The Five Deaths of Roxanne Love (34 page)

When they’d pulled into the lot, only a few clouds had covered the autumn sky. Since then, more had
gathered, and now they blocked out the sun, leaving everything below bathed in an aggressive gloom that made Roxanne feel unsettled and skittish.

“I don’t like this,” Santo said for the second time.

In truth, Roxanne didn’t either.

But if there was a chance Reece would be here, she couldn’t ignore it. She needed to talk to him, tell him what he was dealing with. And if he already knew, well then, she needed to talk him back to sanity.

They’d arrived just as the mall opened, and now they waited in Jorge’s truck, eyeing the entrance to Manny’s favorite restaurant from a distance. With Halloween just a few days away and the holiday season bearing down on them, the parking lot was already full, and more cars seemed to be arriving by the minute.

“Is it always like this?” Santo asked.

“It’s always crowded, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it this packed.”

A minivan pulled up to the curb and emptied its cargo of screaming, giggling girls. Behind it, another did the same. Roxanne saw a pack of adolescents trudging up from one of the far lots, and as she turned in her seat, she took note of a dozen more making their chattering, laughing, squealing way inside. She rolled down her window and leaned out.

“Excuse me,” she called. “Can you tell me what’s going on today?”

“Justin Bieber!” two of them screamed at once and burst into excited laughter.

“Here?” Roxanne said, surprised. “At the mall?”

The girls squealed and shrieked at her question, then they all started talking at once. Roxanne was able to glean that he’d announced a surprise visit just that morning and he’d be signing autographs and taking pictures with fans. No concert, but who cared, if they got to meet him?
See
him
in person!

While Roxanne’s unease ratcheted up a notch or two, the teenagers screamed some more, jumping up and down like four-year-olds at Disneyland. They moved on, talking so fast that she wondered how they understood each other.

Santo looked at her with raised brows.

She said, “Would you feel better if we were waiting for Reece in a dark alley? At least we know what we’re getting into. We know he’ll be here. We know it’s a ploy. So now we just have to figure out how to keep from getting trapped.”

He let out a deep breath, eyeing yet another carload of teenagers. “I don’t like it. What if they’ve found another way to get to you? A way to destroy you that won’t link your death back to them?”

“Well, that’s not really going to work for me,” she said with a lame smile.

She surprised a laugh out of him. “I can’t say I’m on
board with it either.” He drummed his fingers on the dash. “There’s just too much we don’t know.”

Yeah. Like how to fight back.

“In and out, Santo. That’s what we agreed to. I only need a few minutes with Reece. I have to know what’s going on before we leave.”

If they were able to leave. Neither said it, though.

He sighed. “All right. So what now? Sit here all day, or go in?”

“Go in.”

He gave a short nod and reached for the door. “Just stay with me, okay? No running off.”

“I’m not thirteen, Santo. I’m not going to see Justin Bieber and race across the mall to tackle him.”

He didn’t even smile at that. Worry pulled at his brows and tightened his lips.

“There are at least a thousand people here today, Santo. What can they do in such a public place?”

This time the look he gave her actually spoke. They could do a million things. She knew the truth of it even if she chose not to acknowledge it.

Anxiously, she scanned the faces of the other people walking toward the mall. A part of her feared she and Santo wouldn’t find her brother. That something horrible would happen to him before she came close. And a part of her feared that what they’d find wouldn’t resemble her brother anymore—just like Santo had warned.

Either way, Roxanne had to believe that Reece
didn’t know what he’d gotten himself into with the scavengers.

Or at least, not until it was too late.

A long trailer with a radio station logo on its side was parked at an angle near the mall entrance. A table had been set up out front, and two DJs wearing headphones broadcasted live. A crowd had gathered, shouting, putting hands in the air to catch the T-shirts they shot out of a big tube. Music blared out of king-sized speakers.

“That’s right,” one of the DJs announced. “You heard it exclusively here. Bieber Fever at Arizona Mills!” The screams nearly ruptured Roxanne’s eardrums.

The café that Manny loved could only be accessed from inside the mall. Roxanne and Santo circled to the left and came in by the movie theaters and the food court, where the scent of caramel corn and french fries mingled with hot pretzels, corn dogs, and pizza. The shoppers all buzzed with excitement, teenaged girls bouncing in anticipation of Justin’s arrival and their male counterparts trying not to look equally excited. Santo took Roxanne’s hand as they moved through the press of people. Halloween decorations grinned from windows, glowered from planters, and lurked in every nook and cranny.

They skirted the café, staying close to the walls. A stage had been set up in the open area outside the restaurant, and already people gathered in front of it,
waiting for a “pre-Justin” show to begin. Stadium seating had been assembled in the corridors branching off, where more fans sat shoulder to shoulder. Like a moat around a stronghold, others waited on foot, standing ten to fifteen deep in a circle that completely encompassed the center and effectively blocked the exits. The music played at deafening volumes.

A dark thought filled Roxanne’s head. If something bad were to happen, it would be a nightmare for anyone to get out.

Something bad?
a voice jeered in her head.
What else did you expect?

A host of entertainers worked the crowd, dressed in skeleton costumes that covered them from hood to hem. They carried crates of balloons and delighted even the coolest of the cool with an assortment of animals and shapes—some questionably lewd, others blatantly so. But even the mothers who’d accompanied their adolescents took it in stride, channeling the vibe of excitement.

“Wish we’d thought of costumes,” Roxanne muttered, thinking how much easier it would have been to move around without fearing they’d be recognized as wanted criminals.

“This feels wrong, Roxanne,” Santo said.

He tugged her hand and eased her away. Casually, he put his arm around her and tucked her close to the heat of his body.

They waited almost forty minutes before she saw
Reece enter the mall beside a woman she didn’t know. Her brother wore jeans and an old gray sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. The woman wore a jean jacket with a baggy University of North Dakota T-shirt and yoga pants. Petite and dark-skinned, she contrasted perfectly with Roxanne’s tall, fair brother. The couple walked apart, fingers brushing but not clinging, yet there seemed to be an intimacy in their deliberate distance.

Reece gave the crowds a casual scan, his gaze narrowing on the stage and the frantic fans in front of it. Frowning, he leaned close and said something to the woman.

The pair kept moving at an unhurried pace, pausing to window-shop. Only someone watching them would notice the studied attention they gave their surroundings. From across the wide corridor, Reece’s disinterested gaze passed over Roxanne and then snapped back.

She saw his lips form the words
Fuck, no.

Santo echoed the statement behind her, grabbed her arm, and turned her around the way they’d come.

“What are you doing?”

“Look at his face, Roxanne. He’s afraid for you.”

She glanced back. Reece lounged against a wall near where she’d last seen him with the woman by his side. Just a couple of young lovers at the mall. But he looked shaken as he watched them over the woman’s head.

“Santo, stop. Listen to me.”

“Not until I get you someplace safe.”

“And where is that? Where, Santo?”

He made an angry sound, glanced around, and pulled her off to the side. People still poured in the doors, but she could see police cars pulling up out front and officers directing traffic away from the entrances. Through the open doors, they heard the DJ say, “Folks, if you’re headed down to Arizona Mills, you’re too late. Police have blocked the entrances, and the mall is at ca-
paci-
tee. No joke, you’ll be turned away.”

“Where will I be safe?” she insisted, looking Santo in the eye. “Outside? Inside? He knows who I am. He knows how to find me. There’s a reason he hasn’t taken me. You said that yourself. I don’t think it has anything to do with
where
I am. If I can stop what’s happening, then I can’t run away just because I’m scared.”

Santo scowled. “The woman Reece is with? She’s a scavenger.”

“How do you know?”

He raised his brows.

“Okay, she’s a scavenger. She’s a small one though. We can take her.”

He rolled his eyes but almost smiled. Roxanne leaned in and brushed his lips with hers. “I know you don’t like it. But you’re going to have to trust me just a little while longer,” she said.

“I haven’t trusted you yet,” he answered. But he took her hand and faced Reece again.

She started across the jostling walkway and Santo
followed right behind her, as she’d known he would. She shot him a grateful look over her shoulder and surprised an expression of such naked dread on his face that it slowed her steps.

“Have a little faith,” she said.

As they approached, Reece pushed away from the wall and ushered his girlfriend into a sunglasses shop without glancing at them. Roxanne and Santo followed them inside a few moments later. Two young men in matching polo shirts and khaki pants stood at the door, watching the mall action.

“Help you?” one of the clerks asked as they entered.

“Just looking,” Roxanne said.

The man turned back to the unfolding excitement without another word. Reece moved from the rack where he and the woman had been trying on glasses and, with a quick glance at the clerks, ducked behind the counter and into the back room. Roxanne and Santo did the same, following Reece straight through to a door that opened onto a tunnel-like corridor.

“Come on,” Reece said and led them down the dim passage. They’d barely turned the corner before they heard a door open behind them and a voice say, “I don’t know where the hell they went. Did they steal anything?”

“Shit, I don’t kn—”

The door closed and Reece turned on her.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I saw Manny last night. He told me you’d be here.”

“Manny’s not who you think he is, Roxanne.”

“I know. I saw his . . . spirit. And I saw what he’d become.”

“Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head.

Reece pulled her into a tight hug. “Christ, Roxanne. I’ve been so worried about you. I’m sorry I got you into this.”

“It’s not your fault,” she answered.

Reece gave a harsh laugh, still holding her. “You always say that.”

He stepped away, his eyes dry but red, and waved for the woman he was with to come forward. “This is April,” he said.

Roxanne and April gave each other guarded nods. Roxanne introduced Santo, then they all stood awkwardly, caught in a social nicety that had no place in this gloomy tunnel.

April crossed her arms beneath her breasts and Roxanne noticed an ugly rash covering her elbows, as well as an outbreak at her temples. Up close it looked berry-red and angry against the white patches of skin.

“Roxanne, I’ve got about five minutes,” Reece said. “But you need to get the hell out of here.”

“Why? What’s going to happen?”

“You remember the robbery? The missing people?”

“Of course I remember—”

“They still haven’t found them. They never will. Those bodies are walking around, Roxanne. But it’s not Jim and Sal anymore. Their bodies are occupied. They’re
here
.”

After the scavengers had hunted her, after the hellhounds, after the ravens,
occupied
sounded innocuous enough. But she’d seen Manny. She knew exactly what
occupied
meant.

Reece went on. “They’re called scavengers, and they like it here. They want to set up shop, and today they’re out to harvest.”

He stopped, turning his face away.

“I know what they are,” Roxanne said. “I know what they want. And this is
not
your fault.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I promise you I do.”

“Then you know that I’m the key. I’m the fucking key that lets them in.”

Roxanne started to say something, but Santo gave her hand a squeeze, stopping her, and sent a meaningful glance April’s way.

“You can talk in front of her,” Reece said, taking April’s hand. “She’s not like them.”

Santo asked, “How?”

“None of your fucking business how,” Reece answered.

The bang of a door opening somewhere out of sight and voices carrying through the tunnel distracted them. “They went this way?” someone asked.

“I don’t know, man. They didn’t come out the front, and they’re not in the shop. That’s all I know.”

“Shit,” Reece said. “We need to go.”

They started walking away from the voices. Reece said in a low tone, “All these people, it’s a trap for them. Bieber isn’t coming. Gary leaked the news in order to pack the mall. None of them are getting out alive if things go down the way he wants. And if you get caught here, neither will you. And I mean permanently this time. No coming back from it, Roxanne.”

“What about you?”

“Didn’t you hear me? I’m the fucking
key
. The golden ticket. The buddy pass for all of their friends. They’re keeping me around forever.”

“What are you going to do?”

They reached an exit door. Reece hit the bar and it swung open to murky daylight.