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  “I hope this one intends to stay sober on the job,” I said with a darkling look at Grandpa. What was the man up to?

  “Never touch alcohol,” he lied.

  “Isn’t it kind of Mr. Atherton to fill in so the kids won’t be disappointed about not meeting the Easter Bunny?”

  “Very kind,” I said, still suspicious of Grandpa’s motives. “How about I show you where the Bunny Station is?” I suggested, taking his arm and steering him toward the door.

  “How kind of you,” he murmured.

  After asking Pooja to tell Mr. Quigley I’d be right back, I let the glass door close behind us.

  “Okay, Grandpa,” I said. “What are you up to?”

  “Up to?” he asked, keeping pace with me as I glided on the Segway. “I heard there’d been a contretemps with the Easter Bunny yesterday, and I volunteered to fill in. I’m not even getting paid,” he added virtuously. The bunny head threatened to escape from his grasp, and he shifted it to clutch it with both arms in front of him. “And you know I’m a people watcher, Emma-Joy,” he said. “What better place to watch all the world go by than from the Easter Bunny’s enclosure?”

  His seraphic smile didn’t fool me for a minute, but it was clear he wasn’t going to fill me in on his plans. “Fine,” I said. “Just try not to promise the kids they’ll all get spy gadgets and decoder rings in their Easter baskets.”

  He chuckled and held the elevator door for me. “I saw the flyer for the self-defense class,” he said. “Monday morning at eight thirty. I’ll be there.”

  Drat. I’d been hoping that if I didn’t mention the class again, he’d forget about it. Sheer dumb luck that he’d seen a flyer in Quigley’s office. As we descended, I told him about my visit to Woskowicz’s house the night before and my suspicion that someone had searched it. I also told him about the camera sabotage and the possibility—likelihood?—that Woskowicz was the saboteur.

  Grandpa’s blue eyes lit up. “What do you suppose he was into, Emma-Joy?”

  “I really have no idea,” I admitted. “I’m going to go through the stuff in his office later today, see if I can turn up a calendar or a notebook or anything that might give me an idea.”

  “And I’ll have a look-see at his house,” Grandpa said, “as soon as I’m done Easter Bunnying.”

  I didn’t try to talk him out of it; after all, I’d gone looking for him, hoping for just this response. “Be careful,” I said.

  “EJ! When have I ever not been careful?”

  Eight

  I got my chance to go through Captain Woskowicz’s office when Joel went to lunch. I had every right to be in here, I told myself as I entered the office, a ten-by-ten-foot space with a wooden desk, a two-drawer filing cabinet, a swiveling desk chair, and a ladder-back chair for visitors. I was the acting director of security, after all. Curtis Quigley, in our brief meeting, had hinted that he might consider making the appointment permanent if Woskowicz continued to be a no-show. “Of course, we’d have to advertise the position,” he’d said, smoothing his striped silk tie, “but you’d be the front-runner.”

  His words played in my head as I closed the office door behind me and approached the desk. Would accepting the job as Fernglen’s director of security mean I’d given up on my dreams of returning to police work? Not necessarily, I decided. It wasn’t like I’d have to sign a five-year contract or anything. If—when—I landed a real police job, I could give my two weeks’ notice, help train my replacement, and move on. In the meantime, being director of security would mean a healthy bump in my paycheck. Finding my train of thought vaguely distasteful—it was as if I were conceding that something had happened to Woskowicz that would preclude his return—I studied the desk. The surface was nearly bare, except for a computer and the usual desk tools: stapler, electric pencil sharpener, digital clock. Woskowicz’s stainless steel travel mug sat just off a calendar blotter, the only semipersonal item in sight. I powered up his computer and pulled open the middle desk drawer while I waited for it to boot.

  Nothing but pens, pencils, paper clips, and a tube of Bengay. Probably for soothing all those steroid-stretched muscles. The drawer on the right yielded a bottle of Wild Turkey, a girlie magazine—I’d thought they were solely for the titillation of adolescent boys at convenience store magazine racks—and two pairs of socks I hoped were clean. Wishing I’d thought to put on latex gloves, I opened the left-side drawer. A black cassette recorder—practically an antique in these days of MP3 players and iTunes—rested on a pair of odiferous athletic shoes. I pulled it out and a cord dangled from it. Not the kind you plugged into an outlet, but a thin, flexible cord with a suction-cup thingie at one end. It was the sort of item you could get at RadioShack. By attaching it to your phone, you could record phone calls. Hm. Did Woskowicz record all his calls, or was he looking to record specific calls? I thumbed the Eject button and the lid popped up. No tape. I moved the shoes aside and felt around the bottom of the drawer but didn’t find any cassettes. Maybe the recorder had been sitting there for fifteen years, unused.

  Putting it back in the drawer, I turned my attention to the computer. The standard desktop icons were arranged on the screen’s left, but a request for a password left me stymied. I didn’t know Woskowicz well enough to hazard an intelligent guess. I typed in his first name, then “Kronos,” then each of his wives’ names, and finally “alimony,” but had to admit defeat when the system continued to tell me “incorrect password.” Shutting down the computer, I swiveled the desk chair to face the file cabinet behind the desk. The top drawer slid open easily and held files related to security office operations—work schedules, budget documents, security directives from the FBI head office. I tugged on the bottom drawer. Locked. I felt a quick spurt of interest but quickly suppressed it; in all likelihood, the drawer contained only personnel evaluations and disciplinary documentation. Nevertheless, I searched for the key, hoping Woskowicz had hidden it here somewhere. If he had it on his key ring, I was screwed.

  When I lifted the phone to look beneath it, it rang, startling me so badly I dropped it, knocking the electric pencil sharpener off the desk. The little plastic bin that held the shavings popped off, spewing graphite particles and enough wood shavings to give the impression that a termite colony had moved in. What a mess. I took a deep breath, then answered the phone. “Fernglen Galleria Security Office. Officer Ferris. May I help you?”

  A woman looking for a pair of prescription glasses she’d left in a dressing room asked if anyone had turned them in. Putting her on hold, I walked out front to check our lost-and-found log. “We have them,” I told her. I gave her directions to the security office, told her she’d have to show ID and sign for the glasses, and hung up on her “Thanks.” Tearing a sheet of paper out of the steno pad on the desk, I bent to scoop the pencil shavings onto it and funnel them into the trash can. My fingers brushed something cold, and I leaned over to blow the pencil dust away from a shiny metal key. Very sneaky hiding place, I mentally congratulated Captain W.

  I picked it up and swiveled the chair to face the filing cabinet. The key slid home, and I felt a brief moment of triumph as I turned it. The drawer eased out with a well-oiled lurch, and I found myself looking at a shoe box. Not for one minute did I think I’d find a pair of shoes in that box. No one took so much effort to secure a pair of shoes. I lifted the box out with one hand, disturbed by a solid weight that slid to one end when I tilted it. Setting the box on the desk, I used one finger to tip the lid up. Surprise, surprise. I found myself staring at a gun. A length of dark metal with a cross-hatched grip. A Kel-Tec P-32 semiautomatic pistol with a short barrel, frequently recommended for women because of its light weight. I’d considered buying one but decided on something with more stopping power. I didn’t dare touch the gun for fear of messing up fingerprint evidence. Why the hell did Woskowicz have a gun in his file cabinet? The scent of gunpowder filtered to me, and I had the uneasy feeling that the gun had been fired not too long ago.

  �
��What are you doing?”

  I jumped and looked up, automatically sliding the lid back onto the shoe box. Joel Rooney stood in the doorway, his expression one of curiosity, not condemnation.

  “Looking to see if I could find any hint about where Captain W might have gone,” I said. “Or why.”

  “What’s in there?” Joel nodded at the shoe box.

  I couldn’t think of a reason not to tell him. “A gun.”

  He made a disgusted noise. “So, we’re not allowed to have weapons at the mall, but he is? Not fair.”

  This didn’t seem to be the moment to enlighten Joel about life’s fairness in general or the relative fairness of policies related to bosses and minions. I didn’t share my suspicions with him; I simply returned the gun to the bottom file drawer and relocked it. I needed to think about what to do with it. Should I tell the police? Leave it be? Wait for Captain Woskowicz to return and ask him about it?

  “Did you find anything else?” Joel asked as I joined him and we returned to the front office.

  “Nothing interesting. No pocket calendar with a notation for a vacation to Daytona that he forgot to mention.” Suddenly feeling antsy, I told Joel he could handle dispatch while I patrolled for a while. I might only be the temporary boss, but I wanted to do it right by getting out to talk to the mall merchants and the security officers on duty. And I’d start with cookie king Jay Callahan… with whom Captain Woskowicz had chatted mere hours before disappearing.

  When I rolled my Segway to a stop by Lola’s, Jay was serving a string of customers five deep. I watched him as he worked, appreciating his efficiency, the way he actually listened to his customers, and his bright smile. He caught me watching him and smiled wider, mouthing, “Just one sec.” I nodded and loitered until he dispatched the last customer with a two-foot-in-diameter cookie frosted to look like a volleyball with the words “Way to go, Norton Netters” scrolled in blue icing.

  “Where’d you learn to do that?” I asked, nodding at the cookie.

  “From a book.”

  I thought he might be serious.

  Without asking, he poured me a cup of coffee and proffered it with a flourish. Pouring himself a cup, he joined me at the counter. “This feels like a professional visit, not a social one.”

  I thanked him and blew on the coffee, wondering how he knew. As if he’d read my mind, he said, “I keep an eye on you, you know.”

  I didn’t know what to read into that, so I stayed silent, slightly flustered by the look that went with the words. “I noticed you chatting with Captain Woskowicz on Wednesday,” I said, stirring my coffee even though I hadn’t put anything in it.

  “You ‘noticed’?” The look he gave me told me my casual act wasn’t fooling him.

  “Okay.” I put down the coffee stirrer. “Don’t spread this around, but Captain Woskowicz hasn’t shown up for work the last couple of days. Some friends he meets regularly haven’t seen him. He’s not answering his phones. I reviewed the camera footage and noticed him stopping by here. So, I’d like to know what you talked about Wednesday afternoon.”

  Jay whistled softly. “Missing, huh? His vehicle?”

  “Gone.”

  “Police?”

  “Uninterested.”

  Jay nodded. “Couldn’t expect them to get excited yet, not without evidence of foul play.”

  He looked a question at me, and I shook my head. I wasn’t ready to tell him I thought someone might have tossed Woskowicz’s house. And I certainly wasn’t going to bring up the recently fired gun.

  “I wish I had something helpful to tell you, but we were just shootin’ the shit, you know? March Madness. He’s picked Duke to go all the way. I like UCLA.”

  “Are you from California?” I interrupted.

  A smile crept across his face at this evidence of my interest. “I spent some time there as a kid growing up.”

  “Me, too.” I’d done more than spend time there; I’d been raised in a ten-thousand-square-foot house on the beach in Malibu and lived there until I graduated from high school and joined the military. Now my time in California seemed like another life, almost like a book I’d read or a movie I’d watched long ago.

  “I know.”

  I kicked myself mentally; I’d forgotten he’d met my dad, Ethan Jarrett, the actor. “Of course you do. Anyway…”

  “Anyway, that’s about it. He got coffee and put in about fifteen packets of sugar. He ordered two peanut butter cookies to go.”

  “Two?” That piqued my interest. Could he have been planning to meet someone?

  Jay gave me an indulgent look. “Don’t go reading too much into that, EJ. Half my customers order two or more cookies for themselves. Not everyone’s as into health and fitness as you are.”

  And as he was, I had noted before. Strong biceps showed beneath the short sleeves of his orange tee shirt, and the way he moved, the way the shirt strained across his chest and back, told me he’d put in some serious hours at the gym and/or competing in some sport. I halted those thoughts and said, “How did he seem? Happy? Nervous? Upset?”

  Jay shrugged. “I don’t know him that well. A little agitated, maybe. He spilled a sugar packet on the counter and went after it before I could wipe it up, letting loose with the kind of language you’d hear in a biker bar.”

  “You spend much time in biker bars?”

  “Hardly any now.” He grinned. “I put it down to the caffeine and sugar.”

  “It looked like he was carrying a bag—did you see what was in it or notice what store it was from?”

  “Sorry, EJ.”

  I shrugged it off. “It was a long shot.”

  “So.” Jay looked a little ill at ease. “Do you have a boyfriend? Significant other?”

  I tucked my hair behind my ear like I do when I’m nervous. “You mean besides my husband?”

  “Husband!” He yelped the word, then looked around sheepishly. “I’m sorry. You don’t wear a ri—”

  My grin clued him in, and he gave me a mock glare. “You don’t have a husband.”

  I shook my head, pleased to have gotten under his skin. “Nope. You?”

  “No husband,” he said. He relented when I gave him a look. “Or wife, girlfriend, significant other, or any friends with benefits.”

  “That’s comprehensive,” I said, slightly startled.

  “Thought you might as well know.” A customer with four kids under ten was approaching, and Jay cast them a look as he asked hurriedly. “You?”

  “None of the above.”

  With a satisfied smile, he turned to serve the harried-looking woman, and I got on my Segway, resisting the urge to look back as I glided away.

  My next task was to locate Harold Wasserman and see if, by chance, he’d had any meaningful conversation with Captain Woskowicz on the day the latter disappeared. Checking in by radio with Joel, I learned that Harold was down by the movie theaters. The theaters were on the ground floor, between Sears and Macy’s, so I rode the elevator, stopping to hold the door for a woman in a wheelchair. We both faced outward on our wheeled vehicles as the elevator descended, watching the activity below us through the elevator’s glass walls. I glimpsed Grandpa Atherton, suited up as the Easter Bunny, with a little boy on his lap, and a gaggle of teens wearing the red, green, and white of the Niños Malos just passing the fountain. The dark-haired girl in the middle looked familiar…

  Mentally urging the elevator to go quicker, I pivoted the Segway and faced the door, ready to charge out the moment it opened. The elevator landed with a gentle thump, and I whizzed through the doors, speeding past startled shoppers as I sought to catch the girl. I was fairly certain she was the one I’d seen with Celio Arriaga. I was conscious of Grandpa Easter Bunny turning his head as I went past, of the lush greenery around the fountain riffling in my wake, and saw that I was closing in on the five teens. One of them stepped into a store and the remaining four—

  A toddler wandered into my path, headed for the fountain. I jolted the S
egway to a stop, skewing it to the left so it squealed in protest. The child’s mother snatched her son out of danger by grabbing him by the back of his overalls and hauling him to her chest. Her eyes were big.

  “I’m sorry—” I started. I climbed off the Segway and approached the pair, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. The teens I’d been hoping to catch up with turned into a side hall.

  “You almost ran over Micah!” The mother’s voice hovered between anger and panic, and Micah began to bawl, more because he’d been prevented from reaching his destination than out of fear, I thought.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again, knowing I shouldn’t have been going so fast. The Segway’s top speed is about twelve miles an hour, and I’d been doing close to that, far too fast for a mall crowded with people on a Saturday.

  “Ride!” Micah suddenly demanded, stretching out his arms to me.

  I was shaking my head even before the mother turned hopeful eyes to me. “I can’t,” I said. “Mall policy. Insurance. And I’m on duty.” I pulled a coin from my pocket. “Micah, would you like to throw the nickel in the fountain and make a wish?” His grasping little hand closed over the nickel and his tears stopped. He studied me cautiously, blinking wet lashes.

  I was congratulating myself on successfully distracting the kid and doing my part for customer relations when the little hellion flung the coin at me.

  …

  By the time I parted from Micah and his mom, the teens had disappeared. I prowled a couple of corridors, but they were goner than a genie sucked into his lamp. With a sigh, I turned and motored back toward the theaters, hoping Harold was still there. The Fernglen Galleria Cinema occupied a wing plastered with film posters advertising the current films and coming attractions. Glass-fronted ticket booths faced the corridor, with a concession stand visible behind them. The scent of popcorn hit me as I rounded the corner and passed an advertisement for a movie that seemed to feature vampire zombies.