Read Online Eleven Hours by Paullina Simons - Free Book Online Page B

wanted to go upstairs and talk to them privately in the security offices. Rich refused.
    â€œCould she still be in the mall, maybe?” said Charles, while Patterson looked at Rich disapprovingly.
    â€œOkay,” said Rich. “She buys a pretzel from Alex at twelve twenty-five, at which point she’s accosted by a stranger who offers to carry her bags. She refuses. He follows her—”
    â€œHe goes in the same direction she’s heading,” Officer Patterson corrected him.
    â€œOf course, excuse me. At twelve-thirty she calls my office and asks me to meet her a little early for lunch. That’s unique in my experience.”
    â€œMaybe you’re prejudging your wife,” said Officer Patterson. “There’s a first time for everything.”
    Rich faced the male officer. “She shops for a little while longer, and then Alex sees her heading that way.” Rich pointed. “Which is where her car is parked. I know because it’s still there. The man is walking in the same direction she is. I know you say it’s a coincidence, but how many can we have in one day?” Rich could not stop moving. “If my wife met me for lunch, then I’d say everything’s hunky-dory and isn’t it all so coincidental. But she didn’t meet me for lunch. No one’s heard from her. Her car is still parked outside. Which means that my pregnant wife with all her shopping bags is still in this mall, because the bags are not in the car. Except for this bag, the pretzel bag. I found it next to our minivan. Look, there’s a receipt in it, two pretzels, my wife’s smell on the bag, and what to me looks like her blood. Look!” He shoved the bag rudely into Officer Patterson’s face and then into Officer Charles’s. “What do you think it is?”
    â€œListen, maybe her nose bled, and she decided to come back in,” said Officer Patterson, a little more sympathetically. “Then she met someone she knew, and decided to spend the afternoon with them. That’s likely, right?”
    â€œThen why hasn’t she called me?” Rich screamed.
    They looked frightened of him. Frightened and concerned. As if they didn’t understand what was driving him, what he was so upset about.
    Am I crazy? Am I mad? Have I lost my sanity? Rich looked around him. There was the Disney Store, there was Dillard’s, there was FAO Schwarz. He could see, he could comprehend. He wasn’t insane yet. Rich concluded that police officers were trained to deal with robberies and homicides and rapes, but not trained to deal with fear.
    â€œTell you what,” Officer Patterson said. “If she’s in this mall, let’s alert mall security. They’ll call for her on the PA.”
    Rich threw up his hands. He paced furiously near the fountain in the middle of the mall, peering into strange faces walking past him while the officers went to talk to security upstairs. Rich was still hoping that somehow Didi would miraculously appear before him with a new hairdo. Within five minutes there was an announcement over the public address system: “Will Didi Wood please come to the security office on the second floor as soon as possible?” It was repeated twice.
    Rich sat down, leaned his elbows on his knees, and held his head in his hands. Seconds later he was up and pacing again. Five minutes later—which seemed an eternity—there was another announcement: “Will anyone with any information about the whereabouts of a nine-month-pregnant woman with long brown hair and wearing a yellow dress notify the management or the security personnel as soon as possible.” That message was also repeated twice.
    The officers came back to Rich and flanked him as he walked back and forth. “Let’s wait and see. Okay? Let’s wait and see what happens,” said Officer Charles.
    They didn’t have to wait long.
    Rich saw two women walking