Chapter 57: The Confrontation
Zeke walked into the shopping mall still dressed in his suit. Right after work, he headed straight there. He had promised Arielle he’d help her pick out a gift for Nicole’s birthday, which was coming up in two days.
Arielle had arrived earlier and was already waiting. As he stepped inside, Zeke pulled out his phone from his pocket and called his niece.
"Where are you?"
"I’m at a café on the third floor," she replied, naming a dessert café where she’d decided to wait.
"I’m already at the mall," Zeke said. "Where should we meet?"
"Come up to the third floor. I saw something that would make a great gift for Mom up here."
"Okay."
When Zeke met Arielle upstairs, they headed to a kitchenware store she had spotted earlier. A few minutes in, Arielle suddenly said she needed to use the restroom and asked Zeke to wait for her there.
Zeke lingered for a moment inside the shop, then decided to step out. He didn’t feel like standing awkwardly among shelves of blenders and pots. He wandered a few steps to the glass railing on the third floor and leaned on it, casually scanning the crowd below.
People bustled around on the ground floor, bags in hand, lost in their own errands. His eyes trailed lazily to the second floor across from him, landing briefly on store signs and mannequins.
Then he froze.