Delivering Death: A Novel (Riley Spartz) Read Online Free PDF Page B

him than me. I remembered a time when those priorities were reversed and was tempted to get into the kind of pointless squabble one gets in with a frustrating ex, but controlled the urge. I suspected the security guards in the dispatch center were monitoring us on surveillance cameras and taking bets on how long before I slugged him.
    Or kissed him.
    That sudden romantic fantasy startled me, and I pushed it away, but once you’ve shared passion and danger with someone it’s hard to stand close and not remember the heat.
    Our third and final split was different from the others. He considered it a trust-breaker, while I saw it as a misunderstanding. I’d kissed another man while Garnett and I were broken up. It had meant so little to me, I thought nothing of telling him. It had meant so much to him, he couldn’t bear to hear it. And thus ended our courtship.
    Meanwhile, a young woman in a floor-length, strapless white gown almost crashed into us as she danced by in wedded bliss. Following on her heels were tuxedoed men, bridesmaids in shimmery dresses, and flower girls in puffy skirts. The bridal party all wore broad smiles, except for a white-haired lady who dabbed the corner of one eye with a pink hanky. Nick blushed as he finally realized we were standing outside the wedding chapel.
    Bad juxtaposition.
    He took me by the elbow, out of the way of the celebratory nuptials, but I yanked free from him. “You’re not allowed to touch me anymore.”
    “Not so fast,” he replied. “I’m still curious what you’re doing here.”
    “Are you asking me as a friend or as a cop? As far as friendship goes, I’m not sure those criteria apply anymore. And when it comes to law and order, there’s this legal issue called probable cause. Unless I’m on your ‘No Trespassing Wall’?”
    The security team had a wall in the basement where they posted pictures of small-time crooks, vandals, and disturbers of the peace who had been warned they’d face arrest if they were found on the property again.
    “Anyone in the mall is subject to a security interview if we deem it prudent,” he said.
    “A security interview?” I replied. “Since when? Are we taping an episode of Mall Cops ? I don’t see camera crews anywhere.”
    My reference to a reality TV show filmed on-site riled him. “Our security policy is on the mall website. You certainly should appreciate that where we’re standing is the ultimate terrorist target.”
    He was correct about what’s in a name. When the shopping complex first opened, the label was considered a stroke of marketing genius. But after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Minnesota braced for the worst. Pairing “America” with “Mall” had pros and cons. That’s why the Mall of America employed ahighly trained security team consisting of Israeli counterterrorism experts, explosive-sniffing dogs, and more than a hundred officers. Bombings at the Nairobi mall and at the Boston Marathon had brought that fear home again, but I still didn’t like Garnett’s implication.
    “Don’t mess with me, Nick.” I moved forward into his space, to see if he would step back. He didn’t, and neither did I. We were both too close for comfort. “You didn’t stop me because I’m suspicious. You stopped me because I’m me.”
    He didn’t deny it.
    I didn’t remember our exact parting words, only that our breakup lacked good closure. While dating, we used to play a movie trivia game, weaving famous lines from film dialogue into our conversation, then goading the other into guessing their origin. I’d long settled on what my final words to him should have been, and no coincidence, they came from a memorable breakup movie.
    “You don’t even know how much you’ll miss me,” I said.
    Before he could answer, “Shirley MacLaine, Terms of Endearment , 1983,” we heard screaming, and a red object came hurling toward us.
    I don’t know what he was thinking, but I had terrorism on my mind and envisioned