Constant Fear (14 page)

Fausto faced the stage as though directing a performance from the audience.
“Al
. . .
”

He pointed at Solomon.

“Quien
. . .
”

He pointed at Rafa.

He pointed to the floor.

Curled into a fetal position, Andy gasped for air. The five on the stage looked to be doing the same.

“This, I’m afraid, complicates things,” Fausto said. “Now we must find out which of you has this magical key. Is that right?”

From the floor, Andy nodded.

“Pity,” Fausto said. “I think you’ll find death would have been preferable.”

From just beyond the auditorium door, Andy heard a loud clatter. It rolled and echoed as if a metal trash can had fallen over. Fausto looked as surprised as everyone. He pointed to four men standing onstage closest to the door and shouted,
“Vayan a averi-guar quién mierda hizo ruido. Si es alguien, ¡mátenlo! Pero no dejen que los capturen.”

If Andy spoke Spanish, he would have understood the men had been ordered to track down whoever had made that noise and kill him.

CHAPTER 22

L
aura didn’t have plans to do a lot of exploring. The campus was completely deserted, and she suspected Andy wasn’t even there. Jake was probably right. Andy had gone off with his buddies and had forgotten all about her.

Laura chided herself for thinking Andy would embrace her with open arms. She had been foolish to expect it could have been so easy. She contemplated turning around, but felt even more foolish to abandon her quest after coming so far to find him. She was wet, muddy, and discouraged. But the air around campus didn’t smell like poison. It was worth taking a minute to look around.

If anything, Laura was curious about the school. This is where Andy spent most of his time. She felt connected to him just by being here. The possibility of having a relationship with her son was foremost on Laura’s mind when she ambled across The Quad and entered the Academy Building through the massive front doors. She thought the building would have been secured, but people had left in a rush, or maybe these doors were never locked.

Either way, the door was open. Laura entered an elegant marble foyer, which featured impressive columns and a magnificent high ceiling. She had dreamed of having the kind of home that people would gawk at, and her fantasy always included a marble foyer. She knew it was grandiose, but what the hell.

Inside the massive foyer, Laura heard noises, odd muted sounds that seemed to be coming from a doorway to her right. The closer she got to that door, the louder the sounds became. The wooden doors were closed; Laura pressed her ear against them and listened. She could hear one man doing most of the talking, and it sounded to her as if he spoke with an accent. Perhaps he was part of a work crew assigned to check the air quality or test for chemical contaminants.

Curiosity got the better of her. Laura pried the door open a crack. All she wanted was to take a quick little peek inside. She peered into a darkened auditorium.

Her thoughts froze as an icy fear settled into her chest. From her vantage point, Laura could see five kids seated on classroom chairs onstage. Their wrists were bound with rope and all were gagged. Onstage loomed three savage-looking men, each holding a massive knife to the throats of three of the kids. Behind them was a second row of men, each more brutal-looking than the next, armed with an array of assault weapons she’d seen only in the movies.

Recoiling from fright, Laura inhaled with a gasp and fell sideways. She stumbled into a trash can pushed up against the wall next to the door. The auditorium door slammed shut with a hard bang as the trash can toppled, making its own thunderous crash. One thought immediately dominated all others:
Run!

Laura dashed across the foyer and slammed into the front door, using her hip to push against the crash bar. The door swung open and she toppled outside. Momentum carried her across the top landing and in a flash the stairs loomed before her like rocks materializing out of a fog.

The misty rain turned those same stairs dangerously slick, and Laura was going too fast to navigate them safely. She misjudged the first step and her arms flailed wildly as she fought for balance. She tripped down a few more stairs, but somehow managed to stay on her feet.

At the bottom step, Laura lost her footing completely. She teetered and then toppled over. It happened so fast that she couldn’t get her hands out in time to brace her fall; she slammed face-first onto a cement patio. The intense impact felt as if it had compressed her brain against the back of her skull. Blood poured from a gash on her forehead and oozed thick goo into her eyes.

Wiping the blood away with the back of her hand, Laura labored to get to her knees, still dazed. She heard a sound. A door opening. They were coming. Men with guns, with knives.

Fear choked her breathing.

Laura staggered to her feet and broke into a frantic sprint. She was impervious to the pain in her knees and head. Blood gushed from the wound in her scalp, blinding one eye, but she could still see The Quad in front of her, maybe ten, twenty feet away. It was a massive expanse of brown and green grass. No place could have left her more vulnerable, but her mind wasn’t clear. Her only thought was to run ahead, and as fast as possible.

Weaving awkwardly, Laura lurched onto The Quad. Her feet slipped on the dewy grass. Her arms spun for balance, but this time she kept upright. Blood seeped into her mouth. The taste of it on her tongue and down her throat nauseated her, but still she ran.

With wind battering her face, Laura risked a glance over her shoulder. Four men were coming down the stairs. They had no trouble navigating the slick surface. Two of them were leveling rifles. Laura diverted from a straight course into a zigzag pattern, thinking it would make her a harder target to hit. She had seen the tactic used on television, and somehow the reference came to her at the moment she needed it most.

Beyond The Quad, beyond another brick building, stood a thick patch of woods. Somewhere within that thicket was the path she had used to reach the school, but the woods would be fine if she couldn’t find the path. Probably better. Laura could lose them in the woods.

From behind, Laura heard a loud crack and boom that rolled off into the distance. The hum of a bullet sliced through the heavy air. There was another crack. Another bullet zipped past. This time Laura saw where the ground erupted from the impact. The tree line was just ahead. Laura tried to lengthen her strides.

She heard another boom and felt the air part. The forest was in front of her. Not too far. She could make it. The burn in her legs became intense, and an agonizing stitch developed in her side. From somewhere within, she dug deep and found another gear that actually quickened her pace.

Another rolling boom came, followed by a
pfft
sound. That was when Laura felt the sting. It didn’t hurt at first. It was more like an odd and strange sensation—a breeze traveling through her that shouldn’t have been there. But then came the fire. A wickedly sharp pain radiated up from her right side. Laura tumbled to the ground and rolled several times. Blood continued to pour from the gash in her scalp; but now, it was pouring from this new wound as well.

From the ground, she touched her side. Her hands came away slick and red. She staggered to her feet. Adrenaline was all that kept her moving as it also held the shock at bay.

Glancing behind her, Laura saw the men readying to fire again. She darted into the woods just as a bullet splintered a tree by her head.

Laura sank into the dark. She could hear men’s voices behind her, coming at her. The trees offered some cover, but the forest still had the bare and brown look of winter. Still running, Laura peeled back the jacket she wore and lifted her sweater to inspect her side. A massive red stain spread across much of her midsection and traveled partway up her armpit. Her light cotton shirt was drenched with blood. Pain more intense with each breath came at her with the force of a hurricane.

Laura plunged on ahead. Was her vision dimming, or had a cloud covering darkened the sky? Voices cried out. They were searching for her, but she had vanished inside the gloom and was still on the move. With each stride, Laura felt weaker.

Five minutes on the move became ten. Ignoring the painful burn, Laura kept one hand on the cut to her head, and the other pressed against her side, but her life force seeped between her fingers.

She was wobbly on her feet, moving in whatever direction she managed to stagger. The men’s voices receded into the distance like the fading forest light. Soon Laura’s frantic, haphazard run downshifted into a trot, and then it became something of a drunken stumble, until she slowed almost completely and ping-ponged from one tree to the next without direction or purpose.

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?

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

J
ake 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.

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.

“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.”