One Breath Away (24 page)

Chapter 83:
Mrs. Oliver

M
rs. Oliver cradled her jaw in her hand. The light pressure seemed to keep everything held in place and kept the discomfort to a dull ache rather than sharp bursts of pain. She looked at the man who, remarkably, by a nod of his head, had agreed to let all of the children go. She didn’t know what this meant for herself, but didn’t really care, just as long as her students got out the door safely. She wondered if, before this was all over, she would get the chance to learn why the man had invaded her second home, her classroom, where she spent most of her waking moments. She had the feeling that the whole episode was bigger than she was, bigger than the students in her classroom, but in all the time she had spent with the man on this day, she hadn’t been able to piece together his reasoning for his actions. He was certainly interested in that phone of his. He had been furiously texting and making calls, so someone outside of this room was most definitely involved, but whether it was an accomplice or a victim, Mrs. Oliver couldn’t tell.

“It’s time,” the man said. Mrs. Oliver saw the weariness in his eyes, but not just from the exhaustion that came from the events of the day. His eyes had no life to them, no hope, and this more than anything prodded her into action.

Mrs. Oliver stood swiftly, causing a dizzying rush of pain to stream through her jaw and hip, and hobbled to the door. She clapped her hands sharply together and all heads snapped up. “Up,” Mrs. Oliver managed, forcing her mouth open wide enough to let the brief word escape. The students stood without hesitation. She pointed to her own eyes and every pair of eyes in the room met her own. Mrs. Oliver scanned each of her students’ faces, tried to memorize every freckle, every gap-toothed mouth, each tousled head. It was just too bad, she thought to herself, that the last image they would have of their teacher would be one of her in a wrinkled, stained, formerly Bedazzled denim jumper. She imagined that her hair was a fright and her face…well, she could tell without seeing herself that she must look monstrous. She snapped her fingers once and pointed to the classroom door and the students immediately walked swiftly but in an orderly manner past the man with the gun, their eyes never leaving their teacher’s, to the door.

“Beth,” Mrs. Oliver mumbled through her broken teeth, and Beth, still weeping softly, came to Mrs. Oliver’s side, clutching her little sister’s hand. “Take the children,” Mrs. Oliver said, holding on gently to Beth’s arm. Beth nodded in comprehension. “Go and don’t look back.” Mrs. Oliver looked at the gunman and then her eyes flicked toward the closet door where Lucy was locked away with the chair wedged beneath the doorknob.

The man shook his head. “No.” Mrs. Oliver wanted to argue with him, but could tell by the finality in his voice that negotiations weren’t an option.

“Go, now.” Mrs. Oliver pushed lightly on Beth’s shoulder and in a straight, single-file line, just as she had taught them, her students were leaving.

Chapter 84:
Meg

E
verything about Cal Oliver is long. He is tall with long limbs, long fingers, long nose, long narrow face made longer by his downturned lips. He stoops as he enters and looks uncertainly around the RV.

“Cal,” Chief McKinney says, standing and holding out his hand for Cal to shake. Before he can introduce each of us, Cal is going on and on about a phone call.

“Wait a second, Cal,” the chief interrupts, “please take a seat and start at the beginning.”

Cal perches himself on the edge of a metal folding chair and takes a deep breath. “I was over at Lonnie’s,” he begins, “when my cell phone rang. Right away I see it’s from Evie.” At Swain’s questioning look he adds, “My wife, she’s the third-grade teacher at the school.” When the man nods in understanding he continues. “Right away I can hear a boy yelling. It was hard to hear exactly what he said, everything sounded muffled.”
Mr. Oliver runs a hand across his bushy white eyebrows that frame his watery blue eyes. I wonder if they are wet from age, the biting cold or worry. “Then I hear Evie talking real loud saying something about how thankfully no one was hurt and about someone named Lucy in a closet.”

“Your wife told you no one was hurt?” I ask.

“It wasn’t like she was talking to me, but more like she was talking for my benefit. Anyway, she also said something about how he had no business in her classroom.”

“She didn’t know who he was?” Chief McKinney asks. Mr. Oliver shakes his head helplessly.

“She didn’t say a name, but I just don’t know.” Mr. Oliver pulls a carefully folded handkerchief from his coat pocket and swipes at his nose. “Then I heard a scuffling noise and then Evie screamed.” Mr. Oliver bows his head so low that his nose is nearly touching his knees, his shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. “She told me she loved me and then she was gone.”

Chapet 85:
Augie

S
omething is happening inside the
classroom. There is the scraping sound of chairs being pushed and feet running
across the floor. I hold my breath and try to make myself as small as possible,
but if the man comes out in the hallway I will be pretty hard to miss.

Suddenly the classroom door is open and Beth steps out. She is
holding her little sister’s hand and, without even glancing my way, she is
moving down the hallway. I watch as the kids walk quickly and then they are
moving faster and faster until they are running. I am trying to find P.J.’s feet
through the blur of tennis shoes that are echoing like thunder down the hallway.
My heart skips a beat when I realize that I don’t see him. Still the children
are streaming past me and there is no P.J. “Hey,” I call out from my spot under
the drinking fountain. No one even slows down. “Hey, where’s my brother? Where’s
P.J.?”

Something happened once that classroom door opened and the kids
in P.J.’s room came out. Suddenly all the doors in the hallway open and heads
are peeking out. Teachers look up and down the hallway, but once they see Mrs.
Oliver’s classroom rushing down the stairs it’s like an invitation. Soon the
hallways are crowded with students and I am trapped in my spot beneath the
drinking fountain. I must have missed him, I think to myself. He must have run
right past me. He is in that crowd of students heading out to the parking lot
right now. I wait until there is a break in the traffic so I can pull myself up
and not get trampled by a bunch of third and fourth graders. And once again I
find myself all alone. The hallway is completely deserted. I spin around in
disbelief. How could I have not seen him? His bright red Converse high-tops are
impossible to miss. Without thinking I move toward Mrs. Oliver’s classroom. The
door is shut, but I press my nose against the window in the door to see inside.
My stomach drops and then the door is opening and I am being pulled inside.

Chapter 86:
Meg

C
hief McKinney gently hands Cal Oliver off to a victim’s advocate, in this case Father Adam, who volunteered to assist. “Everyone is doing their best, Cal,” Father Adam kindly explains when Cal balks at the thought of leaving. “Let’s go on back to Lonnie’s and wait. Chief McKinney will call you as soon as he has any information. Right, Chief?” Father Adam looks pointedly at Chief McKinney and he nods.

“As soon as we get any news about Evelyn, you’ll be the first to know,” he promises. “We are all working hard to end this whole thing with the best possible resolution.”

Cal steps out of the RV and into the swirling snow with a lost and bewildered expression, leaning on to Father Adam for support.

“This has got to end,” the chief says miserably. He looks hard at Swain. “Doesn’t the implied threat that Cal heard over the phone give us cause enough to send the tac team into the building?”

“He’s talking,” Swain explains. “As long as we’re participating in a dialog with the man and no one has gotten hurt, we keep negotiating with him.”

“But it’s me he wants. Let me go in there and talk with him,” I say with more conviction than I feel.

Swain shakes his head. “Listen, we’ll get you in phone contact with him, but there is no way you’re going into that school building, especially if you’re the target. We’re not going to endanger innocent children, teachers and officers because you want to play hero.”

“Then let me go in there alone. If you think this is Tim holed up in there, what are you worried about? I’m not. Tim has never hurt me, would never hurt me in a million years and certainly would not hurt Maria in this way.” My face is burning from anger and from Swain’s condescending attitude toward me.

“Let’s make phone contact with him first,” Chief McKinney says, trying once again to get us back on track. “You’ll recognize Tim’s voice, then we’ll know for sure.”

Something clicks into place within my brain. The phone. If it was truly Tim in that school and it was me he wanted, he would have simply called me. Why would he care whether or not I recognized his voice? It didn’t make sense. No, this wasn’t Tim. “You said the intruder called you asking for me, right?”

“Yes,” Swain agrees. “He called using one of the students’ cell phones.”

I pull out my phone. “Why didn’t he just call me, then?” I pause as I look at my phone. “It looks like I got several texts earlier from an unknown number. What was the student’s cell number?”

Aaron flips through his notes and rattles off the number.

“Why didn’t you look at the texts?” Swain asks, annoyed.

“I didn’t know I even got them,” I explain. I try to keep the defensiveness out of my voice but fail. “Besides, I’ve been a little busy, Swain,” I say, not caring that I sound insubordinate. “The chief frowns on taking personal calls during a standoff.”

“What’s it say?” the chief asks. The three men gather tightly around me and peer down at my phone.

I read the first text out loud. “
Barrett. Alone. 6:30 p.m.
”

“It’s six-twenty,” Swain says, glancing at his watch.

“I’ve just thought of someone else,” I say suddenly. McKinney, Gritz and Swain look at me expectantly. “Matthew Merritt.”

“Greta Merritt’s husband?” Samora’s incredulous, disembodied voice fills the air and I glance down at the speakerphone. I’d forgotten Samora was listening in.

“Yes,” I say, shaken by the possibility. “I was the one who took the initial report. I was the one to convince the victim to press charges, I was the one who read Merritt his rights while Gritz cuffed him.” What I didn’t bring up was the news articles and interview that Stuart had done with the victim. No one knew that it was through me that Stuart found Jamie. If anyone had reservations that Merritt was a monster, all doubt was erased after reading the article Stuart had written. “Maybe Merritt is getting back at me this way. He definitely is a desperate man. He’s lost his wife, his family, his freedom and a chance at the governor’s mansion.” The men look at one another dubiously, but are considering the possibility.

Before I even finished reading the news article I had Stuart on the phone. “How did you do it?” I asked. He knew exactly what I was talking about, didn’t even try to play dumb.

“I heard you talking to her on the phone.”

My mind whirred, trying to pinpoint the date and location of the phone call. When realization dawned on me all I could say was, “Oh.” Stuart had spent the entire night at my house only once since we met. Maria was at a slumber party at a friend’s house and wouldn’t return home until the following day. It was late when Jamie called me. Stuart and I had been sleeping, curled up together as if we had slept that way for years. His arms wrapped tightly around me, his chin on my shoulder, his hands resting on my stomach. We fit together perfectly. Or so I thought. When my cell phone rang, I eased myself carefully out of bed so as not to wake Stuart. Since I had taken her to the rape crisis center, walked her through the steps to pressing charges against Matthew Merritt and promised her that everything would be okay, she had trusted me. During that phone call she tearfully told me that she kept having nightmares, that she knew Mr. Merritt was going to get back at her. He had told her he would hurt her, hurt her family, if she ever told anyone.

“Matthew Merritt will not hurt you again,” I reassured her. “I won’t allow it. You can do this, Jamie, and you have a lot of people who are here to help you get through this. I know it isn’t easy.

“Do you want me to come over?” I asked after several minutes of listening to her quiet cries.

“Could you?” she said hopefully. “Please?”

I left a note for Stuart, just saying that I had to go out on police business and I would be back soon.

That was the night Stuart learned that Jamie Crosby was raped by Matthew Merritt. He had his story. The biggest one of his career.

“We’ll check on the Merritt angle,” Swain promises, “but I can’t imagine him going to this extreme.”

My cell phone chimes, startling all of us, and two more high-pitched pings follow. “There are three more texts,” I say, and a wellspring of fear spreads through my veins.
BANG
, reads the second text. I press the button again with shaking hands.
BANG. BANG.

Chapter 87:
Augie

W
hen I peek through the window I find a man staring back at me. His blue eyes send a shiver down my back. My heart leaps and I try to turn to run away but my stocking feet cause me to slip and, before I know it, the door opens and I’m being yanked into the classroom.

“Who are you?” the man asks, still holding me by the arm and looking me up and down.

I see P.J. with his back pressed against the blackboard. His teacher, Mrs. Oliver, who looks like she was hit in the head with a baseball bat, is standing with her arms around two other kids, a girl with black, messy hair and a short boy with a bowl haircut and braces.

Everyone is looking at me with their mouths hanging open and I realize I must look like a crazy person. I don’t have any shoes on, I’m wearing a sweatshirt that is ten times too big for me and I’m peeking into a classroom where there is a man with a gun. “Who are you?” the man asks again.

“Au-Augie,” I stutter. “That’s my brother.” I point to P.J.

“Do you think I’m your dad, too?” the man asks, and my mind tries to make sense of his words. I look at P.J., who is staring down at his red Converse tennis shoes.

P.J. He probably did think this nut job was his real dad. He is always looking at men on the street, staring at their faces. For a long time he would ask our mom question after question.
What color was my dad’s hair? What color were his eyes? Was he tall or short?
The only information he could get out of her was that when they met he was a marine and was heading to Afghanistan.

P.J. finally gave up asking when our mother lost her temper, started crying and told P.J. she would tell him his father’s name when he turned eighteen and in the meantime he should realize just how good he had it even if it was only the three of us. “You could be stuck on a farm in Iowa having to do chores for three hours a day, shoveling cow shit!” she hollered before locking herself in the bathroom. I wonder what she’ll do on P.J.’s eighteenth birthday when he holds out his hand for the little slip of paper with his dad’s full name, address and phone number written on it. P.J. has a mind like an elephant. He never forgets anything. Though my mom has never said these words, I don’t think she has any idea who P.J.’s father is.

The man looks at me suspiciously but realizes very quickly that I’m too young and puny to be an undercover police officer or something. “Can we go now?” I ask, and P.J. starts moving toward me.

“No, not yet.” The man shakes his head.

“But you said,” P.J.’s teacher begins. Her face is black and blue and swollen and her words come out sounding like
Buh you seh.

The man holds up his hand like he wants her to be quiet. “Patience,” he says. “I need you for just a little bit longer, and if they do as I say, you’ll be free to go.”

I wanted to ask who has to do what he says and what happens if they don’t do it. The little girl starts to cry, her shoulders shaking while the boy with braces is biting his lip, trying not to cry, and looking up at his teacher, waiting for her to tell him what to do next.

“Take a seat,” the man says, and I watch P.J. carefully. He just looks mad. I’ve seen this look before. It’s the same look he gets whenever I push him too far or tease him too much. P.J. doesn’t get mad often, but when he does, watch out. I shake my head hard at him and give him my
don’t you dare
look. We all move to the front row of desks and sit down. “She should be arriving any time now,” the man says, and sits down on the teacher’s stool and closes his eyes.

I might be able to take him, I think to myself. I’m fast when I want to be and all I have to do is leap out of my desk and land on top of him, knocking the gun out of his hand. I sneak a look at Mrs. Oliver and she is giving me the same
don’t you dare
look I gave P.J.

“Who should be arriving?” Mrs. Oliver asks. The bruised side of her face is swelling up even more and looks deformed like something out of
Phantom of the Opera
. It sounds like she is talking through a big wad of bubble gum.

“The person all this is for,” the man says, and spreads his arms out wide.

“What if she doesn’t come?” Mrs. Oliver asks. “The police won’t let anyone in, we’re in lockdown.”

“She
is
the police,” the man says with a mean smile.