Upside Down

64

Marta hit the ground level and would have run into a woman pushing a stroller containing a sleeping infant if she hadn't leaped over it.

“What the hell are you doing?” the mother screamed.

Marta bolted through the glass doors and into the atrium of Canal Place. She caught a glimpse of a figure wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and a red cap moving around a group of pedestrians then turning right into a shop called Georgiou. Okay, little bitch, now I have you.

Marta made herself slow down, not wanting to draw any more attention to herself than necessary. She stopped at the edge of the showroom window and peered in. At the rear of the store, the kid stopped at a display table, flipped through a stack of sweaters, selected one, and went back toward the dressing rooms.

Marta waited to enter until after Faith Ann was out of sight. She walked between the racks, focusing on the rear of the store.

“Can I help you find something today?” an Asian salesgirl who was hanging up blouses asked.

“I'm just looking,” Marta said, smiling.

“Let me know if I can be of assistance.”

“If I find something, I won't hesitate to let you know,” Marta said.

Marta stopped at the table and picked up a pair of slacks. She went back into the dressing room and spotted her target in one of the cubicles, whose doors allowed her a view of the inhabitant's lower legs-tennis shoes and dark jeans. She saw a sleeve of the hooded sweatshirt when the occupant laid the garment on the chair. Marta slipped out her folding knife, opened the blade silently, and slipped her hand holding the weapon beneath the folded pants.

Marta waited until the girl was pulling on the turtleneck, then she pulled open the door. As the child's head was emerging from the neck of the garment, Marta reached out and put her hand on Faith Ann's shoulder, ready to drop the slacks, put the knife to the child's throat, and ask about the negatives. When she felt the hand, Faith Ann whirled around suddenly, and, eyes growing wide, emitted a surprised squeak.

Marta froze, her knife hand underneath the garment. It was a good thing, because Faith Ann wasn't Faith Ann at all. The young woman emerging from the sweater was roughly the same build as Faith Ann and had short blond hair but was in her mid-twenties, and she was pissed off.

“What the hell are you doing?” the woman spat.

“Sorry, I thought you were somebody else,” Marta said, already thinking where she'd lost the girl. Was it possible she had been chasing the wrong person all the way from the deck's stairwell? All she had seen was a sweatshirt sleeve and a hand. No, it had been Faith Ann in the stairwell, but she had somehow slipped by her. She might have taken any of a dozen exits. Marta had seen the woman, and assumed …

The woman in the sweater straight-armed Marta back out of the cube, and Marta let her. She put the knife away, rushed back past the table, and tossed the slacks onto it as she passed by.