Chapter 11
“Coco!” Isabella hissed when she came back to test some ear swabs for a cat with a probable infection.
“Hey, Isabella. Did you do okay with Ralphy?” The ancient bulldog definitely had a target on Isabella in previous visits.
“I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“What? You’re scaring me, Isabella.” An icy chill zinged down her spine. The look on her friend’s face scared her.
“Come watch.” Isabella held out her phone. “I just got an alert from the police that they’ve closed down the mall. There’s a hostage situation there.”
At the word mall, Coco closed the distance to stare at the news coverage outside her Daddy’s mall.
As she watched, the reporter announced the owner had arrived fifteen minutes before.
They showed a clip of Roman Amato walking into the east entrance with a police escort.
The delicious lunch she’d eaten churned inside her stomach.
“I have to get there,” she whispered.
“They’ve closed the mall and aren’t allowing anyone in the parking lot,” Isabella said before plucking the swabs from Coco’s hand. “You watch. I’ll test these. Come, stand next to me at the microscope. You shouldn’t be alone.”
Coco nodded automatically, letting Isabella make all the decisions.
Her brain didn’t function. All she could think about was her Daddy walking into a possibly dangerous situation.
“For fuck’s sake, go invert… inside, and find out something new,” she said to the reporter who simply repeated the same information over and over.
“What’s going on?” Sofia asked after leaving an exam room.
Isabella quickly filled her in.
Sofia joined Coco and watched the coverage. “You saw your Daddy go in there?”
“The polite… police walked him in. What do you think is happening? He didn’t do anything wonky… wrong,” Coco said confidently. Roman was a good man. She hadn’t seen a whiff of any bad intentions or habits.
“Of course he hasn’t. They probably need him to look at cameras or floor plans. He knows all about the building and the structure.”
Coco was vaguely aware of Isabella leaving the room.
Sofia stayed close, watching with her. Then a few minutes later, Isabella was back and Sofia disappeared.
Soon, the office manager, Elizabeth, was at Coco’s side.
Something registered in her brain, reminding her that Elizabeth wasn’t usually in the back.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Elizabeth asked.
“I don’t know. They just keep saying the same thing over and over,” Coco said, hearing the stress in her own voice. She rolled her shoulders and tried to relax.
“How scary. Have you tried calling Roman?” Elizabeth asked.
“I don’t want to disintegrate… distract him. What if the phone ringing causes some problem?” Coco asked.
“Smart. That would be bad.”
“I can’t go there. There’s no one I can call. I don’t know what to do.” Coco shook her head, trying to fight off the tears that had threatened repeatedly since this all began.
Elizabeth put her arms around Coco and hugged her. “Roman is very smart, and he’s there with the police, right?”
“Yellow… Yes.”
“Then they are going to take excellent care of him.”
“I hope so. I’m so scarab… scared.”
“I know, Coco. It’s going to be okay.”
“Come closer. I want to make sure it’s you,” Frank answered, pivoting to focus directly on Roman.
“Try to stall and stay here,” the detective suggested quietly from his backup position.
Roman never took his eyes off Frank. “I don’t think I want to do that. How about letting the girl go and dropping the gun? We’ll sit down and talk.”
“I tried for three months to get an appointment with you. You won’t talk to me if I let her go.”
“I’m sorry, Frank. I don’t remember you contacting me. Tell me what I can do for you?” Roman asked, trying his best to sound calm and talk to the man as if this were a normal encounter.
“All I wanted was some grace for my store. My wife got sick. I had to close the store for several days to take care of Carol. You repossessed our space when I violated the open-seven-days-a-week policy. You wouldn’t listen,” Frank called.
“Frank, I’m sorry. The manager should have met with you. Let’s see if we can fix this. How’s your wife?”
“Dead. She was gone in a month.” Frank laughed, a dry, humorless mirth. “I have nothing now. No Carol. No store. No house. You took it all.”
Roman swallowed hard. That statement a month ago would have registered as sad. Now after finding his precious Little girl, Roman couldn’t imagine losing her—much less experiencing that and having the rest of his life disintegrate as well.
“Frank, I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. I don’t know if the manager knew what was happening or not, but this isn’t right.”
“You’re damn right this isn’t right,” Frank told him. Hearing his own words parroted back to him underlined how worthless Roman’s words were in this situation. Anger burst through Roman that his manager had handled this situation so poorly.
“Frank, Carol wouldn’t want you to do this to this young woman. Let her go. The police will have to address your actions, but I’m involved now. Can we work on this together?”
“You want to hold a gun to her head?” Frank said with a burst of laughter.
“No, Frank. You need to let her go. She didn’t cause any of this,” Roman told him. “Look at her. She’s petrified. How would you feel if anyone had done this to Carol?”
Frank turned to glance at the young employee. She whispered, “Please. I have a baby at home with my mother.”
Roman watched a dozen expressions rush across Frank’s face, alternating from steely determination to rage to sadness. Roman stayed quiet, letting him think. After several minutes, Frank lowered his arm away from the young woman, letting her dash away. He refocused the gun on Roman.
“Thank you, Frank. Can you set the gun down as well?”
“You talk a good game but will never think of Carol or me again. You’ll go on with your fancy life and all your property.”
“That won’t happen, Frank. I can’t shield you from the police, but I am going to do what I can to help. Testify for you. Investigate why I never knew this was going on. Find out what else has been kept from me…”
“Fire your manager,” Frank suggested.
“If he was instrumental in making your difficult situation impossible, he’s gone.
I won’t have my staff treating people like they’re only dollar signs.
” Roman saw the detective gesturing at others and knew they were preparing to move.
“Frank, you need to put that gun down now. I don’t want them to shoot you. ”
Frank studied Roman’s face for a few minutes before slowly lowering the gun and setting it on a table. He backed away. An officer immediately rushed over to confiscate the weapon.
Roman’s shoulders slumped with relief. No one had gotten hurt. “Hey, don’t hurt him,” Roman said to the police officers who swarmed around Frank, who lay unresisting on the ground.
It seemed to take forever to run through his statement with the police, even though they had witnessed the entire thing. Roman kept his composure and dealt with everything.
“We’ve got this, Mr. Amato. Thank you for coming in,” Detective Parks told him as he unfastened Roman’s borrowed body armor.
“My lawyer will meet Frank at the police station,” Roman told him as he handed over his helmet and saw the detective’s eyes widen. “This should never have happened. Frank did the wrong thing and needs to pay for that.”
Detective Parks nodded and walked away. Roman didn’t watch them haul Frank through the mall. He couldn’t. Instead, Roman walked to the food-court business where the shaken hostage had returned to get her keys.
“Tell me your name,” Roman asked gently.
“Kerstin.”
“Kerstin, I’m so sorry this happened to you today. Do you need to go to the hospital? Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m okay. The paramedics checked me out. I’m sorry. I can’t stop shivering. They said it was a reaction to….” She waved a hand toward the center of the food court, and one of her colleagues stepped closer to wrap his arm around her waist.
“I’m going to have you driven home. You’re too shaken up to drive. If you’ll leave your keys with me, I’ll have your vehicle delivered to your house within an hour,” Roman told her.
“I need to stop and get some formula,” the young employee told him, rubbing her hand over her face as if to gather herself. “I’ll be okay.”
Roman looked at the manager, who stood with his staff. “Can you get me the details of her address, the type of formula she needs, and her car information?”
“Of course, sir,” the manager said quickly.
“Kerstin, a driver is going to pick you up at the west entrance in ten minutes. Let your manager walk you there. He’ll take all the information and take care of everything. Okay?”
“Okay. Thank you.” The pure relief on the young woman’s face told him a lot.
“Will there be someone with you?”
“My mom. She’ll stay.”
“Perfect. I’m going to get the ride set up while you talk to your manager and give him your keys. I promise to have someone treat your car with care,” Roman assured her.
“You’re wonderful. Thank you. I just want to get home safely to see my son.”
An image of Coco flashed into his head. All Roman wanted was to rush home to her, but he was trapped here for a while longer. “That is the most important thing to do.”
He excused himself and talked to Bert in the security office.
He called an older security officer to transport Kerstin and grab some supplies for her.
Pulling out his wallet, Roman counted the bills he had in the money clip and gave the new arrival two hundred and fifty dollars to buy a case of formula, and some different staples for the household and fill up the gas tank.
Bert nodded and instructed, “Get receipts, Charlie.”
“Thank you, Charlie,” Roman told him.
“You got it, boss. I enjoy being the good guy.”
When Charlie had walked away to get one of the mall patrol cars, Bert turned to him and warned, “You might as well stick around for a while. It’s going to take a while to get your car out of here. The newsies are swarming everywhere.”
“This has already made it to the news?” Roman asked.
“Oh, yeah. Every station is here.”
Immediately, a warning blared in his mind. Had Coco heard of this happening? She wouldn’t be online while at the vet’s office, right? He grabbed his phone.
“Thanks, Bert. You have my phone number. Call if you need me.”
Walking to a quieter spot, Roman called his Little girl.
“Daddy?” Her voice trembled with stress and worry.
“Coco, I’m fine. I’m sorry to scare you, baby girl. Are you at work?”
“Work?” she echoed. “Oh, no. I’m going to get flambeed… fired. Isabella showed me her phone, and I froze here watching the reporters.”
“We aren’t going to fire you.” Roman heard Sofia’s voice in the background. “Is your Daddy okay?”
“He says he is,” Coco reported and heard cheering fill the background of the call.
Roman suspected she needed to see him to be reassured. He took a picture of himself and sent it to her phone. “I’m fine, Little girl. I’m on my way to get you.”
“I can meet you at home.”
“That’s not happening. Stay there. I’ll come get you,” Roman said firmly.
Roman stopped where the police still gathered and asked, “Is there anyone who could help me get out of here? My family saw the news.”
“And you need to get home to them,” Detective Parks guessed. “Go grab your car and go to the west entrance. I’ll help you navigate out.”
“Thank you. I’ll owe you one,” Roman told him, turning immediately to jog through the abandoned mall to the east entrance where he’d parked his car. In a few minutes, he waved to the detective as he drove through the cleared access point. Thank goodness.
When he pulled into the veterinary clinic’s parking lot, his Little girl dashed from those steps where he’d talked to her not so long ago. Roman stopped in the middle of the lane and caught her as she threw herself into his arms. He hugged her tight as she wrapped herself around him.
“Daddy!”
“Hi, Little girl. I’m so sorry I scared you.”
“They said he had a gun. Did he shoot you?” she asked, sweeping her hands over every inch of him she could reach while holding on to him.
“He did not shoot me. I’m fine, Coco. He was very upset by a situation that should never have happened. I’m so sorry that it did. We talked and he backed down.”
“It could have ended very differently,” she scolded him.
“Yes. But it didn’t. No one got hurt.”
“You should have called me,” she told him.
“Just to scare you? I’d never do that. I didn’t know what had happened until I got there. The police equipped me with a helmet and a bulletproof vest. I was as protected as possible.”
“But still at risk.”
“You could be at risk here, Little girl.”
That made her think for a minute. Roman kissed her softly before looking past Coco to the women on the sidewalk. “Thanks for keeping her company. I know you were a big help.”
“We didn’t do anything but keep her company. Take Coco home. If she needs tomorrow off, let us know. We’ll switch around some staffing,” Sofia told him.
“I’ll be here tomorrow,” Coco said, twisting in Roman’s arms to see her boss.
“Your Daddy will let us know if you need to be home,” Isabella told her firmly.
“Okay. But I’ll be here,” Coco assured her, trying to control her shivers. It was silly to still be shaky. Her Daddy was fine. He was safe.