Free Eleven Hours by Paullina Simons

alongside a security officer, and he immediately moved toward them. Charles and Patterson followed.
    The young security officer said, “These ladies here said they might have seen a pregnant woman in the parking lot earlier today.”
    â€œWhat time was that?” Rich snapped.
    Officer Charles put up his hand as if to stop Rich. “Wait a second,” he said gently to Rich. He turned to the women. “What time was that?”
    The ladies shrugged. They were short and chubby. The taller of the short women—bleached, heavy, and middle-aged—said, “I don’t know. Maybe around one. We were just coming into the mall.”
    â€œAnd what happened?”
    â€œWe parked our car and started walking to the entrance. Then all of a sudden a lady started screaming.”
    An uncontrolled groan left Rich’s throat. For a few seconds no one spoke. Rich couldn’t even look up from the floor. He could barely stand.
    â€œGo on,” Officer Charles said quietly.
    There were tears in the woman’s eyes. “I feel so bad now, you know, because then we looked over at her, and she had a guy with her, and he smiled at us, wrapped an arm around her, and started kissing her—”
    â€œStarted what?” Rich said, horrified.
    â€œStarted kissing her.”
    He briefly felt relief. “Well, then, that couldn’t have been my wife.”
    â€œMaybe not,” she said. “But this woman was very pregnant and she had long brown hair. She was screaming, ‘Help me, help me,’ and then the guy kissed her and we just thought they were fooling around, you know? Didn’t we, Debbie?”
    Trembling, Rich clenched and unclenched his fists.
    â€œThis guy, what did he look like?”
    Officer Charles extended his hand again. “Mr. Wood, wait.” He turned to the woman. “What did this guy look like?”
    â€œWe didn’t see him so good,” she said. “We just saw them from the side, you know. She was wearing a white dress—”
    â€œWhite?” Rich exclaimed, his heart pounding.
    â€œNot white, Nancy,” said Debbie. “It was yellow. Remember I said it was a cheerful color?”
    â€œOh yeah,” Nancy said. “Yellow. And the guy, he was, I don’t know—a little taller than her. Kind of thin, I think. Right, Deb?”
    â€œYeah, he was taller than her. He was wearing jeans and a jacket, that’s all I remember. He was kind of nondescript, and we couldn’t see them well.”
    Rich nodded in anxious agreement. “Nondescript—that’s exactly how Alex described the guy who was hanging around Didi when she bought the pretzels.”
    Officer Patterson looked at Rich. He couldn’t place the peculiar expression and thought maybe it was guilt for her earlier reluctance to believe that Didi was in trouble, but then Patterson asked, “Does the man sound like anyone you know?”
    Rich wished Patterson was a man and not a police officer, because he wanted to hit her. “What the hell are you saying to me?” he said and didn’t care how he sounded., “What the hell do you think you’re saying? Does the guy sound like someone I might know? The guy who kisses my wife as she’s screaming for help? You know, no one like that springs to mind at the moment.” Rich glared at her. “You’re saying, do I know if my pregnant wife has been fooling around behind my back?”
    The officers looked ashamed, and the two women were downright embarrassed. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Rich said to Patterson. “You just can’t help saying the wrong thing.”
    â€œI apologize,” Patterson started to say, but Rich cut her off. “Obviously you have a problem dealing with people, and I see that as a real detriment in your line of work, considering you pretty much have to deal with people all day long.”
    Disgusted with her, he