The men’s voices were gone, gone like the feeling in her leg and the pain in her side. Oh, the bliss—it was such pure bliss to have no more pain in her side. It had been like a hot poker squeezed through a tight hole in her skin. Now everything was cast in a delirious haze. The world had a glow, and Laura felt connected to the trees and muddy earth as never before. Droplets of water clinging to the tree branches and moss shone like spinning diamonds. Was she even moving? No, she was floating. She sensed her body moving as if the wind itself carried her.
Off in the distance, Laura saw twinkling lights. She went toward them. Walking, or flying, or pulled by some invisible force, she couldn’t tell. Just follow the shine. It’s right there. Just reach for it. The twinkle came in alternating colors. Red. Blue. Red. Blue. It flashed and whirled and summoned her with its own gravitational force.
Laura emerged from a shroud of trees and reached for the lights, but she couldn’t take hold. She sank to her knees and felt hands descend upon her. Many hands. Touched by angels. The touch made her spirit rise, and she lifted her arms up to the heavens to beckon for more. The colors that drew her here danced before her eyes. Red. Blue. Red. Blue.
Laura fell to the wet earth, and she understood there were no angels by her side. These were police officers. They knelt and talked to her in loud voices. Laura opened her mouth, but did the word come out?
Can you hear me? Did I say it?
Their lips moved, but Laura couldn’t make out what was said. Her ears were filled with a deafening roar like powerful ocean waves crashing against massive rocks. She felt the life leaving her body. Peace coming to her. Finally she had found it. What she had been searching for since she had left Jake and Andy. But one thing had to be said. That word. Had she spoken it?
Laura tried once more. Her blood-splattered lips were so dry. She was so thirsty. If she closed her eyes, the thirst would go away. And the cold, too. But a memory came back and Laura marshaled one final effort. She put the word in her throat and spat it out through red-stained teeth.
“Hostages.”
Then, finally, she was at peace.
CHAPTER 23
Jake hadn’t found Andy and it tugged at him. Bothered him a lot, but he kept fear out of his voice as he asked around for his son. Nobody had seen him. He kept his eyes out for Andy’s friends, but they weren’t around, either. The kids were together, like he told Laura: goofing off, doing what kids do. He wasn’t going to panic. Not yet, anyway.
Andy would turn up soon.
In the meantime, Jake busied himself with the post-evacuation chaos, doing his part to pitch in and help. He fetched enough bottles of water to fill a swimming pool and was instrumental in organizing food distribution.
As Jake spoke informally with a representative from the Red Cross about contingency plans for longer-term shelter, Lance Dent ran by. Lance was clearly alarmed and frightened. Something horrible must have happened. Jake thought of Andy. He excused himself and went chasing after Lance, apologizing as he pushed through the crowd. He caught up to Lance at the gymnasium exit and seized his shoulder from behind.
“What’s going on, brother?” Jake asked.
It looked to Jake as though leeches had drained the blood from Lance’s pale face.
“There’s been a murder on Route 111, near the school,” Lance said.
“Holy hell. A murder?”
The murder rate in Winston hovered just north of zilch. Jake couldn’t think of one such crime in the recent past.
“It’s worse.” Lance leaned in close and whispered, “Somebody may have taken hostages at The Pep. Maybe kids.”
Jake’s eyes went wide as a surge of adrenaline coursed through his body. Several thoughts came to him in staccato bursts.
You’re never safe. The bad things can happen at any time, anywhere, even little towns like Winston. It’s good to be prepared. Andy.
Jake blocked out all other thoughts the way he could on the pitcher’s mound. The task was to get more information from Lance. He had his reason. His son still hadn’t been seen.
“What do you know?”
“If people find out, we’ll have a mass panic on our hands.”
“They’re going to find out.” Jake reached for his phone even though he had tried Andy fifteen minutes ago.
“Are you calling Andy?”
“Have you seen him?”
Lance shook his head.
“What about his friends? You know them. Hilary. A kid named Troy, goes by Pixie. David Townsend? Have you seen them around?”
Again it was a no from Lance.
Jake had been so determined to be the parent here, the guy who understood how kids behaved because he actually raised one, that he had dismissed Laura’s concern. Maybe his pride had gotten in the way and had blinded him to an actual crisis.
Lance headed for the exit.
“Where are you going?” Jake asked.
“I’m going to meet with the police chief and lieutenant. What about you?”
“I’m going home,” Jake said.
Jake was scrounging through Andy’s bedroom, looking for the phone numbers of his friends. Just maybe, he had something written down. It was old school, of course. He also figured Andy’s contacts were synced between his smartphone and tablet, but Jake couldn’t find the device in his room. He called Laura to see if she’d found Andy, but his call went right to voice mail, the way it did when a phone was shut off.
While searching Andy’s room, Jake listened to the police scanner. It would not be long before the news traveled throughout the community. In a town like Winston, with everyone connected to Facebook, word of a murder and a hostage situation at the elite prep school would spread faster than a cold in a day care.
Andy’s pals boarded at the school, so Jake saw no reason to try and track their parents down. Soon enough, those parents would be calling, trying to reach somebody in charge if they couldn’t reach their kids.
Jake checked under the bed. To his delight, he saw the flat rectangular shape of Andy’s iPad hidden within a crumpled pile of dirty laundry. As a house rule, Andy had to give Jake the pass code for all his electronic devices. Jake never checked the devices for inappropriate content, but the threat alone was enough of a deterrent. He entered 0121, which was Laura’s birth month and day, and all of Andy’s downloaded apps soon appeared on-screen.
Quickly Jake checked the contacts and found three names he recognized: Hilary, Troy, and Solomon. He called all three numbers. No response. He sent each a text message, waited five minutes, and then sent another. No answer.
The bottom line was that Jake didn’t know where his son was, and he couldn’t reach any of Andy’s friends. Laura’s worries no longer seemed overblown.
Jake ran into a massive police barricade miles from the school. He parked his car on the side of the road and joined a growing crowd that also had come as far as the police would allow. There were several fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, and men in chemical suits, as well as others in official-looking uniforms, swarming the area. A sea of flashing lights and strobes turned the landscape into an undulating dance floor.
A misty rain peppered Jake’s cotton T-shirt. He scanned the faces of the police and fire teams, searching for Ellie or somebody familiar. He kept calm. No reason to do otherwise. A good pitcher was well disciplined. Running around creating a spectacle wasn’t going to help anybody or anything. Finding someone to give him some information would.
Jake saw a cluster of cops, some of whom he recognized by face but not name. He wanted to get one of them alone. Jake was about to approach when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and met Ellie’s sympathetic gaze. Something about the way she looked at him made Jake uneasy.
“Come with me,” Ellie said.
Taking Jake by the arm, Ellie escorted them to a more private location. Jake reached for Ellie’s hand, but she pulled away. Dressed in her blues, Ellie was on the clock and it was not permissible to be affectionate with a civilian. But
Jake sensed Ellie’s distress. She wanted to embrace him, to comfort him. But why? One thought flashed through his mind.
Andy!
“What’s going on here, Ellie? Talk to me.”
Ellie got close to Jake so she could speak without being overheard. “Something has gone down at Pepperell Academy,” Ellie said.
Jake’s insides went cold. The scene behind Ellie—a sea of bodies, lights, and trucks—blended together into a singular blur of motion.
“What is it? Is Andy all right?”
“Have you heard from him?” Ellie asked.
Jake picked up on the vibration in Ellie’s voice—genuine concern.
“No. And I haven’t been able to get in touch with Andy’s friends, either.”
Ellie grimaced as if the information physically hurt to hear. Jake seized Ellie’s shoulders. At that moment, she wasn’t his girlfriend or the police. She had the answers. She was holding back on him, and Jake needed to know everything.
“Listen, Jake,” Ellie said. She didn’t pull away, even though a civilian had no business touching a cop. “A woman has been killed. Shot.” Ellie broke from Jake’s gaze and looked around to make sure nobody was listening. This information could not be shared freely. “She said one word before she died. ‘Hostages.’ That was it. She came from the direction of the school. We have SWAT teams being mobilized right now. The state police is already on the scene, and the FBI may be called in.”
Jake’s heart sank. He closed his eyes and felt Ellie’s hands on his arms to comfort him. Laura had been right all along.
“Is Andy one of them?”
“We don’t know anything at this time. Trust me, Jake, if I knew something, I would tell you.”
Jake’s head spun with horrible thoughts of the physical and mental abuse his son might be enduring at the hands of his possible captors. But he also had it in his head that a hostage situation meant a protracted negotiation. Time was adversary of a different sort. “If Andy’s blood sugar gets too low, he could die,” Jake said.
“Right now, we don’t know if he’s a hostage or not. We don’t even have confirmation that the woman was right.”
“Who was it?” Jake asked. “The woman who was killed. Do I know her?” Winston was a small town, and there was a good chance he knew the victim at least by name.
Ellie bowed her head and spoke in a low, somber tone. “Jake, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I think the victim is your exwife, Laura.”
Jake’s jaw dropped. He set his hands on his knees to catch his breath.
“Describe her,” Jake said.
“I pulled her over this morning and gave her a speeding ticket,” Ellie said. “If you talked to her, she probably told you about it.”
Jake turned his back to Ellie, his hands clenched into fists, and for a moment he focused only on the feeling of the misty rain as it bathed his face. It made even more sense now. Laura had gone looking for Andy; and when she couldn’t find him around town, she headed to the school. How she got past the blockades . . . he couldn’t say. Maybe she took the path to avoid the main roads. One thing he knew was that Laura saw something she wasn’t supposed to see.
Jake turned back around. “How did she die?” he asked.
“Gunshot. Can’t tell you more than that because I don’t know.”
With his peripheral vision, Jake saw someone approaching. He turned his head and recognized Ryan Coventry. The boy looked anxious about something, unsettled. He was with a lot of other teenagers who had gotten as close as they were going to get to all the action.
“Mr. Dent,” Ryan said, “have you seen Andy around?” He seemed sincere, truly worried.
“No,” Jake said. “Why? Do you know where he is?”
With his arms folded across his chest, Ryan looked to the ground and kicked at the muddy earth. This was a different Ryan. This Ryan was meek and docile, and unsure.
“Not exactly,” Ryan said. “We were—uh—we were on the second floor of the Science Center getting out together, you know. There was some guy in a chemical suit pushing us along. Trying to hurry things up.”
“So, where is he? Did he leave with you?”
Again, Ryan appeared uncomfortable, and Jake knew more was coming.
“It was pretty chaotic,” Ryan said.
Jake’s eyes flared. “No bullshit, Ryan, talk to me. Where is Andy?”
As a pitcher, Jake was always a keen observer of body language. Ryan was bothered, but Jake didn’t need years in baseball to see the obvious.
“I may have seen something weird,” Ryan said.
Ellie stepped forward to address Ryan. “What was it?”
Guilt. That was the feeling Jake was getting. The boy was feeling guilty about something.
“Well, I turned around as I was heading down the stairs. And the guy in the chemical suit kind of stepped in front of Andy, like he wanted him to stay behind. I was going to go up and, you know, make sure Andy left with me, but I thought I saw something in the guy’s hand.”
“What did you see?” Ellie asked.
“Honestly, for a second, I thought it was a gun. It was crazy chaotic, you know? It was just a flash. Anyway, I freaked a bit and I just bolted down the stairs. When I got to the buses, I was laughing, because I was sure it was just my imagination.”
“No, it wasn’t your imagination,” Jake said. There was a dose of asperity in his voice. “You saw what you saw and you just got scared. Why did you wait so long to say something?”
Ryan shrugged. “I dunno,” he said. “I figured it was nothing, but I saw you here, so I guess I just thought to ask if Andy was around.”
Jake’s jaw set. “Can you tell me anything about the man you saw?” he asked.
Ryan shook his head. “You could barely see the guy’s face. He was in a suit, you know?”
Jake pawed the ground with his foot, summoning all the restraint he could manage. “Go back to your friends,” Jake said. “If anybody you know hears from Andy, you get in touch with me. What’s your number? I’ll call you.”
Jake called the number and watched Ryan enter the contact information into his smartphone. When the boy was gone, he turned his attention back to Ellie.
“Andy is inside that school,” Jake said.
“You don’t know that for certain.”
“I called three cell phones, three, and I got no answer. These kids have their phones glued to their hands. And now Ryan thinks he saw a gun? It’s my boy, Ellie. It’s Andy. He’s in there.”
“Even if he is, you have to let the police handle this.”
“Yeah? When are you going in? How long?”
“I don’t know. These things take time. We have to assess the situation first.”
Jake’s face went hot. “We may not have time!” he said, and regretted the outburst.
Ellie didn’t flinch. She was accustomed to dealing with belligerent drunks. She took hold of Jake’s arm, but he yanked it away.
“What are you thinking, Jake?”
“I’m thinking my son needs to get his blood sugar up before your guys get their act together.”
“If that’s the case, Andy will tell whoever is holding him hostage.”
“And what if they just let my son die?”
“You have to trust the police to handle this.”
Jake shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ellie. You, I care about. The police, SWAT, the FBI, not high on my list.”
Ellie looked offended and genuinely confused. Where is this mistrust toward law enforcement coming from ?
If she had seen Jake’s larder, his storage room, his cache of weapons and ammunition, she would have known.
Jake backed away.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not going to do anything, Ellie,” Jake said. “Don’t worry. I’m going to let you handle it, just like you asked.”
Ellie reached for her belt. He knew she was thinking about taking out the cuffs and putting a stop to whatever plans he
had just concocted. He took another step back.
“Jake, let us handle this.”
“I’m not going to let my son die.”
“You don’t even know if he’s in there.”
Jake said nothing.
“He’s my son, Ellie.”
Jake turned and ran for his car. Ellie watched him go.
CHAPTER 24
Inside the Feldman Auditorium, Fausto Garza had changed things up. The six members of The Shire occupied the auditorium’s front row. Behind each of them sat one cartel enforcer. They were there to keep watch, even though the kids weren’t going anywhere. The teens had their hands and feet bound with rope, but the gags were out and blindfolds off so their eyes could take in the full spectacle.
Onstage, in a perfect line, bodies rigid as if at attention, stood four members of Sangre Tierra:
The redheaded one.
A fat one.
And two tall ones, thin like Rafa.
They were the four who, per Fausto’s orders, had chased after a woman who had seen too much. Fausto was on the stage with them. He stood in front of the men and paced back and forth, eyeing each contemptuously, a cross between an irate stage director and a drill sergeant.
Minutes ago, in a fierce rage, Fausto had ripped off the arm of one of the auditorium chairs. He wielded the lacquered piece of rounded wood like a club. He slapped the armrest against his meaty palm with steady taps. Whimpers of the teens and the slapping of wood against skin were the only sounds inside the hall.
Fausto stopped pacing to glower once more at the men onstage with him. He turned around slowly, apparently ready to address his audience, those he had kidnapped and those he had employed. He spoke in English for the benefit of The Shire. This show was to be something for all of them to see and understand.
“Okay—okay—okay,” Fausto began. “We are here now to have a discussion about what happened.”
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