Chapter <b>137 </b>


    Immediately, I averted my eyes so that he didn’t notice my ogling.


    Since I had told Richard to step on it, he followed my instructions perfectly. Maybe even a little too well. Richard was weaving through cars like a professional race car driver. He went twenty–five miles over the speed limit and almost ran two red lights.


    He turned what would usually be a forty–five minute drive into a fifteen minute one.


    When Richard pulled up to Espen Mall, my stomach was turning from his crazy driving, but I was grateful that he had gotten us here so quickly.


    I needed to find Ava.


    As the four of us walked up to therge building, I noted that there were cracks in the walls, windows boarded up with plywood, and barely any other cars in therge parking lot. I couldn’t believe that this ce was still open.


    “Does your phone say Ava’s exact location?” Alexander asked as we walked into the eerie mall..


    “No. It only says that she’s here,” I answered.


    “Why don’t we go to the security room and ask them to check the tapes?” Rose suggested.


    “Great idea,” I said and followed the signs to the security office.


    A middle–aged man wearing a suit and tie stopped us before we could


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    go into the office.


    “How can I help you all?” he asked and looked at us suspiciously. “I’m the building superintendent.”


    I opened my mouth, trying to think of a lie about why we needed to see his video tapes, but Richard stepped forward and utilized his imposing figure to intimidate the man.


    To my shock, it worked. The superintendent opened the door and gestured us into the surveince room.


    “I’m not sure how much footage I even have to show you,” the superintendent said as he eyed Richard warily. “Most of my cameras had been broken earlier today.”


    My stomach swooped. What were the chances of that happening? Did this have something to do with Ava? Something to do with me?


    “I only have about ten minutes of footage to show you,” the man said and sat in the front of a bunch of monitors. He typed on the keyboard in front of him, pulling up the view of the entrance to the mall.


    The superintendent allowed the video to y until I saw a woman walk into frame for a moment, but I immediately recognized that auburn hair.


    “That’s Ava!” I cried and pointed to the screen. “This is proof that she had been here!”


    “Why don’t we spilt up to search the floors,” Richard suggested. “This is a tall building with at least twenty floors.”


    “Twenty–one,” the superintendent corrected.


    “No,” Alexander said and gazed at me with an intensity that caught me


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    off guard. “We can’t split up. That wouldn’t be safe.”


    “Yeah, I think we should stick together,” I said, and Rose nodded in agreement.


    Alexander turned to the superintendent and crossed his arms. “I’ll give you a big reward if you tell me everything you know about this building,” he offered.


    The man’s eyes glinted with excitement, and he immediately began to speak. “This building hasn’t been used as a shopping mall for a very long time. Right now, some of the floors have been converted into apartments–not very well, I may add, I would never want to live here. The conditions are pretty rough. We also have a few smallpanies that rent office space here, but none of them stay for a long time.”


    Alexander and I shared a frustrated look. That hadn’t revealed anything useful.


    “What are we even looking for?” Rose asked me. “Just your friend?”


    “I’m not sure,” I told her honestly. “But I trust Ava. I just wish I knew why she was here in the first ce.”


    Alexander seemed lost in thought as he stared at the monitors that were showing nothing but static.


    “You know, I bet a building as big as this one has private rooms that are hidden,” Alexander murmured. It seemed like he was talking to himself more than anything. “I bet to enter. You would need to turn your phone off. It would have to be very underground and secretive.”


    With those words, the superintendent’s head shot up.


    “You know a ce like that?” Alexander asked.


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    “Not a ce,” the man answered. “But a person. She’s a tenant who lives upstairs and always requires visitors to turn off all electronic devices when they enter her room.”