He was more nervous than he’d expected to be as he headed to the stairwell. He worried about being spotted, remembered, identified later in a lineup. And even though he knew that was so unlikely as to border on absurd, he couldn’t help but look around while he walked. Was anybody staring at him funny? Did anybody have an inkling of what he was up to?
He slammed straight into the boy he had seen earlier, but he wasn’t about to stop. He went to the stairwell, pushed through the door.
Footsteps echoed down the stairwell behind him. Other people were coming. Although he had intended to sneak out this way alone, that was probably a good thing. He would be just one of many people exiting the mall this way. Harder to identify as anything more than a shopper.
Right when he reached the landing for the second floor, he heard a soft boom and knew exactly what it meant. Things were going according to plan.
When he got to the bottom of the stairwell, there were two doors. One led into the mall and one led to an open-air parking lot that extended off the garage. He expected this. He had scouted the mall a week ago, been down this stairwell. His Toyota Camry was parked in a handicap spot just beyond the door.
He went through the parking lot door, and then, once he was clear of the building, he turned around to watch. He saw some of the people who had entered the stairwell behind him follow him into the parking lot while others went through the door that led into the mall. He could only imagine that second group was trying to get their bearings now, looking for the way they had come in.
He glanced at his watch. It had been a minute and forty-two seconds, give or take.
The blast blew out the windows that ran along the food court and seemed to shake the whole building.
This couldn’t have gone any better.
CHAPTER 41
Connor watched the blast come toward him in slow motion. A churning mass of flames stretching out, consuming everything. Olin was already safely within the corridor that led to the bathrooms—or as safe as anybody on this floor could be, anyway. Dylan was not. She had started moving toward the boy she had come with. And the boy—oh, God. He had just gotten back to his feet, but there would be no time for him to get out of the way.
It wasn’t too late for Dylan, though. Connor could still help her. He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him just as a wall of flames and searing heat roared past them.
He heard the windows shatter, people screaming. A crash, like some part of the floor had given way.
Dylan was screaming, too. Demanding Connor let go, saying she needed to get to the boy—Tom was his name. But Connor could barely hear her. There was a ringing in his ears that drowned out almost everything else. He refused to let go. “Help me hold her!” he yelled at Olin, as he caught a glimpse of the devastation left by the blast. A glimpse of Tom. It was a sight he would never forget.
“Don’t look out there,” he told Dylan, trying to turn her away. “Keep her under control,” he told Olin, as they both fought to keep her from seeing what he had seen.
When she stopped struggling, stopped screaming, Connor asked if she and Olin could hear him. Olin made a face like he was trying to figure out what Connor was saying.
“We’re going to get out of here!” Connor shouted, loud enough to make sure he was heard. “But don’t look, Dylan! You got it? I don’t want you to see what I’ve just seen.”
Dylan nodded with her back to him. He would know soon enough she was doing her best to hold back tears. “What about Tom?”
“It’s bad, Dylan. I don’t think he’s able to walk. We’ll send help for him. Right now, we have to get out of here.”
Dylan nodded again, still with her back to him. She seemed to know it was a lie, because she did not ask again to talk to Tom, did not try to see him.
“What do we do?” Olin said. Something about it reminded Connor of when he and Olin were trapped in the laundry room of Dylan’s house. Perhaps it was just that Olin was again looking to him for a plan.
Connor steeled himself for what he was about to do, then poked his head out of the hallway, using the flashlight on his phone to assess the situation. The food court was filled with smoke and getting worse. He couldn’t see much besides the fires that seemed to burn all around them and the massive hole in the floor where most of the tables had been. That was a blessing. He didn’t want to see any more of the bodies than he had already.
Then he remembered—“The stairwell.” It was close. They could get to it without . . . He refused to think about what it would mean to go down the escalator. “Dylan, promise me you’re not going to look until we’re in the stairwell.”
“How am I going to see where I’m going?”
“I’ll carry her,” Olin said.
For Connor, carrying Dylan while he navigated his way around the bodies would be difficult. He was pretty sure Olin could handle it without much trouble, though.
“Are you okay with that?” Connor asked Dylan.
She nodded.
Another crack and a crash, like more of the floor giving way.
“We have to go.”
Dylan climbed onto Olin’s back. Connor checked to make sure her eyes were closed and reminded her one more time to keep them that way. The smoke was getting thicker, making it harder to see by the
