She shook her head, looked around some more, and then turned back to Colby. Cole waited, trying not to push her too hard. He could only imagine how scared she was. The gang presence had grown and she looked like one of the more law-abiding youths in his community. Sadly, types like her didn’t do too well if they ratted out their peers. All he could do was be patient and hope she did the right thing. Intimidating her wasn’t the way to go about it.
“If someone tried to…I mean, if I told you…would I be protected?”
“Of course. I promise you.” He tried to assure her, but he was interrupted.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Cole turned to see a stocky man with salt-and-pepper hair coming toward them. His expression filled with anger.
“Mr. Tarkington, I was just…”
Before he or Colby could react, the man had his hand around her arm and was pulling her away. The look of shock on her face didn’t sit well with him, not to mention the way she was being manhandled.
“Sir, unhand the girl right now!” he shouted at the man.
Seconds later the man was yelling at her and pointing his finger directly at her face. “No excuses, Ms. Larsen. You should be ashamed of yourself. There are people trapped in there. How could you not tell these officers anything they want to know? You should be ashamed of yourself. Now get out of my sight! You are useless!”
Cole stood and watched as the girl ran away crying. He was completely speechless but still managed to muster up a few choice words for the asshole who had just ruined possibly their only opportunity to gain intel on who the shooter was and what the hell he wanted.
“Mr. Tarkington, or whoever the fuck you are, do you want to explain to me what that was about?”
“I’m the principal here. I’m sorry about that, but Julie Larsen is one of our best students. She has a bright future. If any of the gang members or even her peers knew that she was helping the cops, she would be harassed or God knows what else. Things are different in schools this day and age. I won’t have her be a target.”
Understanding set in. He was right. There was no point in putting her at risk. “What can you tell us? Were you inside?”
“No, I just got back from a meeting at the superintendant’s office. I pulled in the parking lot right as the first shot rang out. I saw the car, had a feeling I knew who it was, and the students I’ve talked to confirmed it.”
“All right, who is this kid and what does he want?”
“I’ll tell you whatever I can about him. Between his file and the rumors around school I’m probably going to know the most, but I warn you, this kid is disturbed. He’s twenty-one years old. According to his transcripts, he’s been held back four times. His father is some sort of criminal defense attorney and is never around. Apparently he pays his bills as long as he stays in school and gradates.”
“Twenty-one? Jesus, are you serious?” Colby asked.
“Dead serious. I didn’t want to accept him into our school. His whole file was a disaster waiting to happen. The district made me enroll him, citing something about giving all students a fair chance. By the time he was with us he had already been kicked out of two other districts. I knew he was bad news, and he didn’t waste any time proving me right. We know he’s behind the recent drug activity on campus, we just could never catch him. For all the problems that arose when he got here, we couldn’t catch him in anything. I wanted him out of here for the safety of the students. So, every time he broke rules we suspended him in accordance with policy. A couple of months ago he crossed the line though. When a teacher gave him an F for only having a thirty-five percent score in class, he cornered her and threatened to kill her. That was the final straw. I petitioned the district, and he was expelled.”
“A death threat? Did you report this? I didn’t hear anything about it.” Cole looked to Colby, wondering if he’d missed something. Colby shook his head and answered his silent question.
“The school superintendant wouldn’t let me. Said they didn’t want the bad publicity.”
Cole looked up in frustration. This was twenty times a bigger cluster fuck than he thought. The kid, or young adult, was obviously a loose cannon who had no remorse for anything he did. It didn’t please him to know that the school district was more worried about publicity than the innocent lives of their staff and students.
“What’s his name? I need a name, something to go on.”
“Jesse Jenkins, but there’s something else you should know.”
“Jesus. What else?” he asked the man, who looked as frustrated with the situation as he was.
“Yeah. The rumor in the past couple days was that he wanted to kill a cop. Said he was going to prove to everyone that no one should screw with him.”
There it was. The one thing that Cole didn’t want to hear.
This whole situation stunk to high heaven. Leah was not only locked inside the school, unarmed with the man who’d taken a shot at her the other day, but she was going to be facing off against a man who was on a mission to kill a cop.
Fuck. Shit. Damn.
She better be okay, he told himself. If she wasn’t, he didn’t know what he’d do without her.
“Chief, what do we do?” Colby asked.
He motioned toward the SWAT vehicle. “We confer with them. They’re going to have to go in hot. There’s no way in hell this is going to end well.”
Chapter 10
Sounds of female screams echoed in the hallways. Leah moved through the school, cautiously checking every door. She still was unsure of the number of shooters, and the number of shots she’d heard told her there were more victims. It didn’t take her long to confirm her assessment.
Hiding behind a janitorial cart, a young girl huddled down. She shook and did her best to crawl away from Leah when she found her. Somehow she had been lucky enough to only be hit in the arm. Despite the close range of the shot, the shell had only managed to graze the outer portion of her forearm. Still, it was bleeding at a steady rate just like the boy she had left in the bathroom.
After spending several minutes calming the frightened girl, Leah tended to her wounds and helped her to the bathroom where the boy was. If they were going to get through this, support from someone else could help them with their strength and determination. She didn’t want either one of them panicking due to pain or shock and screaming. The shooter could be high on drugs for all she knew, if he thought he had already killed them, she’d rather have him continue to live under that illusion.
More yelling sounded from down the hall. Whoever he was, he was mad as hell and scaring the hell out of whomever he had with him. While she could tell there was more than one woman screaming in fear, she didn’t know if it was two, three, or ten. She hated that she was walking blind through this situation, on her own with very little information.
Leah rounded the corner slowly. The entire journey she kept herself close to the edge of the wall. Staying flush against it gave her less of a chance of standing out like a sore thumb. She had to be careful to not draw attention to herself in case the shooter was nearby. There was always the chance he was lurking, watching, and waiting.
Another twenty minutes, if not longer, had passed, and in that time she had come across three more shooting victims and tended to their wounds. After making sure they were okay she had managed to drag or assist them all into the bathroom with the other students she had already helped earlier. Then she had texted Darren so they knew where the wounded were and their condition.
They were going to have to try to get in here and fast. These kids weren’t going to last much longer with the blood loss they were enduring. As it was it struck her as odd that none of the students were seriously injured. Shotgun wounds could be deadly. The whole purpose in the size of a shotgun shell was to do an immense amount of damage. That didn’t even count the way having the weapon sawed off could affect the trajectory and how the shells impact the body.
Something wasn’t adding up to her. A man comes in
to a school with a sawed-off shotgun, firing at will toward basically anyone who was in his way and even being a mere couple of feet away, he manages to barely do any serious damage to his victims? It was almost like he didn’t intend to kill them. The other possibility was that he was in here on a revenge mission and seeking only certain people to bear the brunt of his anger.
Her mind raced with probabilities as she continued to search rooms on her way toward the shouts and screams. Had it just been last night that she had lain in Cole’s arms, their bodies entwined after sharing the most incredible experience with one another? No matter how much she loved her job, she suddenly felt nostalgia and wanted to go back to twelve hours before. She tried to ignore her fear that she may not ever have that again, but it still kept nagging her.
Twice she had stopped herself from texting Cole. Her instinct to reach out to him was an internal struggle. She pushed the woman inside her who wanted the comfort of her man aside and instead focused on the job at hand. With her being the only form of law enforcement on the inside, she had to put the civilians first. There was no other choice.
The door to the faculty lounge was closed, but through the long vertical window she could see the blunt tip of the shotgun waving around erratically. He was shouting at whoever was in the room with him. His anger radiated through his voice as he screamed about showing everyone how wrong they were about him.
Quietly she closed the distance between herself and the door which separated her from the assailant. Cautiously, she then peeked through the window to assess the situation. The man had his back turned to her as he screamed at the three women huddled on the floor before him. The way he was pointing the gun at them made her nervous.
She wished she knew what she was walking into, but precious seconds were ticking by, and the shooter’s mood was escalating into dangerous territory. There were two choices before her. She could sit out here, listen, and try to gain as much information as possible to relay back to the teams of officers outside, or she could go in and try to intervene with a man who was as unpredictable as they come.
Two choices, and she only had split seconds to choose the right one. She looked up for a moment of silent prayer and tried to not think of Cole screaming at her when he found out what she was about to do. At any moment this man could shoot one of the women who huddled in fear. His close proximity to his intended targets would ensure that he wouldn’t just injure them. They wouldn’t survive a shot at such a close range.
Leah counted to three and put her hand on the door handle. In one swift and fluid motion, she opened the door, went inside the room, raised her hands, and prayed for an act of grace from the man who had already shot several people.
A second later she met death. The eyes of the grim reaper himself stared back at her from behind the barrel of the shortened gun.
“Who in the fuck are you?” he screamed at her.
“Easy. I don’t want any trouble.” She did her best to hide the shakiness of her voice.
“I said who the fuck are you!”
“My name is Leah. I just want to talk. Do you want to talk?”
“Does it look like I wanna fucking talk, lady?” He waved the gun around.
“Actually, yeah it does. You seem pretty angry. Like someone’s made you really mad.”
He let out an obnoxious laugh. “What was your first clue?”
Leah watched the three women flinch and cling to one another at his movements. By her estimation, he had probably been in here with these women a good half an hour, if not longer.
“Call me intuitive. I mean, you don’t go shooting up a school unless you wanna send a message, right?” She eased farther in the room, wanting to get a little closer to the women to see if they were hurt in any way.
“Yeah, that’s right. These assholes here…” He motioned toward the three women. “Got me thrown out of school. This was my last shot. I didn’t even do anything this time.”
“Is that so?”
“You don’t fucking believe me?”
Leah watched his eyes as he shouted at her. He looked genuinely angry that she doubted him. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his right eye fluttered with some sort of muscle spasm.
“Easy. I never said that.” Slowly, she lowered her hands and walked toward a chair a few feet from the women. “I’m just going to sit down, okay? Do you mind if I sit?”
She went ahead and did a quick once over when she was near the women. Other than tears and their trembling bodies, they didn’t seem to be hurt in any way.
“Who the fuck are you? What do you want?” he shouted at her.
“Calm down. I’m not here to cause any trouble. I told you my name is Leah.”
“Leah? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Leah who? Why are you here? You look too old to be a student, and I don’t remember you teaching here.”
“No, you’re right. I’m not a student here, and I don’t work here. But let’s talk about you. What did they do to you?” She pointed toward the women.
He eyed her curiously. She hoped her nerves weren’t betraying her and that she seemed as cool and collected as she was trying to appear.
“Why should you care? No one fucking cares. Everyone’s against me.”
The way he started to twitch she assumed he might be high on something. Whatever his drug of choice, it was starting to wear off and agitate him even more.
“Hey, you’re the one holding the gun. Seems like it would be dumb of me to not listen to you. Wouldn’t you say? Besides I’m betting you aren’t going to let any of us walk out of here anytime soon, so might as well talk to you while we’re stuck in here.”
She waited while he stared at her. His eyes focused so intently on her that she wondered if he was even seeing her or instead looking right through her.
“You really want to know?”
“Sure.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms in an attempt to look casual and unthreatening.
“It’s not my fault. Not this time.”
“Okay,” she answered.
“Okay? Just like that?”
She shrugged in answer. “I don’t know them anymore than I know you.”
“You don’t understand. Nobody understands.” His voice escalated in stress.
Leaning forward, she placed her elbows on her knees. “So make me understand.”
Time stood still for a moment. She couldn’t tell if she had pushed him too far. He looked like he could go either way between talking or snapping. Despite the possibility that he could lift the shotgun, take aim, and fire right at her, she kept her voice and stare steady. Nerves were starting to take over when he finally began to talk.
“Do you have any idea who my dad is? Larry Jenkins. The Larry Jenkins. You know, the one who’s in the newspapers every so often. He makes millions defending criminals who are guilty, but he has a knack for getting people off due to technicalities and violation of rights.”
Leah listened to him, happy to hear him talking. She had definitely heard of his father. He was hated by all members of law enforcement as well as anyone in the district attorney’s office. What this kid was leaving out was that he didn’t just defend criminals. He also had ties to organized crime and drug cartels. A big realization hit her as to why this kid was at a breaking point.
“I’ve heard of him,” she said.
“Yeah, well, he’s a son of a bitch. My mom died when I was a baby. He’s been annoyed with my existence ever since. So I haven’t been a great kid. So fucking what? I’ve gotten a bad rap at every fucking school I go to. People know who I am, so they tie everything to me. Do you have any idea what it’s like to get kicked out of school after school because some rich preppie fuck who is dealing decides to pin it on you? They get away with it, too, because after all, who’s the principal gonna believe, some kid with a bad name who has ties to criminals? Or is he going to believe the captain of the football team who drives the shiny BMW?”
“I guess you have a point. From w
hat you’re saying, you would be the easy target.”
“Easy target? Fuck, I’ve got a goddamn bull’s-eye on my head wherever I go.”
He shook his head and sat in a chair across the room from her before continuing. “My dad always blamed me. Didn’t matter to him what I said, he never believed a word. This was my last chance. Said he was going to cut me off and kick me out if I got thrown out of school again. He may be a dick, but he’s all I got. I’m not smart. I don’t have a bright future. I ain’t going to college or anything like some of these kids. If I stayed out of trouble and graduated high school, he was going to give me my trust fund from when my mom died. I was going to take that money and move away. Start over. All I had to do was fucking graduate. Which I would’ve done if that bitch over there hadn’t lied and got me kicked out.” He pointed to one of the women on the floor.
“What did she lie about?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t fucking matter. No one believes me.”
“Maybe I will. Try me,” she said.
“She’s supposed to be a teacher, you know, mold young minds and all that shit. Well, she’s dealing for one of the inner city gangs. I’ve been to enough schools in this section of the state that I’ve gotten used to the faces of those who frequent the suburban schools to drop off their load. Not to mention the kind of lowlives my dad defends. I know names. I know faces. She’s met up with one of the big dealers every other day for months now. Soon as she figured out I was onto her, she’s telling the principal that I threatened to kill her over a grade.”
Leah glanced at the woman he was referring to. Then she looked back at him. She remembered how all the kids who were wounded had been shot, but just barely, like he was crazy and nearly over the edge and wanted to kill someone, but somehow couldn’t. His mannerisms said he was high on something, of that she was positive. Still, he didn’t avoid eye contact. He looked straight at her as he spoke. The lady on the floor would barely make eye contact, and she was sure the one he was accusing knew she was a cop. Despite him holding the shotgun, something told her that he was telling her the truth.
When Promise Meets Passion Page 10
