Alex Kava - Black Friday

Maybe it meant nothing. She knew homicide bombers often followed their daily routine even on the day of their deaths. They didn't want to alarm or tip off family members or friends. Still, she wrote it down in her small notebook.

She wasn't used to jotting things down. Never had a problem keeping it all in her head. Writing stuff down, that was her partner, R.J. Tully. He scratched out notes about everything and on anything that was available: a napkin, a dry cleaning receipt, a ticket stub. Maggie had been content to commit details to memory until A.D. Raymond Kunze came along. Now it seemed important to keep a record of her thought process. He couldn't sideswipe her if there was documentation. Suddenly she was becoming one of those bureaucrats she hated, concerned about covering her ass. Was it that, or did she simply not want Kunze to win, to break her spirit?

On the video Bomber #1 crossed right below the camera. Not even a glance in its direction. Did he even know it was there? A clean-cut, good-looking, college-aged guy with his entire future ahead of him. Nice clothes, athletic physique, an air of confidence. She wanted him to look up, just for a second so she could see his eyes. So that she might be able to get a glimpse of why he did this? But she already knew. She had already seen this series three times before and each time she had willed his eyes to glance up. Come on, just one glance. And each time Bomber #1 simply walked on by.

Rebecca was gone.

Patrick's first reaction was that she'd been taken against her will. Could that paramedic psycho have followed them?

Damn!

He knew he should never have left her alone. He had been so sure the guy wouldn't dare try anything here in the crowded hotel ballroom where triage sites with cots, IVs and real medics lined up one after another. Narrow paths would make it difficult to drag anyone from the room without notice. Or so Patrick thought. What if the guy managed to get to Rebecca and drug her?

Stupid! How could he be so stupid?

"You looking for your girlfriend?"

Patrick spun around. It was the old man who had been on the triage cot next to Rebecca. His silver hair sprouted up out of the gauze that now wrapped his head.

"Have you seen her?"

"Yep. She left."

"By herself?"

Was it possible the guy was confused?

"As far as I could tell." He scratched at the gauze. "She just got up and left."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. Pulled the needle from her arm." He pointed at the IV left on the cot.

"Did you see where she went?"

The man pointed a crooked finger. Patrick had to turn and look over his shoulder. There was an exit clear across the ballroom. That didn't make sense. The closest exit was right behind her where Patrick had gone. She watched him leave. If she was looking for him why would she head in the opposite direction?

"Are you sure?"

"Hey, I may have gotten knocked in the head but there's nothing wrong with my eyesight."

"Sorry. It's just…"

"I know, I know," he nodded. "You're worried about her. She didn't look so good. A little glassy-eyed, if you ask me."

Patrick pulled out his cell phone. No text messages. No voice messages. No missed calls. He didn't know Dixon's iPhone number and Rebecca didn't have a cell phone of her own. What was she thinking? Was she still in shock? Maybe she didn't know what she was doing.

He thanked the old man and headed for the exit. If she was disoriented, she couldn't have gotten far.

The exit opened to a common area. A table and folding chairs had been set up. Two blue uniformed paramedics controlled the flow of the chaos. Patrick could barely see the lobby through the crowd. To his right he saw a bank of elevators and down the hall to the left, another exit. This one probably to the outside.

Patrick stood looking from one area to the other. Which way did Rebecca go? He couldn't imagine her fighting her way through the crowd. She hated crowds and after what she'd just been through? But she wasn't herself. Maybe still in shock. He'd learned how physically debilitating shock could be from his Fire Science classes. If she wandered outside she might not realize how cold it was.

He headed for the exit. Just as he pushed out the door he saw a man in a uniform coming from the parking lot, headed for Patrick.

"You. Wait a minute. Whatya think you're doing?"

Nick leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hands over his face, his fingertips digging at the blur of fatigue. He didn't need to look at his watch. The bristle on his jaw told him it was late. His stomach reminded him he hadn't eaten since earlier in the day. He had a headache. The room was too warm and too dark. The glare from the computer monitors had sucked the liquid from his eyes. And of course it didn't help matters that Maggie O'Dell sat next to him, so close he could smell the scent of her, causing his mind to reel slightly off track—was it shampoo? Lotion? Perfume?

They must have already looked at several miles' worth of tape, trying to find the three young men and track their paths. They followed them through the mall as best they could, accessing the appropriate camera view and going backward. To get to the third floor, each of the young men had to come up one of the escalators. To come into the mall, they had to enter through one of the entrances. And so the reasoning took them, step by step, camera by camera, segment by segment. It was tedious and now Maggie wanted to go back through certain segments over and over again.

Yarden was much more patient than Nick. He caught himself sighing a couple of times but didn't even garner a glance from Maggie. She was in another zone. And Yarden was busy proving himself a master of the control panel, his long fingers never tiring, his mind sharp, his patience admirable. Never once did he grumble or question or hesitate. He was the quintessential follower, eager to please, jumping at the next request. And although Nick was technically Yarden's superior the little man beamed at Maggie, looking to her first for each instruction no matter whether Nick had given the last. Truthfully, Nick couldn't blame him. There was an easy calm about Maggie, a presence that entered every room with her. One that said, "I know this is tough but we'll handle it together."

Nick remembered feeling that way four years ago when she stepped into the chaos a serial killer had left behind in Platte City, Nebraska. As sheriff Nick was supposed to have jurisdiction over the case. He was supposed to have control. He could still conjure up that sense of being overwhelmed, the panic he tried to keep at a low boil somewhere deep inside himself. Even then, Maggie's presence had reassured him, settled the boil to simmer, made him believe everything would be okay. So he understood Yarden being attentive to Maggie's every word, her every command, her every move. Nick was too, but for a slightly different reason. When was it that his true feelings for her had come to the surface? When had it finally hit him? Really hit him? Before he canceled his wedding to Jill? Or had that simply been the excuse that led him to the real conclusion?

As he watched Maggie, now he wondered why it had taken him so long.

"Stop it right here." Maggie interrupted Nick's thoughts, pointing to a monitor in the upper corner that had caught her attention. "Can you zoom in on his baseball cap?"

Yarden obeyed instantly.

"What is that?" She pushed her chair back and stood for a better view, tapping the screen with her index finger. "We've been focused on finding a front shot but what's that on the side of his cap? It's a logo, isn't it?"

Yarden moved forward, careful to keep from leaning too close.

She'd been taking notes, pages of them in her miniature notebook. As Nick swiveled and stood to take a closer look at the monitor, he glanced down at the notebook before he glanced up. In a brief glimpse, all he caught was the word PROFILE at the top of the page.