Faith said, ‘Reuben won’t report him missing. He’s trying to handle it on his own.’

‘I figured.’ Angie took one of the tissues from her purse. ‘I was going to go to his house and shoot him in the head.’

The casual way she detailed her plan to murder a man sent a shiver of cold through Sara’s veins.

Angie blew her nose, wincing at the pain in her side. ‘Without Reuben, the iPad matters again. I could do what I was going to do in the first place. Trade the iPad for Anthony.’

‘With Kip Kilpatrick?’ Faith guessed.

Angie was still trying to get Will’s attention. He was deliberately looking away from her. She said, ‘I know I fucked this up, baby. I was just trying to help my daughter. She doesn’t even know who I am.’

Will’s face was stone. Angie had no idea what she had done to him. Sara’s only hope was that this new-found clarity would last longer than the crisis at hand.

Amanda’s phone rang. She listened for a beat, then told them, ‘Reuben Figaroa left his house. Laslo Zivcovik is in the car with him. They’re going west on Peachtree. Just crossed over Piedmont. We’ve got three cars on chase. The other stayed at the residence.’

Faith said, ‘He’s going away from downtown, toward the malls. Public place. Lots of people. That’s where I’d do an exchange.’

Amanda looked at her watch. ‘The mall just opened. There won’t be much of a crowd yet.’

Angie said, ‘He’s doing reconnaissance. That’s why he brought Laslo. Reuben is a control freak. He thinks his wife has been murdered. Somebody stole his son and is demanding money. This is why I wanted to go through Kip. I told Virginia that Reuben would shoot her in the head if he ever got the chance.’

Amanda said, ‘I don’t know how fast I can get SWAT there. The Buckhead precinct can do deep backup. We’ve got three agents in three cars. We’re at the end of rush hour. It’ll take an hour for us to get up to Buckhead. We can go lights and sirens part of the way, but—’

Sara said, ‘There’s a helicopter on the roof.’ She had flown in the air ambulance for emergency transports. ‘The Shepherd Spinal Center has a heliport. That’ll cut your travel time to fifteen minutes.’

‘Perfect,’ Amanda said. ‘Faith, handcuff Angie to the bed, get someone from APD to sit on her. Make sure they’re not connected to Collier. Will goes with me in the chopper. He’s the better shot and Reuben hasn’t seen his face.’ She tossed her keys to Will. ‘My rifle is in the back of the car. The magazines are in the lockbox. Get my speedloader and a pack of ammo.’

Instinctively Sara grabbed Will’s arm. This was happening too fast. Amanda was talking about shooting people. People shooting back. Sara didn’t want him to leave. She didn’t want to lose him.

Will cupped his hand to Sara’s face. ‘I’ll see you back home when this is over.’

THIRTEEN

Will studied the map on the wall inside the security offices at Phipps Plaza. There were a thousand ways the hand-off between Reuben Figaroa and Virginia Souza could spin out of control. Deshawn Watkins, the chief of security, outlined a few of them for Amanda.

‘There are four possible points of approach directly into level three.’ Deshawn pointed out three different escalators and the elevator that serviced all three levels inside the main atrium. ‘Then there’s another set of escalators if you go through the Belk department store. One up, one down. Then there’s this elevator here inside Belk, and another elevator here at the street entrance. None of the main elevators go to the parking garage except this one here and here.’

Amanda said, ‘So we’re effectively inside a sieve.’ She looked at her watch. They were assuming that the meet would take place on the hour or half-hour. She told Will, ‘It’s eleven sixteen. If we get past noon, we’re going to have to rethink this. There’s no telling how many people will turn up here for lunch.’

Deshawn said, ‘You’re talking most of the people who work in the stores, a lot more kids. This place is filled by twelve thirty.’

Will rubbed his jaw as he studied the map on the wall. The layout was familiar. He’d been to Phipps with Sara more times than he would’ve liked. The mall was three levels, stacked like a wedding cake, with the smaller top tier pushed to the front. There was a round open atrium that ran through all three floors. The railings were glass with polished wood and gold handrails. The elevator had a glass back. Will couldn’t help but be reminded of Marcus Rippy’s nightclub, though the ambience was the exact opposite. The floors were sparkling clean. Skylights brought in ample sunshine.

Reuben Figaroa sat in the food court area on the third level, the same as he’d been the entire time. He had picked a good location to trade off his son. Or maybe Virginia Souza had chosen the spot. Even on a Tuesday, the top level was a mecca for pre-school children. The Legoland Discovery Center hosted Toddler Time every Tuesday morning. The movie theater was running a cartoon marathon. Kids weren’t the only problem. There was a large open food court with several fast-food restaurants. Scattered through the rest of the mall were elderly mall walkers and shoppers perusing the over one hundred stores.

If Will was going to trade off a kid for money, this is where he’d do it.

Then again, they didn’t know whether or not Reuben Figaroa meant to make a trade.

A public place. A controlling man who owned a lot of guns. A terrified little boy. A woman who had built her life around hurting kids.

This could go like clockwork or it could go like hell.

Will mentally walked through the best-case scenario: Souza walks into the mall with Anthony. The good guys scoop up the kid and return him to his father. Second-best: Souza manages to give them the slip as she makes her way to the food court, she trades Anthony for the money, the good guys isolate her on the second level, then make an arrest.

Will didn’t want to think about the worst-case scenario, the one where Reuben, who didn’t mind hitting women, demanded payback. The one where Virginia Souza had a gun or a knife and a kid in her hands. The one where they went to a second location that there was no way to control.

Then there was Laslo.

Then there was the possibility that Souza had an accomplice.

As the mama in charge, she had her pick of young girls who would do her bidding. Any one of them—any two or three of them—could be posing as one of the young mothers in the food court.

Souza’s girls were street savvy. They would know what a cop looked like. They could warn Souza. They would have her back if the trade went south. They were all as feral as Angie, hardened and mean and desperate to do whatever it took to protect their family.

Amanda said, ‘She won’t take the elevators. That’s not a quick getaway.’

‘It wouldn’t make sense to go down to the parking garage.’ Deshawn pointed to the map again, the glass elevator in the atrium. ‘She’d have to go down two levels, then this is the closest exit. But we can keep the elevators from going down to the garage if you want.’

‘Do that.’ Will told Amanda, ‘Reuben has the knee brace. He won’t be able to move fast.’

‘Let’s hope it’s not Reuben we’re following out of this mall.’ Amanda asked Deshawn, ‘How would you get out of here? Down the escalators to the second level, then what?’