“Millie! What’s going on! Who’s there with you?”
My girl doesn’t respond. I hear a lot of clattering and then silence. The need to get to her overwhelms me. I call her name several more times and then instead of my beautiful girl, a man’s voice says, “I’m sorry. Millie can’t come to the phone right now.”
The call drops. Rage like I’ve never felt before suffuses every cell in my body. If anything happens to her, I swear to god. I. Will. Kill. Him. Whoever he is. But I have an idea.
I bolt out of the bathroom, laser focused.
“Where are you going? You are still on the air, Doctor Dave!”
“Not anymore,” I blurt o
ut as I grab the keys to my bike and my helmet.
“But the sponsors… The station manager is on his way.”
“Great, then he can do the show.”
“Dave!”
I call over my shoulder, “If you want to make yourself useful, call 911 and tell them to head to Southfield Mall. A man is about to die a very painful death.”
When I peel my bike out of the underground garage, the amount of ice on the road catches me off guard and forces me to slow down, despite my urgency.
I struggle to keep the bike steady at a slower speed while wrangling my phone at the same time. Shit, I’ve got maybe two minutes of battery power left on it.
It takes a few tries before I finally manage to hit the emergency button and reach dispatch.
“What’s your emergency?”
As calmly as I can, I begin to tell the dispatcher on the phone what’s happening, but then the call drops. “Fuck!” I shout, looking at my screen as the battery fully gives up the ghost.
I gun it, praying that Reagan decided to listen to me and called 911.
I don’t care about the ice on the road; I don’t care about anything except getting to my Millie.
I careen into the mall parking lot so hard that I lose my balance. Under normal circumstances, I could either regain my balance or set the bike down and hope for the best.
But on this ice, I’m not in control.
I set the bike down and brace myself. The bike slides out from under me, going in one direction and I go the other, tumbling and whizzing across the ice, my body crashing hard against the concrete sidewalk. I’m a little banged up, sure, but I’m feeling no pain except the pain at the thought that Millie’s in trouble.
And what’s my plan to get into the mall now that I’m here? I don’t have one other than to crash through the locked glass automatic doors if I have to.
Chapter Eleven
Millie
It feels like all the blood in my body has pooled in my guts and I can’t breathe.
Pretzel Guy is standing in front of me, looking very put out. And he’s within grabbing distance.
“Who were you talking to?” he asks.
Oh god. This is bad.
Do not engage, says my brain. Also, put your hand on your stun gun without him noticing. Also, try to sound casual so you don’t spook him. Also? Breathe. I finally conquer the panicky dry mouth and stammer, still not able to remember his actual name. “Hey…you? How did you get in here?”
Pretzel Guy laughs and comes closer as I inch backwards. “Well, you’re a very silly girl when you get so much as a crumb of attention from a man. You really should be more careful. I watched you punch in your security code, and you didn’t even try to hide it. I memorized it, waited a few minutes, then followed you inside.”