He put his nose against the doorsill, took a big whiff. Something horrible was behind the door, the smell of death. Jake took off his headlamp, turned it on, and shone the light through the crack, trying to see what lay beyond.
He saw shapes, shadows on top of shadows, but couldn’t make out what they were. Then Jake’s light caught a flash of something bright, something gold—a watch, maybe. He brought the beam back and soon had it fixed on a discolored hand. The fingers were knotted into a claw.
He realized it was a man’s hand. A teacher, perhaps? Jake couldn’t say for sure, and the way the body was positioned kept him from seeing the head. Jake could make out only one disfigured hand, but other shapes, probably other people, were in that crawl space. The pit made an ideal place to dispose a dead body.
Jake pictured the scene unfolding on the stage, and assumed hostages were in the auditorium somewhere, maybe on the stage, maybe in the seats. Jake powered the headlamp back on and fished out the master key from the pocket on his chest rig. It was tucked inside the pouch, next to the one where he kept Andy’s emergency glucagon kit. Jake slipped the key into the lock and gave it a turn.
He powered off the headlamp and darkness came once more. Jake would be almost impossible to see in the darkness, in his camouflage. He opened the door with his left hand, while the right hand was ready to shoot anything that came at him.
The smell of blood hit Jake like a tidal wave. He looked all around. No light filtered down, which meant no light could filter up. The chatter coming from the stage was louder and clearer. Jake heard thumps and bumps and heavy feet stomping about the stage. He could make out some words, but most of what he heard was in Spanish, or at least he thought it was Spanish. He heard grunts and a loud thud, as if somebody had fallen to the stage floor. This seemed to please some of those above him, because a series of delighted cheers broke out. A few choice words came to him.
“¡Lucha! ¡Lucha!”
No idea what that meant.
“Mátalo!”
Not that one, either.
Jake shifted his attention from the noises above to what was inside the pit below. He turned his headlamp back on and skulked into the pit area. He shone his light on the lumpy object closest to him and saw it was a body. The man’s face was covered in purple welts; below a shock of red hair, Jake saw cracks in the skull. The mysterious shapes Jake had seen under the door turned out to be two other bodies, tossed down into the pit, along with “Big Red.”
Those two had clearly been shot in the head. Big Red might have been as well, but he was badly beaten and it was harder to tell. Of the three, Big Red was the lightest colored, but the other two had the same skin tone as the guy Jake had ventilated with lead inside the bathroom. All four could certainly be a part of the same crew. They were a team, and none of them taught at this school.
Jake assumed these guys were involved in Laura’s murder, and were probably hostage takers. So, why were they dead? Who had killed them?
Jake’s first thought was Andy. His son had the skills to kill, and access to weapons. Maybe he was down in these very tunnels waging a one-man war. But the notion didn’t sit well with him.
Jake felt around the pockets of the dead men, searching for IDs or weapons, but found nothing. The commotion onstage continued until four sharply spoken words cut through the din.
“Get off me, David!”
That voice he recognized. It was Rafa, Andy’s friend. David was probably David Townsend. Was Andy with them? The pit had a microphone to let whoever was under the stage hear the cues clearly, but it was currently turned off. No worries—Jake’s earmuffs had those built-in sound amplifiers. Binoculars for the ears.
His flashlight danced around in the dark until he found the portable staircase tucked away in a far corner. They were a miniature version of the movable steps sometimes used to help passengers and crew board or disembark from an airplane. It would be easy for Jake to roll the stairs under the trapdoor, but he would have to move the bodies.
Jake went to work. He grabbed one of the dead guys by the back of the shirt and dragged him five feet or so. He was stiff, no bend to the legs or arms. His hair was matted down with dried blood. The gunshot wound had basically turned the side of his head into hamburger. Jake didn’t know if this guy had been dead one hour or five, and it didn’t much matter.
Sounds of fighting continued above him. Jake could hear the loudest shouts, and those were in English.
“Liar! Liar!”
“I don’t have it!”
He could tell Rafa’s voice from David’s. “I don’t have it!” What did that mean?
Grabbing the railings of the staircase, Jake gave a hard tug. The wheels rolled noiselessly over the concrete floor. No squeak. He maneuvered the stairs into position, climbed almost to the top step, and pressed one of the hearing protectors to the underside of the trapdoor. He adjusted the sound controls until the chatter focused into clear conversation.
The words were meaningless without context.
“Give it.”
“Hit him.”
“Está perdiendo.”
He heard every footstep, stomp, thump, thud, and body slam. This was a fight going on, for sure. It sounded to Jake like men screaming out wagers. He thought of a dogfight or a cockfight in some smoke-filled back room.
Somebody screamed—one of the kids. It was a howl of frustration, a call to battle of sorts. The kids were fighting each other, and whoever had taken them hostage was betting on the outcome, or so Jake believed.
His mind clicked over to a new problem. How would he reach Andy? He assumed he was outmanned, outgunned. Jake contemplated his options when he heard a new voice, a voice he didn’t recognize.
“¡La chica se ha ido!” The voice was angry. “¡Vayan a buscarla, pendejos!”
“Chica” was the Spanish word for “girl.” Could that be Hilary? Jake had tried to call Hilary, but he couldn’t reach her. Could all of Andy’s friends be a part of this? If so, why?
A new voice spoke up. This kid had been at Jake and Andy’s house plenty of times. He was a quiet kid, small for his size, but his voice spoke with authority. People called him Pixie. Jake had known guys like him in the minors and in The Bigs—small guys with guts and tons of heart—lions inside the body of cubs. Pixie roared, and what he said filled Jake with terror.
“Wake up, Andy! Andy, wake up!”
CHAPTER 36
Hilary took the stairs to the lower level, two at a time, threw open the bottom door, and raced down an empty corridor, pumping her arms to gain speed. The overhead lights were still on; otherwise, she’d be running blind in this windowless section of the Academy Building. Hilary was in good shape, not short of breath, and her sneakers provided decent traction.
As she turned a corner, she slowed. Somewhere down this long hallway was the classroom with a Harkness table inside, and a backpack containing an emergency glucagon kit. But which room? Hilary could not recall the specific location, so she would have to check them all.
Most of the classroom doors were open, and Hilary paused only long enough to poke her head inside and have a quick check about the room. Some classrooms had the lights off, so Hilary had to flick a switch to get a better look inside. She closed each door before moving on to the next. If they came looking for her, it might slow them down, though she feared it would buy her at most a few more seconds of life.
About halfway down the corridor, Hilary thought she should have reached Langford’s classroom by now. This flash of doubt mushroomed until Hilary believed she had screwed up royally. The classroom was behind her, she was now certain, and in her rush had somehow missed it. Hilary contemplated backtracking. She slowed and glanced over her shoulder. She wasn’t going to have enough time to double back and finish checking the remaining classrooms.
Go forward, or go back: whatever choice she made had to be the right one. The corridor was empty, but Hilary imagined men rounding the corner, picking up speed, coming at her like a
hungry pack of jackals. The hallway seemed to stretch on forever—a trick of the mind, she knew, but it made the choice to turn around even less appealing. Maybe it was her gut telling her to keep going forward. She listened to her gut.
Fear bubbled inside, igniting every nerve, seeping into her joints, taking over like a quick-moving fire. She had thought she understood fear. Roller coasters and scary movies and snakes made her shiver and set a clammy chill against her skin. But this was a new level, an entirely different dimension of terror. Her fuzzy mind conjured up horrors beyond anything she had ever conceived possible before today. She became the central figure in each nightmare, the object of supreme violence.
A drill into her leg.
A makeshift club bludgeoning her head.
A machete peeling her skin.
Hands pushing up the skirt of her school uniform.
Compared to those, a gunshot to the temple felt almost merciful.
Near the end of the corridor, Hilary slowed. Langford’s classroom had to be nearby. Her footsteps clomped on the linoleum flooring; she might as well have been shouting, “Hey, I’m down here. Come find me! Come get me and skin me alive.”
Hilary ached to think how close she had come to leaving this godforsaken school. By now, she would have been clear of The Quad and deep into the dark woods beyond. Maybe she’d already be with the police, safe. An angry and vengeful voice inside her head spoke up.
“Save yourself,” the voice said. “You can’t help Andy or the others. The Shire was Andy’s idea, not yours. Why should you get killed because of his stupid idea? Go back upstairs. Get outside. Run! Run! Run!”
Hilary shook her head and dislodged the voice from the dark crevices of her mind. Out in the open, those thoughts became exposed for what they were: fear. She knew the voice was lying to her. Andy hadn’t made her join The Shire. She did so under her own volition. She liked the rush, the thrill. It had made her heart flutter. Each theft had hit like a comet and left behind a void that could only be filled by another rush. Addictions could be dangerous. She knew that now.
Everything had snowballed from there, including Hilary’s feelings for Andy. If she didn’t love him, would she have fled the school? This question came to her not as a conscious thought, but more as a feeling. It came to her as she ran the rest of the way down the corridor, as she breathed hard as a galloping horse, as her heart leapt about her chest, and as her skirt flapped like a cape around her waist.
Not that room. Not that room. Would you have done this for Solomon? Not that room. Not that room. For David? For Pixie? Not that room. Maybe not. Maybe only for Andy. Maybe only for him, she realized.
As she approached the end of the hallway, Hilary’s earlier thought returned: Somehow I’ve missed Langford’s classroom. Panic clogged her thinking, but it didn’t make her turn around. One more room—she’d check one more, even though she believed it wasn’t this far down.
Hilary opened the classroom door on her right. Nothing there, so she shut that door and went on to the next. One more. Just one. This next room was on Hilary’s left. The door was closed, and she pulled it open with force. Her head poked through the door frame. There was enough light for her to see the Harkness table in the center of the room. She went inside and shut the door behind her. She flicked on the room light and immediately spotted the backpack tossed into a corner.
Hilary flung herself forward, tripping over chairs on her way to that backpack. She dropped to her knees and tried the zipper, but it got caught on the fabric and she feared she might need a knife or something to cut it open. After a moment’s struggle, the zipper gave way.
Hilary emptied the contents onto the floor. Folders. Papers. Junk. More junk. And then she found it—tucked inside a mesh pouch was a red plastic case containing the glucagon emergency injection. There was also a package of glucose tablets in the same pouch, along with several vials of insulin and a few hypodermic needles.
She opened the red case and examined the contents. She found a capped hypodermic needle and a small clear vial labeled Glucagon for Injection (rDNA Origin). The dosage read 1 mg (1 unit). Andy would need the entire vial.
Andy needed the glucagon, not the insulin, but Hilary put all of his medicines into the backpack, just in case, and headed for the door. Her hand was on the knob when she heard a loud bang coming from down the hall. Someone had slammed a door. Hilary pressed her back against the wall and felt her knees go weak. Her breathing grew labored as her blood turned to ice. She thought about the light seeping out from the classroom into the hall like a homing beacon for her potential murderer to follow. She could turn it off, but that might only draw attention.
Hilary heard more doors slam shut. Heavy footsteps were coming her way. It sounded like one person to her. Whoever was out there did not spend long searching each room. He went quickly from room to room, and Hilary doubted she could make an escape while he was occupied with his search. She looked for a place to hide, but the room had no closet, no door to another room, no windows.
Hilary searched for a weapon, but what could she use? A chair would be too unwieldy. A ruler was blunt and flimsy. There was nothing here, really. She could use one of the hypodermic needles, but what damage could a thin needle inflict?
The needles made Hilary think about the backpack, and that gave her an idea. The backpack could be a weapon of sorts. Something she could swing. Working frantically, with her vision blurred by tears, Hilary transferred the diabetes paraphernalia to the pockets of her skirt. Then she stuffed the backpack full of the heaviest books she could find. Her hands trembled as she closed the zipper.
Out in the hallway, doors continued to slam shut. It wouldn’t be long now. She took up a position to the right of the door. Sweat dotted her forehead as she still breathed fast. Hyperalert, her eyes were open wide, but they weren’t actually seeing anything. This was all about her ears, all about those footsteps coming her way.
Hilary positioned the backpack on the floor just beyond her left foot; she gripped one of the straps in both hands. Her knees were bent and her hips engaged, ready to uncoil at a moment’s notice. Another door slammed. She guessed he had three more doors to go before getting to this one. Hilary shut her eyes and gritted her teeth to keep from crying out.
The door across the hall opened and slammed shut again. Blood thundered in Hilary’s ears. She tightened her grip on the strap. She heard footsteps crossing the hall. The doorknob began to turn. Hilary wound her hips a few degrees more.
The door came open and Hilary uncoiled at the waist as she lifted the backpack off the floor. She swung her makeshift weapon high and connected with something—the man’s chest or head. The strike produced a powerful jolt, which momentarily numbed her arms. She heard a loud grunt, followed by a thud as a body hit the floor.
Hilary let go of the backpack and sprang from the wall. Through the open door, she saw in the hallway a heavyset man on his back, writhing in pain. This was the one called El Cortador. The man was groaning, trying to get back on his feet, and he seemed hopelessly dazed.
As Hilary stepped over him, El Cortador lunged with startling quickness and seized hold of her ankle. He squeezed hard and Hilary shrieked at the intense pressure exerted on her tendons and bones. She wriggled her ankle, but the man would not let go.
About to lose her balance, Hilary hopped forward on one foot, moving toward her attacker, and kicked with the leg clutched in his grasp. The kicks weren’t damaging, but it was enough to get him to let go of the ankle. Hilary spun as she tumbled to the floor. Her knees cracked and her wrists ignited in pain when she landed. The glucagon was secured inside the hard plastic case.
The man groaned as he rolled onto his stomach. Hilary clambered back to her feet, ignoring the lingering pain in her wrists and knees, and took off running.
She sped down the hall, fear giving her wings. If El Cortador caught her, he’d climb on top of her. Pin down her arms and legs. Place his grotesque hands over her throat or, more likely, the blad
e of some knife. He was The Cutter, after all. And then he’d hike up her skirt. In his humiliation and rage, he would take from her something she could never get back.
At the end of the hallway, Hilary gave a quick look before she turned the corner. El Cortador had gotten to his feet and lumbered toward her. He brandished in one hand a meaty knife, big enough to carve a pumpkin. But he was too far back, and it would be impossible to catch her before she reached the stairs. The steps seemed to go on forever.
Breathless when she reached the top landing, Hilary spilled out of the stairwell and tumbled awkwardly into the upstairs corridor. Ahead of her were the double doors to the outside, but those were guarded by one of Fausto’s men, the thin man Andy had called Whippet. He was outside, standing on the steps that overlooked The Quad, but Hilary could see him through the tall picture windows on either side of the door. His attention was elsewhere, scanning the wide expanse of lawn—looking for her, perhaps—and Hilary thought she could get to the auditorium without being noticed.
She crossed the hall and pressed her body against the wall, getting as flat as she could, and began to inch her way to the door.
From the stairwell, she heard a loud bang. A door had slammed shut from below. El Cortador was coming for her. It would have to be a footrace. Who could reach the auditorium first?
Hilary bounded off the wall and began her sprint. As she did, Whippet must have sensed movement inside the school and turned in time to see Hilary making a dash for it. Behind her, the door to the stairwell flew open, and Hilary caught sight of El Cortador as he stumbled out into the hallway. He staggered toward her, dazed and slightly off balance.
The real race was between Whippet and Hilary. Whippet reentered the building and started his charge. It’s fifty-fifty, at best, Hilary thought. Whereas El Cortador moved like a tranquilized rhinoceros, the other one came at her like the wind. She could see the whites of Whippet’s eyes. He never raised his gun, maybe because he had orders not to kill.
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