. The sudden burst of daylight in the hall was disconcerting, and I flung my forearm up to shade my eyes. When they adjusted, I started after the man, but stopped when I drew level with the men’s room. The sun illuminated a smudged handprint beside the door. It glimmered red.
    Damn. I didn’t want it to be blood. Drawing closer, I confirmed my worst fears and shut my eyes for a split second, then snapped them open. Was the man who’d run out injured? Should I chase after him? Or, maybe someone still in the restroom was hurt and needed help. I couldn’t ignore the possibility. Dismounting the Segway, I pushed into the bathroom, automatically using my shoulder to nudge the door open rather than contaminate what might turn out to be a crime scene with my fingerprints. The door yielded with a slight
skreee
.
    I didn’t see anything alarming. A bank of urinals reminded me I was in a men’s room. The scent of bleach burned my nostrils. My gaze swept the sinks—no blood, no injured shopper collapsed beneath them. I turned toward the four stalls and saw blood spatter on the floor. It wasn’t much, I thought hopefully; it could have come from a nosebleed. The stall doors were shut, but I thought I heard the ghost of a moan and lunged forward, all concern for possible crime scene forgotten, to push open the nearest door. Nothing. I banged the second door inward and saw a foot. It extended from beneath the adjacent stall. Breaths coming faster now, I pushed on the third door and immediately saw a body lying on its side in a semifetal position, blood from a stomach wound contained within