Page 20 of The Girl on Hallow's Eve

But there is still good in the world. There are people who will think about others and feel that hurt right alongside them. How many of the farmers fit into that group? And how many belong in the other?

“Earlier we brought you a pre-recorded look at the exciting pre-grand opening party being held at the new Village Square Mall,” Claire says, her hands spread out on the desk in front of her almost like she’s preparing to leap over it in excitement. “And right after this break, we’re going to join George McCarthy again for live coverage of the party. Hopefully he’ll give us a glimpse of the whole mall so we can all start planning our shopping adventures for after the official grand opening next week.”

“Looking forward to it,” Lionel says. “We’ll be right back.”

The mall…

“Who edited that segment?” George rages, stalking across the parking lot from his trailer trying to find someone, anyone who can take his complaint. “You have to be kidding me with that bull.”

“Is something wrong, Mr. McCarthy?” a young intern assigned to helping the crew handle this event asks, falling into step beside him.

“Yes, something’s wrong. I want to know who edited that segment,” George says angrily.

“Which segment, sir?” the intern asks.

The reporter rolls his eyes but does his best not to lash out at the scrawny guy who he knows had nothing to do with the show. This kid is responsible for things like making sure the talent has bottled water and the cords don’t trip anybody. He isn’t going to be making decisions about what to cut and how to present news segments. That takes experience, skill, and knowledge of the information being presented and how best to present it.

Something it seems even the person who did the editing didn’t know, considering what he just watched transmit across the TV in his trailer. He sees Amy walking across the lot chatting with her assistant and storms up to her. As soon as Amy sees him, she dismisses her assistant. She knows the angry look in his eyes and the way his face looks like stone when he’s been angered or offended by something. She’s been working with him for his whole career. She can remember a time when his eyebrows were never furrowed so intensely they created a ridge in his makeup, and his eyes never turned inky and dark this way.

But that was at the beginning. It was before he was anybody, still fresh and excited about the prospect of the career in front of him. It was when he was still eager and wanted to work hard and be part of a team. Then people learned his name. They started recognizing his face and the sound of his voice. At that point, being a part of the team didn’t matter. He, according to his own perceptions, was his own team. He didn’t need anyone else to be popular, and he expected everyone around him to not only recognize it, but behave accordingly.

“Hello, George,” she says when he gets close. She doesn’t try to make herself sound anything more than resigned. Pleasantry has little effect on him when he’s acting this way. “Did you have a nice break in your trailer?”

“Are you responsible for that segment?” he demands. “Did you tell them to butcher it that way?”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

George looks at her like she’s purposely being obtuse just to aggravate him. It might not be too far off the mark.

“Did you even watch it? It was nothing but drivel! Everything that even mattered was taken out. You left in two interviews with obnoxious teenagers and a mom who looked like she was going to drop maybe her fifth baby right there in the middle of the food court, but left out talking to the representative from the development company.”

“The development company isn’t the point of this footage, George. The whole reason we’re doing it is to show people the mall and people enjoying it. They’ve frankly heard enough from the development company and, if you haven’t been paying enough attention to know this for yourself, they aren’t getting the best PR. People want to feel like they are allowed to feel excited about the mall and look forward to going there rather than thinking about the inconvenient realities of what needed to be done to build it.

“They don’t want to hear from the rich men who got richer and who have likely never purchased a single article of clothing from anything but a designer boutique in their lives. They don’t want to be told what to think or be pandered to,” Amy says. “I saw that interview. If I was sitting at home watching and heard him talking about doing things completely differently because Sherwood is such a discerning place with unique tastes, I wouldn’t want anything to do with this place.

“There might be some people around here who would be fooled by that kind of simpering bullshit, but I’m going to give the majority more credit than that. They can tell when they’re being manipulated and spoken down to, and that’s not going to do anything good. This piece is about making something out of this place and making it at least somewhat worthwhile. Showing that man wasn’t going to accomplish that. I would think that you would have more understanding of the industry and instinct as a journalist.”

The expression on George’s face gets even harder and the color around the edge of his collar goes crimson.

“I don’t need you telling me how to do my job,” he seethes.

“Actually, you do,” Amy replies. “That’s the point of my job. The other producers and I create the show. You report on what we want you to. Now, you have fifteen minutes of commercials and studio reporting before your live segment. I suggest you get ready.”

She walks around him and heads toward the truck containing all the equipment necessary to do the live show. It’s important to check everything and make sure it’s in place before it needs to be so the transition from the station back to George is smooth and reliable. They aren’t sending him in with as large a crew as usual, including none of the producers, which makes her nervous. Especially with his outburst just now, she doesn’t fully trust that he’s going to be able to handle the segment the way they want it. This is supposed to be fun and encourage people to come to the mall to go shopping. They want to see other people having fun, feel a little like they are missing out, and plan a visit after the opening.

No one needs any of George’s hard-hitting approach.

Behind her, George looks back toward the mall. There’s only one thing on his mind. The producers should learn not to get in his way. They don’t know who they’re contending with.

With each door that opens and then bounces closed again with a thud that seems much too loud in her head, Mindy’s heart jumps and shivers roll through her body. Her stomach turns, the bile starting to creep its way up her throat until she feels like she might get sick, but she forces herself to take a deep breath and fight for control over her mind, her body, her fear.

She stays where she is., even when the sound of the doors stops and she can no longer hear the footsteps of the man walking through the dressing area. She doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing. She didn’t hear him go back the other way, so he must be further into the section, down where the cubicles bend at an angle and then another to form the sides, along with the entrance, of a square. The open area behind the entrance desk forms the open center of the square with edges formed of the walls of the individual stalls.

It lets shoppers enter dressing rooms from either direction, which means the hooded man could walk all the way around and come out on the opposite side of where he went in. Mindy does her best to ignore the rushing sound in her ears so she can listen for the footsteps again. She wants to know where he is, to keep track of him as much as she can from inside.

She didn’t hear anything as he made his way down the row of dressing rooms. There was no scream, no exclamation, no sound of a fight. And Gloria would fight. If she had the opportunity, she wouldn’t just give up.

It gives Mindy some hope. If she heard no reaction to the man opening the door to the stall Gloria is in, or any struggle with a locked door, maybe her best friend wasn’t still in the dressing area when he arrived. She could have already walked out with the intention of finding Mindy, only to see the aftermath of what happened to the clerk and run.

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