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the C shape formed by the woman’s body.
    I keyed my radio, but no one picked up in the security office. Everyone was watching the filming, I realized, fumbling for my cell phone. Coco had said she’d stay and cover the office and watch the monitors, but she wasn’t answering the radio. I dialed 911 for an ambulance and leaned forward to feel for the woman’s pulse. At first, I didn’t detect one, but when I shifted my fingers on her neck, I felt the tiniest thread of life. I’d had enough buddy care training in the air force to know I needed to treat her for shock. I didn’t know how long she’d been lying on the tiled floor, but she was cool to the touch and her skin matched the white ceramic of the toilet. Strands of rich brown hair partially obscured her face.
    I yelled for help as I slipped out of my uniform jacket, a lightweight Windbreaker, and draped it over her upper body. I needed to elevate her feet, too, I knew, so I ripped nearly full rolls of toilet tissue from the rollers and propped her feet atop them. I felt helpless, like I was doing too little, too late. Her eyes were shut and I couldn’t tell if her chest was rising and falling or not. Trying to decide if I should put pressure on the stomach wound, or if that would cause further damage, I was relieved to hear voices and footsteps in the hall.
    “In here,” I called. “Hurry!”
    Joel stumbled through the door, skidding to a stop at the sight of me on the floor, tending the injured woman.
    “Give me your jacket,” I said, “and go outside to flag down the EMTs.” Spotting Harold Wasserman, another of our officers, I told him to stand at the entrance to this side hall and make sure no one came this way. He left without a word.
    I was tucking Joel’s jacket around the woman’s legs when running footsteps sounded outside the restroom and a couple of EMTs in navy blue uniforms burst through the door. Grateful to abandon my post to the experts, I backed out of the bathroom to give them room to work. It seemed like half an hour but was probably fewer than five minutes before they were wheeling her out on a gurney, IV flowing. I could tell from their grim expressions and their haste that the woman was in real trouble. To avoid the looky-loos gathered in the main hallway, the EMTs hurried the gurney out the service door that Joel was holding open, updating someone via their radios.
    As the door swung shut, I collected myself and began to make a mental list. The police would be arriving any minute, alerted by the 911 operator, and they’d be unhappy to find hordes of people gawking at the crime scene. Harold had displayed some initiative and gotten a maintenance person to bring the stanchions we used to rope off lines for Santa photos or author autographs, and he, Joel, and I forced the crowd back by setting up the stanchions. I realized all the onlookers were movie people, extras, or technicians not involved in the scene currently being shot, and I was grateful that the mall wasn’t open to regular customers.
    The thought of shoppers brought Curtis Quigley to mind, and I knew I needed to let him know what was going on before the cops and reporters started arriving. He was not going to be happy that we had another “incident,” as he would call it, that would reflect negatively on the mall. What with the reptile “liberation” from the Herpetology Hut that had garnered “snakes in the mall” publicity, and the murders of a local developer, a gangbanger, and two of our security personnel within the past couple months, Fernglen was getting a reputation as a dangerous place to shop.
    Figuring that Joel and Harold could hold the fort, I headed for the administrative offices, planning to break the news to Quigley in person. As I rounded the corner into the main corridor, I bumped into someone turning into the hall. Strong hands steadied me by gripping my upper arms, and I looked up into a narrow face with an aquiline nose and fjord blue eyes.