Pangs of guilt seared into him like hot pokers. He knew he had to do something. Even though he felt like a victim in all of this, he hated being the fugitive. He had to do one more thing before he flat-out left.
Mitchell pulled his iPhone from his pocket and dialed 911.
“911 emergency services. How can we assist you?”
“People are trying to kill me.”
“Slow down, sir. Who is trying to kill you?”
“The girl. My girlfriend. Fuck, the people at the mall. Everyone.”
“I see.”
“Are you in a safe place now?”
“Are you fucking kidding me? What is safe about everyone trying to kill you?” Mitchell knew the flood of emotion was making him sound like he was insane.
“Do you need the police?”
“So they can fucking shoot me?”
“Calm down, sir. I want to help you. It says here you’re calling from a cell phone. What’s you exact location? Are you near the mall?”
Mitchell’s heart skipped a beat. They can trace those things. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
“Sir, are you near the mall now? If you’re hurt, one of the paramedics there can help you. Just find a place to sit down.”
Oh man, they thought he was one of the people. One of the victims back at the mall. “Thank you.” He thought for a moment. “I know this won’t make much sense, but when you watch what happened, really watch. You’ll understand that they attacked me.”
“Yes, sir. We need to keep this line available for emergency calls. If you need assistance, just ask for one of the paramedics or talk to a police officer. We have more coming.” She paused. “Lots more.”
Mitchell hung up and then powered off his phone so they couldn’t track it. Maybe he had more time. They still didn’t know what happened at the mall. He practically tried to confess and she didn’t understand.
A car honked behind him. Mitchell jumped. He’d been standing still for so long he was holding up traffic. He sped up and moved away from the mall as fast as he could without causing an accident or getting stopped by the police. In his stolen car.
14
When Rios pulled into the mall parking lot, the first thing that came to his mind was a circus. The fire trucks and police cars with flashing lights were all laid out in a ring around the mall. On the inside, he could spot ladders where firemen were helping people off the roof.
He looked for smoke. He couldn’t see any. A riot? At that mall? Was it some kind of Justin Bieber autograph thing that went out of control? He looked at all of the people standing on the roof waiting to be helped down. Why would people be up there from a riot? Unless there was a fire, it didn’t make any sense to him. Between two fire engines, past a row of cars, he could see a sheet on top of a body. It looked like it fell from the roof. Fell? Jumped? Pushed?
He put his radio on an open channel. He heard first responder teams go back and forth with clipped chatter.
“Found twelve more in the upper corridor.”
“Have three in the food court.”
“Six in the stairwell.”
“Three on escalator one.”
What were the numbers? Injured? Dead? Alive?
He spotted Simmons’s SUV and parked next to it. She was already jogging toward the mall. She had her first aid kit under her arm.
Rios grabbed his and chased after her.
He caught up with her as she passed the first row of fire engines.
“What the fuck?” he asked.
“I have no idea. I thought we were here to get statements, but,” she gestured to a row of forty people sitting on the sidewalk. They looked banged up but not as bad as the people in the stretchers they saw scattered around near different ambulances.
A van came to a stop in front of them. A dozen doctors and nurses came piling out with first aid kits of their own. A female doctor pointed to the line of people, and half the group went toward there to help them. She led the rest into the mall through the front of the department store.
Rios looked over at Simmons. “It’s like one of those terrorism drills we used to have.”
“I know. But these people aren’t actors and community college volunteers paid to wear red-colored Karo syrup for a few hours.”
They found another detective who’d been called on to the scene early on. He was talking to a mall cop on a stretcher. The left half of his face was covered in bandages and his right arm was wrapped up.
Simmons called out to him, “Brooks!”
Brooks walked over to them. Tall and thin, just over fifty, he looked seventy that day. His thinning red hair was in total disarray. His white shirt and tie were covered in blood.
“Where can we help?” asked Simmons.
Brooks rubbed a hand on his forehead. “The paramedics will pull us in if they need to patch someone up. Right now the firefighters are pulling through the bodies and trying to find who needs what kind of attention.”
“What happened out here?” asked Rios.
Brooks turned around and looked at the front of the department store and then back at Rios and Simmons.
“Here? This is nothing.” He waved his arm from one end of the mall to the other. “We’ve got people falling off the roof here.” He pointed toward the center. “People trampled in the food court.” He pointed to the far end of the mall. “And people crushed in escalators and crammed inside a corridor and storage room. We can’t even get up there yet there are so many people stuck inside.”
“Fire?” asked Simmons.
“No fire. No smoke. It just looks like all-out panic.” He nodded to the mall cop in the stretcher. “As soon as one of them is up to it or mall management gets here, we’re going to look at the security tapes.”
Simmons looked at the row of people lined up on the sidewalk being tended to by paramedics. “What are they saying?”
Brooks shook his head. “Nothing that makes sense. Most of them have no idea why they panicked. A couple said they were being attacked. A few other said to ‘get him.’”
Rios looked around. “To get who?”
“They haven’t a goddamn idea who, Rios. Not a clue.”
Simmons looked toward the entrance. The doors were being held open. Inside she could see more people being treated. “Can we get in there?”
“Yeah. We should start investigating now. Keep your first aid kits if any of the medical personnel need help.”
Inside the mall entrance the paramedics had set up a triage area. EMTs treated the people who came down from the roof, or those who fell and survived the fall. Their first goal was to get the seriously wounded to the hospital and treat the rest on site.
Rios saw over two dozen people leaning against walls or lying on the floor. Most of them were dressed in casual work attire and looked like they had come to the mall from nearby businesses to get lunch. Their shirts and blouses were ripped. Many of the women were missing one or both of their shoes. Few were talking. They all looked shell shocked.
Simmons noticed some and pointed it out to Rios and Brooks. “I see a lot of scratch marks and ripped clothing.” She gestured to a team of paramedics applying antiseptic onto the backs of several people who were leaning forward with their skin exposed.
Brooks nodded. “There’s a lot of that. People in back were trying to pull their way through.”
Simmons thought it over for a moment. “Yes, but whenever I’ve seen people panic to leave a place like a club or a movie theater after a shooting, they might have bruises, but never this much … clawing.”