Waylaid Read Online Free Page B

the tall woman started for the obvious entrance, Jack’s coat bumping about her calves. Peri hesitated, and Rachel turned, her eyebrows high in question. “You’re coming, right?”
    “To watch you step into a magic mirror and vanish? You bet.” Peri reluctantly leaned back into the car, sliding her Glock into the car’s safe and locking it. She’d never get anything so crass past the mall’s security. Feeling naked, she shut her door.
    Rachel eyed her cautiously as she waited for Peri to come even with her. “It’s not a magic mirror. Ley lines are bands of natural focused energy. You don’t think reality is perfectly homogenized, do you? You get that much free energy in one place, you can use it.”
    Peri didn’t answer, instead pushing them into a faster pace. She didn’t like feeling short as she strode along beside Rachel, her two-inch boots doing nothing to bring their heights even. She couldn’t help but notice how people were turning to look at them as they headed for the main doors, even if most of Rachel’s clubbing sparkles and spandex were hidden underneath Jack’s overcoat. Peri had never felt short beside Jack, but he didn’t accompany her to the mall wearing six-inch heels, either.
    “Where do you think we should look for your line?” Peri asked as they hit the double glass doors together, the wind from the equalizing pressure blowing their hair back.
    And then Peri stopped, realizing she’d left Rachel behind.
    She turned, seeing the woman gawking like a goober at the holographic, interactive mannequins outside the first store. It wasn’t busy, so their programming had lots of time to analyze the passing shoppers and change the outfits on the mannequins to something the approaching shopper might like. The more sophisticated ones would actually wave and lure you in with canned, flirtatious chatter. It was obvious that Rachel had never seen them before.
    A worried frown furrowed Peri’s brow. You couldn’t fake shock like this. How could the woman know about electric cars and cell phones, and not about shopping mules? “Rachel?” Peri called, trying to bring the woman back.
    Rachel licked her lips, clearly still amazed. “There are no vampires, witches, or even a Were here. No wonder you have to dress so extreme and be so loud. It’s the only way you can set yourself apart. Everyone is the same.”
    Peri quizzically looked over the loitering teenagers in their Goth black and glow-in-the-dark hair, her gaze rising to the fast-walking people in business suits with their phones to their ears, to the strolling upper-class retirement folks with little bags, the holographic logos on them screaming out their “ BUY ” message. This was “the same,” according to Rachel? “The line?” Peri prompted, and Rachel seemed to bring herself back, shaken but resolute.
    “I don’t know. Let’s try the center.”
    Wondering if she should just call Bill to pick the woman up, Peri angled them in the right direction. Immediately she slowed as Rachel insisted on lingering at every storefront, pausing at every mule trying to get her to buy a new coat or set of heels. But eventually they reached the center, the large open space five stories tall with a glass ceiling, now dark with night. There was an enormous oak tree in the middle, carefully tended and growing right out of the concrete left over from the exodus. The mall had been repurposed around the defunct Packard car manufacturer as a reminder of how quickly Detroit had been swallowed up when everyone had left. But Peri simply liked seeing a two-story oak tree growing out of a mall.
    “You have a tree growing in your mall,” Rachel said flatly, and Peri shrugged, sitting down at one of the café-like tables under it. The adjacent eatery wasn’t open, making it a somewhat private place even as people passed.
    “You want something to eat?” Peri said suddenly, thinking the pale woman looked even more white. “You don’t look so