**This blog contains adult language.**
Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!! This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself. Please be aware that the story WILL be spoiled in every way imaginable. And mocked. Mercilessly.
From the Back of the Book: He's everywhere...waiting just for her! Trish smiles into the dressing room mirror, admiring herself in the gorgeous white dress. Unknown to her, someone else is watching. He knows she's smiling just for him. His soft, strange voice whispers her name from the crowd. His hooded eyes follow her every move. At first she thinks he's just a creepy customer, hanging around Muffin Mania where she works at the mall. But suddenly he's everywhere, the man with a thousand faces tormenting her day and night. He knows her secrets. There's no safe place to hide. There's no one she can tell, no one she can trust. How can she escape a madman willing to kill to make her his – forevermore?
TRIGGER WARNING: There is a kidnapping in this book. It is not called a kidnapping, nor does the author seem to acknowledge it was one, BUT IT FUCKING WAS AND THIS IS A HILL I WILL DIE ON. There is also a very non-consensual kiss from one person who had NO BUSINESS kissing the other person in the first place. If either of these is something that will steal your peace, please skip this one. I love you and I'll catch you next time.
This book was published in 1992 and I'm pretty sure I've never read it. I have read a recap of it, though, done by someone else way before I started this blog. I read the post so long ago that I don't remember a single thing about it or this book but I wanted to be honest about the fact that I'm not going in completely blind. Just picture me with a pirate eye patch on or something.
Since I have a molecule of prior knowledge about the book, I won't be doing bad guy odds for this one.
We begin with a bad guy prologue which is absolutely my least favorite way to begin a book. I hate them. In this case, he tells us that he likes to stand in store windows and pretend he's a mannequin. It's unclear if he does this when the mall is empty or when people are there. He tells us he was doing it earlier when he saw “her” walk by so I guess he must do it during operating hours. How do the people that work there not notice him getting into the window? It makes no sense. At any rate, he's hung up on a girl who works in the mall and he thinks she's his chosen one like he's some kind of werewolf looking for his fated mate.
This was not a good start.
Chapter one gives us our protagonist Trish and her friend Nita. They both work in the mall – Trish at the food court and Nita in one of the clothing shops. She tells Trish that one of her co-workers (Freida) seems to have disappeared. She was supposed to be the last one working the night before but the drawer wasn't counted down and the store wasn't locked up. Attempts to reach her have resulted in nothing so it's unclear if she just walked out and quit or if something nefarious happened to her.
As they stand there talking, Nita points out some guy reading the paper while wearing sunglasses in the middle of a fucking mall. She says he was staring at Trish but when Trish looks, he's just reading his paper. After Nita leaves, the man approaches and asks for a muffin. Trish notes his long, thin fingers, long hair, wispy beard and soft voice so I'll note it too. The muffin has honey on top and she gets it on her finger as she puts the muffin in a bag.
Eww....she's not wearing gloves and she just fingered that muffin and dipped her finger in the honey.
😮
Wow, that sounded dirty. Which blog am I on again?
The man creepily comments on how small and petite her hands are and how he'd like to lick the honey off her finger. Trish is pretty weirded out and tries to finish the transaction as quickly as possible.
We skip ahead a little. Trish and Nita are going to lunch with Nita's twin sister Imogene. Imogene works in the mall too, in a bookstore. She definitely got the long straw. Nita and Imogene don't look or act anything alike. Imogene starts talking about how weird the mall is architecture wise. It's one of the oldest in the state and it's been renovated a bunch of times without any regard to design. The way she describes it makes it sound like the Winchester house. She says she thinks there are probably tunnels and secret passageways all over the place. This is a VERY bizarre conversation that Cusick has just sandwiched in here with no regard for sense or reason. She's very heavy-handed with how she delivers her information. It drives me crazy.
Imogene tells them that things are being stolen from all over the mall but none of the security systems are catching whoever is doing it. They're taking odd things like dishes, food, furniture, sheets, perfume, etc. Imogene seems to think that someone is living in the mall – probably in one of those hidden areas she was talking about before. The other girls kind of roll their eyes and brush her off as just being eccentric old Imogene.
Odds that Imogene is right about someone living in the mall: 88%
As they eat, Trish keeps her eye on some guy named Storm who works in the pizza stand. He's tall and dark haired and that's really all she needs to know about him to want to have his babies. Nita teases her about Storm and Imogene gets a little irritated that they'd rather talk about boys than her theory about the mall. This prompts Nita to declare that they need to get Imogene laid so she'll loosen up a little. She sees some poor guy named Wyatt who is working custodial and fixates on him. He's tall and thin and wears band shirts and combat boots so Nita basically picks him out for her sister knowing they won't be a good match. She just wants to be a bitch basically.
Wyatt heads their way carrying a ton of dirty trays and Nita purposely shoves her chair back into him, catching him hard in the stomach and causing him to drop the trays all over the floor. She tries to pretend it was an accident, putting her hand on his stomach to soothe away the booboo and batting her eyes for all she's worth. He shoves her hand off him and ignores her attempt to flirt which just pisses her off. Now she's interested in him because he's not interested in her.
I really don't like Nita already.
When Trish gets back to the muffin stand, her manager tells her that someone left a note for her. Apparently Trish's car was hit in the employee parking lot and the note tells her to go inspect the damage and then call the security office to make a report. Her manager tells her to take care of it ASAP, so Trish leaves to go to the lot. Her car is parked right next to a pay phone....
….and doesn't seem damaged at all. Trish shrugs it off, thinking someone got her car confused with a different one. Before she can leave the lot, the pay phone rings. For some reason she picks it up and a whispery voice calls her by name. He says he's eating the muffin and it tastes like her.
Protagonist receives a creepy anonymous phone call? Check.
Trish tries to report the phone call to mall security but they don't take her seriously. They think it's just another stupid prank. She walks off, frustrated and scared. Before she gets very far, Storm literally bumps into her and almost knocks her over. He doesn't really apologize but he uses the encounter to get her name. He rattles off that he knows she's been working in the mall for five evenings and he knows she only works the late shift. She's flattered that he's noticed her but it's just a weirdly creepy thing to say. Then he puts his hands on her shoulders and squeezes them. She swoons but I'm weirded out again. Why is he touching her? They just met.
Storm runs his hands down her arms and then turns her around and basically pushes her through the mall back toward the muffin stand. She says she's grateful because her head is all over the place but this is JUST WEIRD. When they get to the stand, Trish can see that her manager is swamped with customers and annoyed. She tenses up so Storm pulls her back against his body and whispers in her ear that everything is going to be okay. Then he just takes off without another word.
Storm is so creepy. And I'm sure he's supposed to be our love interest. Seriously, what does Cusick have for creepy men? All her male leads act like this.
And why did I like it when I was a teenager?
Sigh.
Middle-aged me is appalled at teenage-me's taste in book boyfriends.
Trish tells Nita about the car/phone incident after work and Nita is hella freaked out. They're hanging around in the clothing store where Nita works waiting for some customers to clear out so they can leave. Trish is in a hurry to get home but she's also a little freaked out about it because her mom is away, “flying around Europe” so she's home alone for awhile.
Teen left alone with no parents in sight? Check.
Nita starts to clean up the store so Trish wanders around looking at the new shipment of clothes they just put out. She finds a white satin dress with pearl buttons and velvet trim and instantly falls in love. Nita encourages her to try it on while she's ringing up the last of the customers so Trish heads into the dressing room. There's no one else in the store and all the customers are now at the register so Trish decides to change into the dress with the dressing room curtain open.
No one would do this. Ever. A custodian could walk in. There could be cameras in the hallway portion of the dressing area. I know Cusick needs that curtain open for her next plot contrivance but I'm not buying it.
Trish pulls off her sweater and her jeans and instantly feels like someone is watching her. She looks around but sees no one, so she steps into the hallway area where the mirror is and spends some time just looking at herself in her bra and panties. I don't know why. Especially after she thought someone might be watching her. It makes very little sense. After gazing at herself for a bit, she puts the dress on. She feels beautiful in it and stops to admire herself for a bit but then feels the eyes-on-her feeling again. There's no one around but she can't shake the feeling.
Trish goes running out into the store to tell Nita that someone is in the dressing room. Nita is sure there isn't because she's been keeping track of who's in the store and all the customers have now left. She checks it out anyway and finds no one. Trish repeats that she's sure someone was watching her and then mentions a strange cold draft she felt by her feet and an uneasiness around the mirror. The mirror she just stood half naked in front of for several minutes. Nita dismisses it as nerves over the phone incident earlier.
The girls clean up and then head for the parking lot. Trish is still nervous so Nita does the smart thing and says she'll walk Trish to her car and then Trish can drive Nita to hers. This is what they should be doing anyway. Buddy system in dark parking lots, y'all. On the way to Trish's car, Nita drops her purse and spills a bunch of stuff. She manages to pick it all up – or at least she thinks she does but I doubt Cusick would even mention it if it didn't come back up at some point. Both girls think they hear footsteps behind them but they can't see anyone. When they get closer to the car, however, they see someone breaking into it and freak the fuck out.
{{{GASP}}}
I know we're not in a Stine but if Cusick wants to play these stupid games, she gonna get lumped in with him.
LOLZ
It's just Wyatt. He says he thought Trish's car was his car. I guess they look the same and he parked in the same general area when he got there that day. There aren't any other cars around and Trish doesn't believe him but he says his must have been stolen. The girls are really suspicious and tell him to bug off so they can get in the car. He limps away and Nita realizes she must have hurt him when she banged her chair into him earlier. She feels bad for him and asks Trish to give him a ride.
Wyatt says he isn't going home but he'll take a ride to wherever they want to take him. It's an odd conversation. They decide to go to a deli to get some food and he agrees. Nita gets in the backseat so Wyatt can sit up front and he comments that there's something on Trish's floorboard. She doesn't even look and tells him it's just cassette tapes.
When they get to the diner, Nita invites Wyatt to eat with them. He tells them that his wallet was in his car and it's gone now so he doesn't have money. I think he's really poor and didn't want them to take him home so they wouldn't see where he lives. The girls offer to pay for him and he protests a bit but then allows them to drag him into the diner. They ask him a bunch of questions as they eat and find out that he also does minor maintenance at the mall and he can pick locks. Nita jokingly says that she wishes she could pick locks because she'd just stay in the mall after hours and go shopping in all the stores. Wyatt tells her that the mall is super creepy at night and they wouldn't like it there very much.
After they finish their food, Nita asks Trish to take her back to the mall so she can pick up her car. Trish asks Wyatt if he needs a ride anywhere else and he says they can drop him off at the drugstore on Mayfield. It's near the mall. He says he needs to pick up a few things and then he'll just walk to a friend's house and get a ride home from him. Both girls seem a little worried about him but they agree.
Trish drops Nita off at her car and then gets a cassette out of the glove box. It's classical music and she assumes Imogen left it in there. She starts to drive away but her car sputters and dies. She can't figure out why because there's gas in it. There are only two choices available to her – get out and walk to the drugstore they left Wyatt at or walk back to the mall and bang on the doors hoping a security guard would hear her and help her. She picks the mall even though the guards are probably trained to ignore people who come to the doors after hours.
The night is foggy and cold and she's sure she hears someone following her. She makes it to the nearest door and knocks, screaming that she needs help. No one responds and she can't see anyone moving around in the mall. She runs to the next door and repeats the process. On her way to the third door, she trips over a bottle and falls to the ground, hurting her knee because of course she does. She's the protagonist. She has to trip at least once.
Trish is getting progressively more freaked out as she tries door after door and no one comes to her aid. She ends up in the alley were smaller deliveries are made. She hears a door creak open and sees a figure standing off in the distance. Relieved, she screams out to them that she needs help. There's no response at first but then he waves her over. He's wearing dark glasses and a dark cap pulled low so she can't really see his eyes. She can see a scar on his cheek and dark, curly hair peeking out from under his cap.
Trish explains the situation to him and he tells her that she shouldn't be wandering around in the dark. His voice is deep and quiet and she can barely hear him. She asks if she can use the phone and he says 'yes' and then points out that her knee is bleeding. He tells her they need to take care of her knee and then they'll figure out what to do about her car. She willingly follows him over to some kind of supply closet where he has a first aid kit.
Y'all. Every single line of dialogue this man has is full of ellipses. Every one. He doesn't say a single sentence without at least one, sometimes two. It's dot-dot-dot this and dot-dot-dot that. Over and over. I don't know what Cusick is going for here but it's annoying as hell.
The mystery man tells her that he's....been sick....with bronchitis....and that's.....why his voice.....sounds odd. Trish figures that's why she's never seen him around the mall. I mean, it's probably because he works nights and she works days but whatever. As he's gathering up the first aid supplies, she babbles on about how much she likes working at the mall but she hates her manager and is constantly afraid she's going to get yelled at. During the conversation, she randomly knocks into a box and it falls over, breaking a bunch of bottles. Trish is mortified and begins to clean up the glass even though the man tells her to leave it. She gathers up some glass and takes it to the trash bin where she's horrified to see a dead girl with an ice pick in her throat.
Trish screams and the chapter ends. I figured it was a fake out and Trish saw a mannequin or something but, no, it was a dead girl. Probably the aforementioned Freida. The man instantly reaches for the walkie talkie on his belt and radios for help. He tells Trish she needs to leave because if anyone finds out he let her in after hours, he's going to be fired. For some reason all the ellipses in his sentences turn into em dashes now. He tells her – he's going to call her a cab – and she should wait by the theater – and then asks for her address – and asks if someone will be home with she gets there. For some fucking reason, Trish tells this complete stranger her home address and mentions she'll be alone for several days.
Protagonist who displays a shocking lack of survival skills? Check.
Protagonist who seriously needs to listen to a true crime podcast? Check.
This one is hella fucking stupid, y'all.
And while we're at it, she never heard anyone respond over the walkie. I don't think he actually used it at all.
The man gives her some money and ushers her out the door, telling her not to tell anyone she was there or what she saw.
The next morning, Trish goes through the paper and listens to the news, thinking she'll hear something about the body discovered at the mall. There's nothing. She's confused but she goes about her day, calling a tow truck to deal with her car and going to class. Nita gives her a ride to work and Trish asks if she heard anything about something weird happening at the mall the previous night. Nita hasn't heard anything.
Inside the mall, Trish flags down a security guard. She mentions that she had trouble the night before and a guard helped her. She says she wants to thank him and describes him to the guard. He says that it sounds like Roger and flags Roger down. When Trish sees him, she knows it's not the same guy because he doesn't have a scar. She asks Roger who was working around midnight and he tells her that there is no overnight guard. They all leave at 10:30.
Trish has a horrible day at work and her manager yells at her several times. At one point, Trish sees that the creepy Muffin Man is standing at the counter watching her get berated. He's not the only one. Both Storm and Wyatt seems to have witnessed it as well and neither of them look happy. I guess we're supposed to consider them suspects even though Storm and Wyatt can't be the Muffin Man since she saw all three of them at basically the same time.
Nice try, Cusick.
Trish goes into the bathroom to cry and Imogen comes in a few minutes later. Imogen says she has to go down to the loading dock to pick up a delivery and asks Trish to come with her. Trish figures she's going to get fired anyway, so she agrees to go. The loading area is super creepy and in the basement or something. Trish bumps into a delivery man who has the same voice as Muffin Man and looks kind of like the mystery man. She's super confused. The confusion only deepens when she finds a gray wig beside the service elevator that resembles the Muffin Man's hair.
Trish clues into the fact that the Muffin Man, the mystery man and the delivery man are all probably the same person. She decides to quit her job and swear off the mall forever. Her purse and coat are still at the muffin place but she really doesn't want to go back, so she heads to the store where Nita is working and asks her to get them. Nita, however, doesn't want to get fired from her job and tells Trish it will have to wait. Then she drops the news that the white dress that Trish had been so in love with was stolen.
Of course it was.
Trish decides to wander around the mall until Nita gets off work because she can't go home without her purse. At one point she comes across a storefront that is under construction and wonders if the Muffin Man could be hiding inside. No, I don't know why she thinks this. She's not operating with a full box of crayons. She pries back the plastic sheet to look inside and gets startled by a large construction worker who is exactly where he's supposed to be, doing exactly what he's supposed to do. He greets her and this startles her for some reason and she takes off running.
I....uh.....I don't get this one, y'all.
The escalators are being serviced and are still but she runs halfway down one anyway before she realizes that she's not actually being followed. The construction worker probably went right back to doing his job. She's just standing on the escalator when it suddenly becomes operational again and the momentum causes her to fall.
Trish wakes up in the hospital. They're keeping her overnight for observation and she has stitches in her chin. She talks briefly with the nurse who tells her she'll be released into the care of Nita and Imogen's mom since her own mom is in Europe fulfilling her contract with Point Horror, and then she goes back to sleep. When she wakes up again, there's a man in her room. She realizes pretty quickly that it's the Muffin Man when he starts speaking. Now Cusick has decided to combine his speaking styles and every bit of dialogue contains at least one ellipse and one em dash. It's painful to read, ya'll.
Trish tries to call the nurse but he's taken the button away. She could remove the lead to one of her monitors and the machine would summon the nurse but, again, she's not the saltiest fry in the bag. He tells her that he's been watching her and he knows everything about her. Including what she looks like in her underwear. She realizes he was watching her that day in the fitting room and she's mortified. He tells her she can call him Athan and he only wants to protect her and for her to love him. He warns her away from “him” and I'm not sure if he means Storm or Wyatt but it doesn't really matter.
I looked up the name, by the way, to see if it was a reference to something. At first I kept getting tangled up in results for Adhan which is the Islamic call to public prayer. Finally, way down on the page, I found out that the name Athan means 'eternal life'.
Trish tells him that she's going to quit her job and he won't be able to watch her as easily then. He makes a vague threat about knowing where Nita and Imogen live and she takes that to mean that he'll hurt them if she quits. He leaves and Trish makes it to the door to summon the nurse. The nurse clearly thinks Trish had some kind of nightmare and puts her back to bed.
When Trish wakes up the next morning, Nita is there. Nita says she got Trish's purse and coat from the muffin stand and ended up talking to one of the other employees there about how much of a bitch the manager is. Trish tells her that she changed her mind about quitting but doesn't tell her why. Trish decides that everyone will be in danger if she mentions anything that Athan said, so she just says nothing.
So very, very dumb.
She gets released to Nita's mom and spends the entire day on the spare bed in Nita's room. Both Nita and Imogene are working that evening and the parents have dinner plans so Trish is left alone in their house. She's up making cocoa when the phone rings. Assuming it's Nita calling to check on her, she answers it. It's Athan and now she's freaked out all over again.
I mean, he told her he knew where Nita lived and everything. She should have assumed he'd know the phone number too. We had wonderful things back then called phone books. If you knew someone's name, you could look up their address and phone number with no problem.
For some reason, she decides the best thing to do is leave the locked house and walk through the dark evening alone to the library. I swear there's no way in hell this should be our final girl. She hangs out there for awhile and ends up bumping into Storm. She's kind of out of it and he's concerned about her. He says she probably needs to go home and get into bed but she doesn't want to, of course. He ends up dragging her out of the chair, through the library and forcing her into his car while she says 'no' and 'I don't want to go with you' the entire time.
Sir, we call this kidnapping.
I can't believe this is our romantic interest.
Trish is crying and begging him to let her out of the car and he's basically refusing to listen to her. He says he's taking her home whether she likes it or not. She is practically hysterical as she begs him not to take her home and he finally agrees like he's doing her some kind of favor.
In order to encourage her to talk to him, Storm starts telling his kidnap victim....ahem....I mean, Trish....about his tragic backstory. His mom died when he was 8 and his dad was in the military so they moved around a lot. He was never really able to have friends because he was constantly leaving them behind. Blah blah blah. He starts driving erratically as he asks Trish why she went on an out-of-order escalator. She says she was just dumb and he doesn't accept that. He thinks something must have scared her onto it and tries to get her to tell him what it was.
When he can't make the girl he's kidnapped open up and talk to him about what scares her (other than him and his reckless driving), Storm switches to talking about how much the manager at the muffin stand sucks and how she probably won't be around much longer. Trish seems to assign something sinister to this knowledge but it's just basic workplace gossip. Maybe she's never had a job before and doesn't realize how much other employees talk. I know Storm works in the pizza place but it's all part of the same food court and thus part of the same gossip ecosystem. He starts driving even more erratically as he asks her whether she intends to return to work or not. She's panicked and says she's going back. He seems to calm down a little and slows down the car.
Trish is a little freaked out and demands he take her home even though she was begging him not to just a few minutes ago. He says he wants to show her something and turns off onto a side road. She says she's not feeling well and he kind of leers at her and says he knows something that will make her feel real good.
Cusick, I don't like where this is going.
Trish continues to ask him to just let her go and he continues to act really fucking weird. Eventually he slows the car enough that she can jump out of it and she takes off running into the woods. She doesn't know where she's going and she knows he's coming after her but at least she has a head start. And then she falls flat on her face.
Protagonist trips over something stupid while running away from the bad guy? Check.
Okay, I know he isn't THE bad guy but he's a pretty heinous guy and that's enough to check the trope off for me.
Storm dives on top of her and holds her hands up over her head. He acts like she's the one with a problem and then asks her if she's crazy.
Sigh.
Character accuses the protagonist of being crazy when they're reacting like a normal fucking human in the circumstances they're in? Check.
I hate that trope.
She has every right to be freaked out right now. HE FUCKING KIDNAPPED HER AND REPEATEDLY IGNORED HER PLEAS TO BE LET GO AND HE'S CURRENTLY PINNING HER DOWN AND RESTRAINING HER!
Trish begs him not to hurt her and he acts all wounded and offended like he'd never do anything of the sort. You know, while he's pinning her down on the ground with his body and restraining her hands over her head after FUCKING KIDNAPPING HER. The absolute, unmitigated AUDACITY of this man.
I swear, Cusick pisses me off like no other.
Storm gaslights her into thinking she's overreacting to the multiple crimes he's just committed and then sorrowfully asks what he has to do to make her trust him.
YOU CAN START BY NOT KIDNAPPING HER AND THEN PINNING HER TO THE GROUND AND RESTRAINING HER!!!
Storm manages to get her to agree to get back into the car with him and Trish tells us that she's disoriented and foggy. She tells Storm this too, so he was well aware. He ignores all that and takes her deep into the woods to a cabin he found one day while exploring. It's not his but he likes to pretend it is. She likes it and that prompts him to ask her where she lives for some reason. She doesn't want to tell him so she asks him where he lives. He hesitates and gives her an extremely vague answer. He says he lives across town in the new apartments. She tries to find out which ones but he dodges the question.
They talk about the woman who used to own the cabin (Storm says he asked around about it but who the hell would he ask about an abandoned cabin in the woods? It's not like there's neighbors.). Storm says she kept to herself because she thought a man was stalking her. One day she just disappeared. Trish is still discombobulated and the story freaks her out because she thinks he's making some kind of confession. She asks him to take her home again but instead, he grabs her, holding her so tight she can't move and then he starts kissing her on her lips and down her neck to her shoulder.
I cannot with this, y'all. Even if she were into it, she can't consent right now. She's dazed and out of it and he fucking knows that.
Trish slaps him and it's the first thing she's done all book that I agree with. She demands he take her back and he angrily agrees. He drops her off at the library and she walks back to Nita's house alone in the dark. When she gets there, she notices a car across the street watching the house and recognizes Wyatt inside.
Nita comes home and notices that Trish's face is all scratched up and her bandage is dirty from her run through the woods and asks her what the hell happened. Trish says she went for a walk to get some fresh air and got chased by a dog. I guess she's not telling her the truth because she's worried Athan will her. Nita tells her that the whole mall was talking about how the manager of the muffin stand didn't show up for work that day. She was scheduled but she didn't come in. Trish is sure something must have happened to her because she'd never miss work.
Trish's car is ready the next day so Nita drops her off at the mechanic to pick it up. As she's driving to school, Trish sees a cassette on the seat and pops it in. Athan's voice fills the car. He calls Trish a “naughty girl” for not coming to work the day before and accuses her of telling someone about him. She shrieks that she told no one and almost hits some poor pedestrian. Athan's recording tells her that she better be at the mall that evening and she better remember that she belongs to him because they're destined.
Trish freaks out and tries to find Storm's apartment for some reason. I have no idea why and Cusick doesn't bother to tell us. The only apartments in the vague area that Storm mentioned don't list him on the mailboxes so she leaves and goes to the mall. He's not at work either but she runs into Wyatt. She asks if he was outside Nita's house the previous evening and he reminds her that his car was stolen. She's still pretty sure it was him and I think she's right about this even though I don't generally agree with her about anything.
Trish hangs out in the mall all day and then goes to work. It's busy and she barely has time to think, which is nice. Around closing, another employee approaches her and says she had a phone call but the person just hung up. The employee said it sounded like a girl and her name sounded something like “Emily”. Trish immediately decides it was Imogene and I guess the names sound a little similar but it's a reach. Apparently “Emily” said it was a matter of life and death and Trish had to find her before it was too late.
Trish runs to the bookstore and asks where Imogene is. They tell her that she went down to the loading docks to straighten out some messed up delivery. Trish immediately takes the elevator down to the basement and then gets in the freight elevator to go down to the loading docks. Why are their loading docks so far underground that they're several floors below the basement? It seems really weird to me.
Trish gets down there and there's no one around. She walks around a bit and then suddenly someone steps out of the shadows carrying a bloody ice pick. She takes off running back toward the freight elevator. She makes it and gets inside before he catches up with her. Every other time they've gone to the loading docks, they've had to take two elevators – one to the basement and then the freight elevator to the loading docks. This time, for some reason, the freight elevator can suddenly go higher than the basement floor. I don't know if Cusick forgot that it only went between the basement and the loading dock or what.
Trish is breathing a sigh of relief when she notices that the elevator doesn't stop at the floor she asked it to stop on. Probably because it's magical now. It continues to go up despite all her efforts to stop it. She tries to call for help but the phone inside seems to be disconnected. It makes sense. Why would a magical elevator need an emergency phone? The elevator takes her to the top level of the mall and then the doors start to open. She hits the 'close' button just as someone tries to reach inside. She gets the doors to close and it starts moving again. It returns her to the loading dock level. She almost decides to get out there because she figures he couldn't have gotten down there so fast WHICH MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE because he managed to get to the top floor ahead of her elevator so surely he could manage to get to the bottom floor before her too.
If that was even him on the loading docks.
Before she can get out, the doors close again and this time the elevator takes her to the floor where she works. (Again, if this one elevator went from the main floor to the loading docks, why did they always take a different elevator from the main floor to the basement first? It makes no sense.) This time the doors don't open. Trish hit's the 'open' button but nothing happens. She tries to pry the doors open with her hands but can't so she begins to throw her shoulder against them in an effort to break them open.
Trish, that's not how elevator doors work.
Holy fucking dumbballs.
The doors finally shoot open and Trish realizes she's actually between floors. The main floor is about three feet above her. She's trying to figure out how to climb out when an arm appears. It's bloody and full of puncture wounds. To her horror, a head also slides into view. It's the manager of the muffin stand and she has an ice pick sticking out of her throat. There's a note pinned to it that says “You're lucky. This could have been Imogene.”
This guy really has a thing for ice picks.
The body falls into the elevator and then Trish realizes that the bad guy is on top of the elevator car. He shakes it a few times and then suddenly it begins to move up. Trish wonders if he'll be crushed when it gets to the top but then the elevator stops its ascent and starts to plummet downwards.
Trish wakes up still in the elevator. She presses the button for the basement and, for some reason, the elevator responds. I honestly thought he cut the cables or something. How it did fall downward but remain operational? I'm so confused. This magical elevator is beyond my comprehension.
Do you think Cusick knows how elevators work? Has she ever been in one? Did she do any research?
Trish ends up on the basement level again. And suddenly that other elevator reappears. Trish takes it to the main level but is stunned when she finds the mall empty. Everything is dark and closed. Trish tries the exit doors but they're locked. She tries the phones but none of them work. At this point her best bet would be to break into one of the stores. Surely they have some kind of alarm that would alert someone. I'd pick a store with expensive stuff inside – like electronics or jewelry – because they'd be more likely to have an alarm. Then I'd break into a second one that had something I could use as a weapon. Hell, there's a food court. It probably has knives. I'd break into the jewelry store to set off the alarm and then I'd go to the food court to get a knife.
Trish wanders around. She ends up in the interior, employee-only corridors and eventually feels a breeze. Looking ahead, she sees a door propped open by a shopping bag. Even though she knows it's most likely a trap, she goes toward it anyway. Inside the bag is Nita's sweater. Instead of just making a run for it through the open door that's a probably a trap anyway, Trish goes back into the mall, intent on saving her friend. The store where Nita works is the only one with an open cage so she goes in. This is probably a trap too but whatevs. She thinks she hears someone back in the dressing rooms and heads that way, thinking it's Nita in trouble. In the last dressing room, she notices a hole in the wall as if a secret panel has been removed. She thinks someone is waiting for her on the other side but then someone appears behind her.
It's Wyatt. He quietly whispers for her to come with him. She assumes he's the bad guy and hits him with a paperweight she collected from the outer room. Why does this clothing store have a display that contains paperweights? I don't know. It's Cusick's world and we're all just living in it. Wyatt goes down and she tries to sprint past him but he grabs her ankle so this stupid bitch goes into the last dressing room and crawls through the hole in the wall.
I can't. I cannot.
Trish finds herself behind the mirror that she stood in front of in her underwear back at the beginning of the book and realizes that she can see through it so that's nice. She crawls through the passage until she comes to a dead end. She feels along the wall in front of her and discovers a small hole. When she pokes her finger through it, the wall swings open and reveals a staircase. She goes down the staircase which ends at another wall with another hole. She repeats her procedure and it swings open too revealing a tunnel. She follows the tunnel to the end which happens to be a door with a window. She leans on it to peer inside the window and it opens.
The room is covered with spiderwebs containing large spiders. One drops on her shoulder and she's so startled that she falls to the floor. In her struggle to push herself up, she touches a foot. The foot belongs to a mannequin and she realizes the room is full of them. I'm not sure how she missed them when she first looked into the room. Not only did she somehow fail to see all the mannequins, she also failed to see the table full of food and the three tiered wedding cake. There's a bed as well and on it is the white dress she tried on in front of the two-way mirror.
The bad guy appears and Trish just assumes it's Wyatt because he's in the shadows. She asks him where her friends are and he says he never had them. Imogene went on a wild goose chase down to the loading docks but then she went back to work and Nita simply left her sweater in the store because she bought a new one and wore it out. He says they were tests of her loyalty and since she chose the safety of her friends over her own, she passed. She calls him Wyatt and he basically laughs at her and tells her to guess again.
He reminds her that his name is Athan and goes on and on for several pages about how he's been watching her everywhere she goes and how he created this world down in the secret tunnels by stealing things from the mall. It's all extremely boring. He grabs the dress and tells her to put it on. When he comes out of the shadows she realizes that he's Roger. Good thing I actually told you his name all those pages ago.
Athan/Roger goes on a rant about Storm and tells her that he left Storm on the loading docks with an ice pick in his heart. Trish decides that Storm was the one she initially ran from and feels upset that she left him down there to die. I know it doesn't make much sense but we have to go with it at this point. He tells her to put on the dress again and then he leaves, locking her in the room.
If that was Storm down there, and I guess we have to accept that it was, why didn't he identify himself to her?
Trish starts to search the room for a possible weapon but there's nothing on the table she can use. She finally decides to break one of the wine glasses and use that but the door opens again before she can. It's Wyatt and he has a gun. He whispers for her to come with him again but then they hear the sound of Athan/Roger returning. Wyatt comes inside the room and extinguishes every single light source so Athan/Roger won't be able to see them. It's a dangerous idea because he could end up shooting Trish in the dark.
Cusick's really just throwing things at the wall at this point.
Someone comes through the door and Wyatt immediately identifies himself as a police officer and demands the other person surrender. The other person says nothing so Wyatt rushes him. There's a bit of a scuffle and some gunshots and then the second person FINALLY identifies himself as police as well. It's Storm. They're both cops apparently. Storm says he think he shot himself in that scuffle but it's merely a scratch.
I can't. I CANNOT.
WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T HE IDENTIFY HIMSELF AS SOON AS WYATT ASKED HIM TO SURRENDER? WHY DIDN'T HE SAY 'HEY, PARTNER, IT'S ME? WHY DID HE WAIT UNTIL AFTER HE DISCHARGED HIS WEAPON TO IDENTIFY HIMSELF?
Storm really sucks at his job.
If this book wasn't almost over, I would set it on fire.
I still might.
Also, can we discuss how this cop KIDNAPPED Trish earlier in the book? Can we discuss how he pinned her to the ground and restrained her against her will despite the fact she'd committed no crimes? CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW THIS GROWN-ASS MAN KISSED A DAZED TEENAGE GIRL WITHOUT CONSENT?
Take this entire man to jail right now.
The guys yell for Trish to come with them but she's scared and can't see anything. They eventually convince her to move her ass because Storm is probably bleeding to death but she only goes a few steps before she realizes that Athan/Roger is in the room too. She warns the other two just as Athan/Roger grabs her from behind. He runs the ice pick down her cheek and shoulder and then holds it at her heart. She knows she's going to die pretty much no matter what, so she pulls a flashlight out of her pocket and yells Wyatt's name to get his attention. She twists around and shines the light on Athan/Roger and Wyatt shoots him.
Yeah, that stupid bitch had a flashlight in her pocket the entire time and didn't use it.
This book should be interred in the ground where it can do no harm to anyone else.
Trish comes to after Wyatt gives her mouth-to-mouth. No, I don't know why she required it. Cusick doesn't bother to tell us. Storm is slowly bleeding out in the corner because of the whole ice pick thing and the fact that he shot himself. He also shot Wyatt in the arm during that scuffle, by the way. Storm should really look for another line of work. They explain that they've been trailing Athan/Roger for years. He's a serial killer who targets girls who either work at or shop at the mall regularly. After each of his suspected kills, he lays low for awhile and then strikes again. Trish is just the end of a long line. They've been undercover at the mall trying to catch him.
Wait.
They've been tracking him for YEARS? Which means they are WAY older than I assumed at first. Surely mid-20's at least. Storm knowingly kissed a girl who is probably at least ten years younger than him AND A MINOR. It's super illegal. And gross. And Cusick is gross for allowing it. Wyatt, on the other hand, resisted all of Nita's attempts at flirting because he knows he shouldn't be flirting with a teenage girl.
Trish seems to clue in on the fact that Storm is a creeper because she suspiciously asks how old he is. He just grins and says “older than I look” which prompts Wyatt to add “much older than he looks”. Neither of them answer the fucking question which tells me that Cusick knew how disgusting it was and didn't want to fully own up to it.
Coward.
Storm tries to throw Wyatt under the bus by saying he had eyes for Trish too but we have no proof of that. We've seen Storm flirt with her but we've never seen Wyatt flirt with her. The one girl who DID flirt with Wyatt got ignored because clearly Wyatt knows he has no business flirting with an underage child. I think Storm was just trying to make himself look better by saying he wasn't the only one when clearly he was the only one.
The guys tell her that they knew that Athan/Roger was after either Trish, Imogene or Nita so they were trying to keep an eye on all three. Eventually they figured out Trish was the target and hoped that she would end up leading them to the killer. She isn't too happy to hear she was bait. I'm not either. Police officers should NEVER use children as bait.
Or flirt with them.
Or kiss them.
Or KIDNAP them.
Anyway, it turns out Wyatt was smart enough to radio for help after Trish brained him with the paperweight so he picks up Storm to fireman carry him back through the tunnels so they can get him to an ambulance. Before they leave, Trish shines her flashlight over the mannequins and she thinks she sees one move.
Wait.
Cusick.
Trish had to CRAWL though the first part of that passageway. How the hell is Wyatt going to crawl through a passageway carrying Storm. You forgot, didn't you? You forgot that they'd have to crawl.
Sigh.
At least the book's over now.
I can't, y'all. I CANNOT WITH THIS SHIT. Cusick has committed several crimes here and now I'm looking forward to a fucking Sweet Valley book which should NEVER be a thought I think. Cusick, if you're out there somewhere, I just want to talk. Seriously. You have a lot to answer for.
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