“Wouldn't that be counterproductive?”
“I'm serious.”
“I know you are.”
Dustin closed his eyes.
For years he'd never stopped for long enough to feel a moment of fear.
Now here he sat with Greg's heart beating against his ribs. Fast and present and alive.
And Dustin was afraid.
He tightened his arm. His hand moved to the back of Greg's neck and pressed there — fingers against warm skin, against the pulse point, against the proof that Greg was solid, that he was here, that he wasn't dissolving.
Yet.
CHAPTER 37
Garrett's Grocery was a small store on a quiet street and there was absolutely no reason for anyone to die in it.
Greg assessed this as they walked through the automatic doors — which startled him, but only a little bit — and into the fluorescent interior. The floors were clean. The ceiling tiles were intact. The shelves were organized in neat rows, stocked with products arranged by category, which Greg appreciated on a level that had nothing to do with his current crisis.
Music played from speakers he couldn't see. Something soft and inoffensive.
A young man in a green apron was stacking boxes of cookies near the entrance. An older woman was comparing two cans of soup. A man in a baseball cap was reading the back of a cereal box.
None of these people were going to kill Dustin.
Probably.
Greg scanned the ceiling once more. No loose panels. No water damage. He checked the floor. It was dry, recently mopped if the faint chemical smell was anyindication, but not currently wet. The shelving units were industrial steel, bolted in rows. Heavy. Full.
He looked at the shelving units again.
“Greg.” Dustin was holding Cathy's list and looking at him. “You coming?”
“Yes.” Greg pulled his gaze away from the ceiling. “I'm right behind you.”
Dustin grabbed a basket with his good hand and started down the first aisle. Greg followed, two steps behind, and tried to look like a person who was shopping and not a person who was conducting a threat assessment of a grocery store.
The clock on the wall above the deli counter read 2:49.
Eight minutes until the window opened.
Greg's hands were shaking. He put them in his pockets. He'd left his clipboard in the car because taking it inside with him would have felt like bringing the weapon to a crime scene.
Meanwhile Dustin moved through the store without care. He found the bread, checked the date, put it in the basket. Then he went on to grab eggs.
Greg lingered. He checked every aisle they passed through, and he noted the positions of other shoppers. The soup woman had moved to dairy, the baseball cap man was still reading cereal boxes, the young employee was now mopping the produce section.
The mop left a wet trail on the linoleum.
Greg stared at it.
Could it be that simple?
A wet floor?
