One Breath Away (23 page)

Chapter 76:
Meg

“D
ammit, Meg,” the chief spits into the phone. “What the hell have you been up to?”

I know I need to speak fast, keep it short and to the point. “I had reason to believe that Ray Cragg could have been the intruder in the school. I went to investigate and found him on the floor with a gunshot to the face.” I stroke Twinkie’s flank while I wait for Chief McKinney’s reaction.

“So Ray Cragg is really dead?” the chief asks softly.

“Yes, an apparent suicide. Ray’s father, Theodore, was injured by his son. An ambulance just took him away.” Twinkie looks up at me with mournful brown eyes. Ray Cragg lost everything—his wife, his children, his life—but his dog still loved him.

Chief McKinney sighs heavily. “This day just keeps getting better and better. Did the sheriff’s deputy arrive to relieve you yet?”

“Yes, he’s there. He said you wanted me back at the school ASAP.”

“Yes, head on back over here as quickly as you can, but drive safely.”

I hesitate before continuing. “Chief, have you heard anything on the scanner about my ex-husband?”

I am met with silence. Not a good sign. “We’ll talk when you get back here,” he finally says.

“Chief, you can’t think—”

“Just come on back to the school, Meg,” he says wearily.

Chapter 77:
Will

W
ill tried to stay outside next to the flipped car in case the man trapped inside awoke, but the cold drove him back to his own vehicle. He sent Daniel on his way, so he could get the distressed cow to the vet before she gave birth. In the scheme of the world, in this day, the life of one cow and her calves didn’t matter much, not in comparison to the lives of his grandchildren and daughter-in-law.

Will decided to take a moment to call Marlys. He had promised to call her every hour with updates, but with the fiasco at the Cragg farm he was late.

“Any news?” Marlys asked by way of greeting.

“Nothing new at the school,” Will answered, and turned the heater in the truck down so he could better hear his wife.

“But…” Marlys began.

“Ray Cragg committed suicide.”

“No!” Marlys exclaimed. “Those poor children.”

“Yeah, now I’m sitting on County Road B waiting for a wrecker to help someone who flipped his car.” Will pressed his fingers to his temple. He felt the beginnings of a monstrous headache.

“I’m sorry,” Marlys said soothingly.

“Well, I’m in a much better state than Ray and this guy in the Ford.” Will tried to lighten his voice. Marlys already had so much to fret about, he didn’t need to add to her worries. “How’s Holly doing? Does she know anything about what’s going on?”

“No, but I don’t like keeping this from her,” Marlys said ferociously. “Holly’s made a lot of mistakes, but she’s a good mother to Augie and P.J. and loves them more than anything.”

“Maybe we should tell her, then,” Will said pensively. “You want me to talk to her?”

Marlys was quiet for a moment. “Let’s wait a bit longer. She is so looking forward to seeing the kids tomorrow. I don’t want to ruin that for her. For goodness’ sake, Will, how much can one person go through? It’s just got to be okay,” Marlys finished with determination.

“Okay, we’ll wait,” Will assured her. “Just keep her away from the TV, I’d hate for her to hear about it that way. Listen, I gotta go. I see the wrecker and the ambulance. I’ll call you back in a little while.”

“I love you, Will.” Marlys’s voice trembled with emotion and Will wanted nothing more than to pull his wife into his arms and tell her it was going to be okay.

“Love you, too,” was all he could manage. Bracing himself against the cold, Will stepped outside and waved his arms, flagging down the wrecker and the ambulance.

Chapter 78:
Holly

M
ost days I absolutely hate my physical therapist, Gina. She lets me whine and moan all I want, but she doesn’t let me get by with any excuses. If I tell her I’m tired, she tells me too bad. If I say I’m in too much pain, she tells me to suck it up. Today, when I tell her I have an infection, she says, “What’s that have to do with the price of eggs?”

I can’t help laughing. “That’s
exactly
what my dad always said when I was growing up.”

“Smart man,” Gina says, tapping her head.

My dad was,
is,
one of the smartest men I ever met, not that I’d ever tell him that. He was so practical, though, that it drove me crazy. He could never just do something for the fun of it. There was always a bull to buy, a calf to be born, a crop to be harvested, a piece of machinery to be fixed. I remember once, when I was fifteen, my boyfriend at the time and I snuck out into one of the sheds. After fooling around for a while, we decided that it would be fun to take my father’s brand-new John Deere tractor for a little ride. The thing didn’t go any faster than five miles per hour, but he completely had a conniption.

“It’s not like we even hurt the thing,” I remember protesting after he caught us and grounded me for two weeks.

“What’s that have to do with the price of eggs?” he had shot back, just like he always did.

“Get some rest,” Gina finally says when she realizes that she isn’t going to get anything more out of me during this physical therapy session. “We’ll hit it hard again tomorrow. You want to be good and strong when those kids of yours get here.”

I smile at the thought. “I can’t wait,” I tell her. “It seems like forever since I’ve seen them.” I wonder if my father had ever been so anxious to see me, wonder if he is looking forward to seeing me tomorrow. I know I didn’t make things easy for him, I know I was oversensitive and overcritical when it came to my father. But how does a kid compete with a cow? If once, just once, my father would have said, “Holly, won’t you please come home? I miss you.” I would have been on the next plane back to Broken Branch. But he never did. That’s the difference between the two of us. When it comes to my kids, I know what’s important.

Chapter 79:
Mrs. Oliver

M
rs. Oliver’s tongue felt dry, thick and swollen, like a sock had been shoved into her mouth. The man was pacing methodically in the front of the classroom, frequently checking his cell phone and growing increasingly agitated with each passing minute.

Mrs. Oliver knew that this whole episode would need to come to an end soon. If it didn’t, someone, maybe many, would be dead, and she couldn’t fathom the thought that it could be a child. She rapped soundly on the top of the desk with her knuckles and the gunman looked irritably toward her. “What?” he asked impatiently.

Mrs. Oliver tried to form the words she knew she needed to say. Her mouth still didn’t work correctly. Her jaw was obviously broken, maybe shattered. She made a writing motion with her hand and the man nodded. Carefully she lifted the lid of the desk and quickly scanned the contents of the messy desk: textbooks, a pair of scissors, broken crayons, pencils, notebooks. As she retrieved a pencil and a notebook she pulled the scissors more closely to the desk’s opening. The man watched her warily as she closed the desk and opened the notebook to a clean page. She concentrated on keeping her hand steady and in her normally tidy script Mrs. Oliver wrote shakily, “I will stay. It’s time to let the children go now.”

The man stared at the words for a long time but finally gave one short nod. Mrs. Oliver breathed deeply and sighed in relief, wincing at the stab of pain as the stream of cool air crossed over her broken teeth.

Chapter 80:
Meg

I
t’s nearing six o’clock, already it’s getting dark and sunset will arrive in just over an hour. Beyond the police tape, despite the weather, two news vans are parked, puffs of exhaust cloud the air. “Keep your head down,” I tell Twinkie, who snuffles softly in response. A few reporters of indiscriminate genders are bundled up in large parkas with fur-trimmed hoods, and are facing shivering cameramen and speaking into microphones. Their attention turns briefly to me as I drive by, but seeing that I’m just a lowly Broken Branch public servant they quickly forget about me.

The sentries, a pair of police officers from a neighboring department, wave me into the school parking lot and I pull up as close as I can to the RV that has become the makeshift command center. I remove my coat and tuck it around Twinkie, hoping that her fur and my jacket will keep her warm and content.

The frozen air and brisk wind instantly sweep away any body heat I’ve conserved and by the time I burst into the RV without knocking, I’m shaking with cold. Chief McKinney, Aaron and a man I don’t recognize look up at me when I enter. The chief’s face is grim and I ready myself to get a tongue lashing for the way I went off to the Cragg farm without following protocol.

“Sit down, Meg,” he says gently.

I look first to the chief, then Aaron and finally to the unknown man. None of them can look me in the eye.

Chapter 81:
Augie

E
ven though my hiding place beneath the drinking fountain is uncomfortable and my neck is twisted at an awkward angle, I somehow keep zoning out. Not sleeping, but I feel strange, numb. Every once in a while I hear a loud noise from P.J.’s classroom and I am startled awake and bang my head on the drinking fountain. I’m not quite close enough to understand any of the conversations in the classroom. I’ve heard some crying and shouting. I’m not sure why the police haven’t come into the school yet, but I figure they probably know what they are doing.

Chapter 82:
Meg

I
lower myself into the nearest seat. The RV has been effectively transformed from a recreational vehicle to command center. There��s a laptop and a police radio on the kitchen counter and blueprints of the school are spread out over the breakfast nook table. Chief McKinney hasn’t told me what’s going on yet, but I refuse to believe that it might have something to do with Tim.

“Meg, this is Terry Swain, a hostage negotiator from the state police, and we’ve got Anthony Samora, who leads the state tactical team, on the phone. The weather prevented him from making the trip.”

Samora’s tinny voice comes over the speakerphone. “I tried, though. Roads are terrible. Now let’s get down to business.” I swallow hard, afraid of what’s coming next. “Just about forty minutes ago, we got word that your ex-husband, Tim Barrett, was reported missing by his mother. He told her that he was called into work unexpectedly this morning, and when she didn’t hear from him after several hours, she called his place of work.”

Chief McKinney leans forward and rests his forearms on his knees. “Meg, Tim was never called into work today.”

I try to keep my tone even and neutral. “I’m not sure what my ex-husband’s fibbing to his mother has to do with me.”

“Now, Meg,” the chief says uncomfortably. “I know that your divorce with Tim was difficult, that you had some custody issues to iron out.”

“Most divorces are difficult, Chief,” I say, irritated that my personal history is being pulled into this discussion. I cross my arms in front of me. “Most divorces involving children involve custody issues. We worked that out a long time ago.”

“Officer Barrett,” Terry Swain, the hostage negotiator, says, “let’s get right to it. You had a contentious divorce with child custody issues, your ex-husband lied about his whereabouts and has been off the radar for several hours, and we have a hostage situation in the school where your daughter attends. And she just happens to be absent today.”

“She’s absent because she is spending spring break with her
father.
It doesn’t make any sense that Tim would be in that building!” My voice rises and I forcefully try to lower it. “There has to be a logical explanation.”

Swain stares intently at me for a moment as if trying to read my face for any hidden information. Anthony Samora pipes in over the phone line. “You’re right. That in itself doesn’t lead us to that scenario.”

I lift my hands in exasperation. “Then what? What could possibly lead you to believe that my ex-husband, that Tim, would be involved in this?”

“Fifteen minutes ago, Terry tried to make another contact with the intruder,” the chief explains. “He got on the bullhorn and reached out to the man, asked him what he wanted, what his demands were.”

My mouth has gone dry. Looking through the RV’s windows, my eyes lock onto the school building.

“We got a call a few minutes later, from a cell phone belonging to—” Swain checks his notes “—a Sadie Webster.”

“Sadie Webster?” I say in confusion. “Doug and Caroline Webster’s daughter?”

Swain nods. “Yes, the call came from Sadie’s phone, but the caller definitely wasn’t a twelve-year-old girl.”

“Who was it, then?” I ask.

“We don’t know,” Swain admits, and I immediately relax.

“So this is all conjecture? You have no proof that Tim is the gunman in that school?” I laugh in relief. “Jesus, Chief, you scared the hell out of me.”

“Meg,” Chief McKinney says seriously. “We don’t know who the caller was, but we do know that it’s all over the news that your ex-husband is unaccounted for.” Damn, I think to myself. Stuart was right. “We also know,” McKinney continues, “that the man in the school has only one demand at this time.”

“And what is that?”

“He asked specifically for you.”

“For me?” I ask in disbelief. “Why would he ask for me?”

“Have you had any differences of opinion with Tim lately?” the chief asks, leaning in close to me. He is trying to be kind about this, fatherly.

“No, Norman,” I answer fiercely, using the chief’s first name. “I already told you that things are fine between Tim and me.” I cross my arms and shake my head. “In fact, he invited me to spend spring break with him.”

“And you said no,” Swain states. It isn’t a question.

“I said no,” I say simply.

“Was he angry about that?” the unseen Samora asks.

“No, he was fine with it.” I’m exasperated and pissed off. “Why are you wasting time on this? Tim would never do something like this. He doesn’t even own a gun!”

“Right now there’s a man with a gun in that school.” Swain points toward the school and then to me. “And all we really know is that you have some kind of connection with him.”

“Okay,” I say, trying to sound more reasonable. “If you really think this person is connected to me, then look at someone besides Tim. Someone I arrested at one time, or my brother, Travis, for instance. He’d be a hell of a lot more likely to do something like this than Tim.” In the past, I had confided to the chief the complicated history I had with my brother. How Travis’s juvenile delinquent behaviors and shady friends kept our family held hostage, so to speak. At least until Officer Demelo came along and for the first time let me know I could fight back using the justice system. Good thing she did, because at that point in my childhood I truly felt like I was capable of smothering Travis in his sleep with a pillow.

“I haven’t seen Travis in over ten years and haven’t talked to him in seven. The last interaction with my brother was most certainly not warm and fuzzy. His final words to me were, ‘Why are you such a bitch? You think you are so much better than me, don’t you? I hope you’re enjoying your happy little family while you can because I will never forget this, Meg.’”

“What happened between you two?” Swain asks.

I hate rehashing the bad blood between Travis and me. Frankly it is all so embarrassing to me as a law enforcement officer, but lives are at stake so I let out a big breath and explain. “Seven years ago I got a call from the Waterloo Police Department. An officer there said he had Travis in custody for drunk driving. Travis gave him my name, told him I was a police officer, said I would vouch for him, come bail him out.” I rub my eyes at the memory. I felt nothing at the time. Not one iota of pity or sadness for the state of my brother’s life. Just a dull resignation. He would never change. “I told the officer that I could not and would not bail my brother out.”

“That’s it?” Swain asks unsatisfied. “He threatened your family over a DUI?”

“No, there’s more. After I hung up the phone with the officer and he told Travis he was out of luck, Travis freaked out. Punched the officer in the nose, broke his nose, went for his sidearm, ended up tearing some tendons in the officer’s hand. Travis ended up being charged with a slew of crimes and has spent the past seven years in prison. Got out last November.”

Swain shrugs. “So he said something in anger seven years ago. He called you from jail pissed off. Not unusual.”

“I got that call last week.”

“We’ll check on it,” Chief McKinney says, nodding toward Aaron, who writes something down in his notebook.

“I still think you’re making a big mistake, but let’s say it is Tim or my brother or whoever, what do you want me to do?”

The men look at one another. But no one speaks.

“Well?” I lift up my arms in defeat. “Do you want me to call him? Already tried it, no answer. Do you want me to get on the bullhorn and try to reason with him from out here? I will be happy to do it. I need a little direction here, guys.”

“He wants to see you,” the chief says in a tired voice.

“Fine, I’ll go in there. No problem,” I say, standing, but the men remain seated, still looking unsettled. I glare especially hard at Aaron, who hasn’t said a word yet.

“It isn’t protocol,” Samora says, “to send an officer who hasn’t been trained in tactical operations into a building.”

“Right, I get that,” I agree, “but I am an officer, I’ve started my tac training and if it gets those kids out of the school safely, I don’t understand what the issue is.”

“The issue is we’ve got six available officers here that will make up our makeshift little rapid response team and their lives are on the line once they enter that building,” Swain says harshly. “We need to make sure every single officer that goes in there knows what they are doing.”

“But if I go in there on my own, find out what he wants, then no other officers get hurt. Whoever it is,” I say, glancing at Chief McKinney, “won’t feel threatened by me. I’m just one person.”

“I don’t like it,” the chief says, getting up to pour himself another cup of coffee from a thermos sitting atop the counter. “No shots have been fired. There are no reports of injuries. The lockdown plan says we fall back and wait. I don’t want to go in there and force the situation.”

“So we have to wait for someone to get shot or hurt before we can move?” I ask. “I can see that for a typical situation, but obviously whoever is in there has a beef with me, not with anyone in the school.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Chief McKinney says, handing me a cup of steaming coffee. “We just know that he wants to talk to you.”

“I think she’s right,” Samora says. “Maybe she’ll be able to talk him down.”

“Or get herself killed,” Swain counters. “I don’t like this at all.”

“How did he contact you?” I ask.

“A different cell phone,” Swain says. “Belongs to a kid named Colton Finn, a seventh grader. We think he went into all the classrooms and collected as many cell phones as he could.”

“I figured as much.” I nod. “That makes sense. First he knocks out all the landlines and then takes all the cells he can…. Limits communication with the outside world.”

There’s a knock on the RV door and Officer Jarrow pokes his head in. “Hey, Chief, I’ve got a Cal Oliver here who says his wife called him from the school. He’s pretty upset. You want to talk to him?”

“Absolutely,” the chief says. “Let him in.”