Double Dare by Vicki Hinze Read Free Book Online

dozens of suicide bombers on the news. They’re all nuts.”
    “Call a vote.” The first woman who’d stood, Cassy Brown, said. “Simple majority rules.”
    Maggie didn’t like it, but it was more than she had expected. “Fine. Vote. But there is a provision I’ll be adding.”
    The auditorium again went quiet. “If you vote to open the mall on Christmas Eve, then each owner must be on-site from the time your store opens until it closes. You will not risk the lives of your employees—” she shot a look at Barone “—and protect your own by not being here. I will be all over this mall, from long before it opens until long after it closes, and I’m telling you now, when I come into your store, you’ll either be there or I’ll close it down.”
    “Can she do that?” an unseen woman yelled toward Barone.
    He stood, feet apart, his arms folded in front of him, and shrugged to let the owners know his hands were tied on the matter. “She can.” He solemnly nodded. “So can I, though I would never do so without a majority vote. I believe everyone should have a voice, and that voice should be heard.”
    Spoken like a true bull-shitting politician, Maggie thought. Shifting responsibility to the owners. Very like Kunz, in that. Suspicious, she looked over at Barone and wondered if he was a Kunz double. “I not only can, I will.” Maggie absorbed the gasps, shocked stares, dragging jaws and outrage aimed in her direction. “Now go ahead, cast your votes.”
    It took thirty minutes, but the final tally was 501 to 19 in favor of staying open.
    Justin conceded, sent Maggie a defeated look laced with sympathy and worry.
    “Okay, then,” Maggie said, unwilling to waste energy on regret. Facts were facts, and the sooner they were accepted, the sooner everyone moved on to working within the allotted framework toward protection. “Being open, there are preparations to make and not a lot of time to make them.”
    Daniel Barone interrupted with a raised index finger. “Captain Holt, I won’t have a large number of security forces cut loose in this facility. That would certainly unnerve shoppers. Our primary responsibility is to make them comfortable.”
    So the idiot would have them dead? That was some kind of whacked logic he’d embraced. No doubt, inspired by numbers. Sales. Bottom lines.
    “My primary responsibility is to keep them alive.” She swallowed a grimace. “We will need some things done to better our odds of protecting everyone.”
    “Like what?” the redhead said. “We can’t do much. We’re swamped already, Captain.”
    “You’ll have make time for these things. Mr. Stanton from Security will send out a list.”
    Justin stepped in. “An example of what we’re asking is to remove all aerosol cans from your shelves. That’s not optional,” Justin said. “The most effective means of spreading the virus is through an aerosol spray. We can’t risk your cans being confused with the terrorists’ cans. See what I mean?”
    “So what?” a man sitting beside the redhead said. “We consider any spray can the virus?”
    “Once you clear your shelves, yes. That’s it exactly,” Justin said.
    “That’s unreasonable,” the man said. “I own a hair salon.”
    Justin’s jaw firmed. “Do you see any other option? Do you have another fail-proof way to differentiate the cans? Because if you’re not a hundred percent accurate, everyone in this room and everyone in the mall could be dead in twenty-four hours.”
    Gasps and silence covered a long, still moment, then the redhead spoke up. “It’s your job to protect us, damn it. You do your job.”
    Maggie stepped in. “We’re trying to, but you refused our best advice, which was to close the mall. So it’s an unreasonable expectation for you to believe we’re capable of being everywhere at once—particularly when extra security forces are being denied us. We’ll do all we can, of course. But you must also do your part. That’s the bottom