One Breath Away (9 page)

Chapter 22:
Augie

I
’ve never met Beth’s dad. By the time P.J. and I came to Broken Branch, Beth and her mother and sisters had left their farm and had moved into a small house just a few blocks away from school. Beth didn’t talk much about what happened between her mom and dad, but I knew it was pretty intense. One thing I learned very quickly about living in a small town was that the men were just as gossipy as the women, except for my grandpa. Maybe the one good thing about him is he doesn’t talk bad about people. The second day P.J. and I were in Broken Branch, he took us to the gas station where the old farmers met every morning. They all stood around the potato chip display drinking coffee, talking about a man named Ray and a woman named Darlene.

“I heard she went and got a restraining order,” said an old man with a wrinkled red face and a scaly patch of skin on the tip of his nose. “After all Ray Cragg’s done for her.”

“Won’t even let him see his own girls,” a man wearing overalls added. They shook their heads like it was the saddest thing they ever heard, but I saw the smile in their eyes. They were just as bad as the eighth-grade girls in my class back in Revelation when they found out that Cleo Gavin was pregnant. And supposedly didn’t know who the father was.

“Now, now,” my grandpa said. “We don’t know exactly what’s going on. Don’t go making more misery than already’s out there.” All the men looked guiltily down at their dirt-caked shoes and someone started talking about how wet this spring was supposed to get. That was when I knew my grandpa was someone important in Broken Branch, though that didn’t make me like him any more.

“It can’t be him,” I whisper in Beth’s ear, not knowing if it is the truth or not. “Your dad wouldn’t do this.”

She licks her chapped lips and looks around to see if anyone is listening. “I think he could,” she says sadly. “I think it’s him.”

Chapter 23:
Mrs. Oliver

M
rs. Oliver awaited the man’s response, leaning forward in her seat, scouring his face for any hint that she was correct.

“Who the hell is Kenny Bingley?” the man asked. “Do you think I was one of your students?” he asked incredulously. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, ma’am, but your involvement here is happenstance. This has absolutely nothing to do with you.”

Mrs. Oliver slumped unhappily back in her seat, well aware that her sixty-five-year-old rear end had no business in a chair built for a third grader. But now she had two clues as to the identity of the intruder. One, he was most likely not a former student of hers; he seemed genuinely unaffected by that accusation. Two, he was definitely interested in one of the children in the classroom. Over and over he scanned their faces as if looking for someone. Yes, one of the children in this room was the key. This knowledge emboldened her. “Then tell me what you want,” she urged him. “Why in the world do you need to hold a classroom full of eight-year-olds hostage? How can we possibly be a means to your end?”

The man glanced at his watch. “You’ll see,” he responded, “soon enough, you’ll see.”

“What if I guess?” Mrs. Oliver asked, suddenly inspired by an idea.

“Guess what?” the man asked as he absently examined a complicated-looking cell phone. The same model she tried to get Cal to purchase to no avail.

“If I guess why you are here, will you let the children go? You certainly don’t need eighteen hostages, do you? One should be enough.”

This wasn’t a new game to Mrs. Oliver. For fourteen years, not one of her students ever knew that her first name was Evelyn. It was by accident really that it became a challenge with her students. Over the years they tried to guess her name like a modern game of Rumplestiltskin, but without the beautiful princess or the funny little man, unless you counted Russell Franco, who was bound and determined to figure out the mystery.

“Gertrude?” Russell would say as he entered the classroom. “Shirley, Margaret, Sally, Diana, Inger, Raquel?” Mrs. Oliver would shake her head and point Russell in the direction of his desk. One spring day, near the end of the school year, so hard to believe that was over thirty years ago, Russell strutted into the classroom before any of the other students arrived and said haughtily, “Good morning,
Evelyn
.” Mrs. Oliver was ready for this day. Not that she really cared that her students knew her first name; she just didn’t like to lose.

“Good morning, Russell
Hubert,
” she said casually. Russell froze and looked at her as if to say,
You wouldn’t.

And Mrs. Oliver smiled, letting him know she most certainly would. For the final weeks of the school year, Russell continued on with the game as if nothing had happened. “Good morning, Delores, Lorraine, Ramona?” Mrs. Oliver would just smile mysteriously.

So Mrs. Oliver was more than willing to play this guessing game with the man, especially if it meant that she could get her students released and back with their families. She had a steel-trap memory. If she thought hard about it, she could remember every single one of her former students and their parents. Certainly, this wasn’t a random invasion.

“Sure, guess away,” the gunman said, looking at her with his dead eyes.

“And if I’m right you’ll let the kids go?” she asked hopefully.

“Yes, and for each wrong answer I get to shoot one.”

Chapter 24:
Meg

T
here’s a rap on the squad car window and the thin layer of snow that covers the glass is swept away. A wrinkled, concerned face peers into the window and Gail begins to cry again. “Can I go now?” she asks, already reaching for the door handle. Her husband, Merle, at least fifteen years her senior, is standing outside the car, waiting for her to join him.

I look to the chief, who shakes his head no. “Not quite, Gail, but we’ll get someone to take you and Merle to the station. We need to get a description of the man you saw. Then you can go on home.”

“I feel so bad,” Gail says with a hitch in her voice. “I should be inside with everyone else, but Mrs. Brightman told me I should run, get out while I still could.”

“Mrs. Brightman told you to leave?” Chief McKinney asks. Margaret Brightman is the school principal. “What was she doing when you left?”

“She’s the one who threw the chair through the window. We couldn’t get out of the office area—he chained it or blocked the door.” I raise my eyebrows at the chief in surprise. Margaret Brightman is definitely not the chair-throwing type. Gail continues, sniffling as she speaks. “When I climbed out she wouldn’t come with me. She was still trying to get through to 9-1-1. The school phones weren’t working. I guess that’s what he was doing in the basement, cutting the phone lines. Margaret used her cell phone and she was cut off the first time she tried 9-1-1 and when she called back the line was busy.” Gail shakes her head. “I didn’t know such a thing could happen. She said she wasn’t going to come out of the school until all of the students and staff were out safely.”

“What about a maintenance man?”

Mrs. Lowell clutches at her necklace and sits up straight. “Harlan. Harlan Jones. He has his office downstairs next to the boiler room.” She looks worriedly at the chief. “Do you suppose he did something to Harlan?”

I try to keep the conversation moving forward before the hugeness of what is happening sinks in. “Gail, was there anyone else in the office area besides you and Mrs. Brightman? Any teachers or students? Is the school nurse here?”

“No, she’s over at the school in Dalsing today. It was just Margaret and me. I had just sent a kindergartner back to her classroom. She complained of a stomachache and I sent her
back
.”

My cell phone vibrates, I peek at the screen in case it’s Maria or Tim. Stuart again. He just doesn’t stop. Two weeks ago, when I opened my mailbox and unrolled the Sunday edition of the
Des Moines Observer
and saw the front page, my stomach seized with dread. I don’t know exactly how Stuart got to the rape victim, how he tied her to the most powerful man in Stark County, but I know he got the information from me, although I did it unknowingly and certainly unwillingly.

In January, late one evening, I was called to the home of Martha and Nick Crosby. Their nineteen-year-old daughter, Jamie, had come home that night near hysteria and with a suspicious-looking bruise on her face.

“We can’t get her to tell us anything,” a tearful Martha told me. “She’s locked herself in her bedroom and won’t come out.” Nick Crosby, hands clenched into fists, pacing the living room, didn’t know what to do with himself. The two younger Crosby children, both spitting images of their father, stood by in their pajamas and bare feet looking terrified.

“Let me try,” I told them, and sent the family off to the kitchen.

I gently knocked on Jamie’s bedroom door. “Jamie, it’s Meg Barrett,” I told her, purposely leaving off the title of officer. She knew what I did for a living, but I didn’t want to freak her out any more than she already was. “Your mom and dad are worried about you.” I paused, waiting for a response. Nothing, just the heavy breathing of someone trying to control her sobs. “Why don’t you open the door for me, Jamie, and we can talk. I promise it will just be me, no one else. I told them all to go into the kitchen and wait.”

I heard a rustle of footsteps on the other side of the door. “Please go away,” came Jamie’s brittle, hoarse voice.

I leaned against the doorjamb, keeping my voice low and soothing. “I just want to make sure you don’t need medical attention, Jamie. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. I promise.”

After five minutes of silence, the door slowly opened and a wide, fearful brown eye looked up at me. I waited until she nodded and stepped aside before entering her room. It was a typical teenager’s bedroom. Clothes strewn around, bulletin boards tacked with photos of friends, blue ribbons, ticket stubs and a campaign poster of Greta Merritt, a local businesswoman and the newest and youngest wildcard in the race for governor of Iowa. When Jamie saw me eyeing the poster her face crumpled into a new wave of sobs. I knew that Jamie was the nanny for the Merritt family’s two children and did some clerical work for the campaign.

I regarded her carefully, knowing that one false move might cause her to completely clam up on me. Her left eye was slightly swollen and already turning purple. She held her right arm gingerly, close to her body. I waited, my eyes scanning her bedroom for some insight. A picture of a boyfriend or something. My eyes settled on one of the bulletin boards. It was filled with Merritt campaign paraphernalia—buttons, snapshots, bumper stickers. One photo caught my eye. Greta Merritt with her thousand-watt smile and her arm wrapped around the waist of her handsome husband, Matthew. Standing between two towheaded toddlers was Jamie Crosby, smiling shyly into the camera.

“Someone hurt you,” I said, my eyes not leaving the photo.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“You were a big help, Gail,” the chief tells her as he opens the car door, and a deluge of cold air brings me back to the present.

Gail doesn’t look convinced so I lean forward in my seat. “He’s right. We needed you out here to give us this information. Now we know what we’re dealing with. Now we can help the people inside.”

Gail nods and pushes her door open. Merle is there to pull her out of the car and into his arms. Head down, to give them some kind of privacy, I walk away quickly. One man and a gun. It isn’t much, but at least we now have something more to go on.

Chapter 25:
Augie

B
eth is rocking gently back and forth, her shoulder scraping against mine. She has her hands over her face and is mumbling something under her breath. It takes me a few minutes to realize that she is praying. A prayer I’ve heard while flipping through the channels on the television being led by a woman with too much makeup standing in front of a huge crowd, many with their eyes closed, some with tears on their cheeks, arms outstretched, bodies swaying to the rhythm of the woman’s words.
Amen, Sister,
I almost say out loud, but stop myself.

The first Sunday we were in Broken Branch our grandpa made P.J. and me go to church with him. I lay in bed, buried underneath the covers in the room that used to be my mother’s. He knocked on the bedroom door and I could hear it squeak open. I could feel him standing there in the doorway, tall and wide in the shadows. I tried to make my breathing regular and deep as if I was sleeping.

“Augie,” he whispered, his voice as low and deep as the cows that he kept in the big barn. “Augie, time to get up. We’re leaving for church in thirty minutes.” I held completely still, hoping that he would give up and leave without me. No such luck. “Augie,” he said again, his voice booming through the room. “We’re leaving in half an hour.”

I peeked out from under the covers, the cold air instantly numbing my nose. “I don’t feel good,” I mumbled, burying my face in the soft pillow that leaked so badly that the first morning I awoke in the cold farmhouse and looked in the mirror I thought the soft white feathers were snowflakes.

“You have twenty-five minutes,” he said impatiently, turning away and shutting the door behind him.

I didn’t know my grandpa well enough at that point to know just how far I could push him, so I stumbled out of bed and pulled on the same jeans I had worn the day before and a long-sleeved T-shirt. I thought for sure that when I came down the stairs in that outfit, he would send me right back upstairs to change, but he was wearing jeans himself. “Better put on a winter coat,” he said, holding out a red coat that smelled mildewy and must have belonged to my mother at one time. I almost reached out to take it from him, but quickly pulled my hand back.

“I’m not cold,” I said, and walked right past him and climbed into the truck next to P.J., who had on a coat that had the same moldy smell but was like four sizes too big for him.

“I know,” he said at my look. “It’s Uncle Todd’s. At least I’m warm. You’re going to freeze.”

“At least I don’t look like a dork,” I mimicked, pulling my hands up into the sleeves of my T-shirt, trying to warm them as Grandpa climbed into the driver’s seat, the entire truck leaning to the left as he sat down. We drove in silence all the way to church, which turned out to be smaller than I thought it would be, but prettier than I thought it would be, too. I expected Grandpa to march us right up the aisle to the very front of the church, but he didn’t. Instead, he led us to the middle of the church and off to the right. I sat down on the hard wooden bench as he lowered the kneeler. I watched him carefully out of the corner of my eye. I expected him to be some kind of Holy Roller, but he wasn’t. He sang, though, clear and loud. He sounded even better than the choir director we had at my school in Revelation.

Mom never took me and P.J. to church in Revelation. I never asked, but always wondered why. P.J. asked, though, just a week before the fire. We were sitting at the little table in our breakfast nook, eating the chicken and rice that I made for supper that night.

“Why don’t we ever go to church?” he asked while he shoved an enormous piece of chicken into his mouth.

If you didn’t know our mom, you’d think that she was completely ignoring us. The way she took her time eating a slice of French bread, took a long drink of water, wiped her mouth with her napkin, stood and took her plate over to the sink. This was our mother’s way of carefully thinking through what she was going to say before answering us.

“My father made me go to church every Sunday for seventeen years, P.J., and it didn’t do me any good.” She dropped her silverware into the sink and turned back to face us. “I think a person doesn’t have to be in a church to feel close to God. The desert works just as well.” I sat at the table, silently saying,
Shhh, don’t say things like that
. Feeling guilty for her. “God doesn’t take attendance and even if a person goes to church every single day, that doesn’t make him some kind of saint.”

I watched her standing over the sink, scraping rice down the garbage disposal, the same sink she would stand over a week later, her burned skin sliding off her arms and swirling down the drain. Sometimes I wonder if the burn was a punishment for what she said, even though deep down I knew that didn’t make sense, that God couldn’t be so mean.

I look up at the clock on the wall; we’ve been sitting here for less than an hour, but it feels like forever. Mr. Ellery slides off his desk, reaches into his pocket, pulls out his cell phone, looks at it for a minute and then puts it back into his pocket.

“Why hasn’t anyone called?” Beth asks suddenly. “Why hasn’t anyone come for us?”

Mr. Ellery shakes his head. I’m wondering the same thing. I can’t believe we haven’t heard police sirens or heard a helicopter or something. Back in Arizona our school had lockdowns at least once every few months but nothing bad ever happened. It was always some incident somewhere in the neighborhood, no one ever came near the school. I’m also wondering about P.J. He’s such a weenie. He’s probably cowering underneath his desk right now.

When Mom got burned, instead of helping, P.J. ran into his room and hid underneath his blankets. Which I kind of understand. It was incredibly freaky seeing our kitchen curtains going up in flames and Mom ripping them down with her bare hands, the fire streaking up her arms until it looked like she was holding a ball of flames. It was bad enough trying to get Mom out of the house; I had to pull her away from the sink and push her through the front door as she cried, “P.J., P.J.!” But to get P.J. out was nearly impossible. He wouldn’t come out from beneath his covers and I finally had to grab the ends of the blanket and drag him like he was a sack of garbage. The smoke was thick and black; my lungs felt squeezed and every breath I took felt like I was swallowing crushed chalk. My arms ached from lugging P.J. through the smoke-filled hallway, feeling my way out with my feet. When I finally found the front door and stepped out onto the front stoop blinking blindly in the hot sunshine, my mother was on her knees, a group of neighbors bent over her. Next to me on the ground, P.J. was trying to get out of the blanket, and when he finally wriggled out, his brown hair was standing up like a porcupine and his glasses were lopsided on his nose.

The sirens from the fire trucks and the ambulance drowned out his voice as he cried, “Mom?” and tripped down the front steps, but before he could get to her the firefighters were running toward us and we were scooped up and taken away from the house that was still leaking gray smoke.

I can imagine P.J. in his classroom right now, his arms and head tucked into his sweatshirt like a turtle, thinking to himself,
If I can’t see it, it isn’t there.
“Stupid weenie,” I accidentally say out loud, and Noah elbows me in the side, hard.

Our neighbor, Mrs. Florio, called my dad for us and explained what had happened. We rode in silence in the back of Mrs. Florio’s rusty station wagon to the hospital where my dad would meet us.

“Do you think she’s going to be okay?” P.J. asked, his brown eyes scared and big, magnified through his glasses that were smudged with soot from the fire.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. The burns on our mother’s hands looked so bad, her hair on one side was burned away, her face was bright red and one ear was blistered and oozing. Before the smoke soaked into my clothes and hair, making me smell like a campfire, I could smell her skin burning, sweet and sharp at the same time. I swallowed hard, trying not to throw up.

“Do you think she’ll be able to come home tonight?” P.J. asked. “Do you think we’ll be able to go back home?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and pinched my nose, trying to squeeze the awful smell away.

“What will we do for clothes? Where will we sleep tonight? Oh, my gosh.” P.J. groaned. “My homework. Do you think my homework burned up? They make you pay for the books if you ruin them.”

“P.J., shut up!” I said angrily. “I don’t know any more than you do.” I scooted to the far side of the car and leaned my head out the window, gulping in big breaths of fresh air.

“You could get decapitated that way,” P.J. said snottily. “Not that you need your head.” He waited for me to ask why in the world I wouldn’t need my head, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction, and pushed my face farther out the window. “Because you don’t have a brain,” he finished proudly.

“Ha, ha,” I answered.

“Now, now, you two,” Mrs. Florio said with her thick Spanish accent. “You need to take care of each other. Not fight.” I loved the sound of Mrs. Florio’s voice. Sometimes I would lock myself in the bathroom and stand in front of the mirror and try to copy her deep voice, which came from far inside her throat like a cat’s purr. I imagined that I had her black, smooth, shiny hair instead of my own plain brown hair that just laid there. I’m not sure why we called her
Mrs.
She didn’t appear to have a husband but there were dangerous-looking boyfriends who roared up in front of her house and left early in the morning before the sun came up.

“Augie,” my father said, coming up to me and wrapping his big arms around me. I buried my face in his chest and breathed in. He smelled like he always did, like the thick leather belt he wore around his waist and his mediciney shaving cream. “Are you okay?” he asked, stepping back and looking me up and down. “What happened?”

“There was a fire and Mom got burned and the house smelled like smoke and Augie had to drag me out in my blanket, and the fire department came and an ambulance,” P.J. said all in one breath.

I watched my dad’s face carefully. He tried so hard when it came to P.J., but he couldn’t always hide whatever it was he felt about him…irritation, jealousy, hate. I don’t know. “Are you okay, P.J.?” my father asked in a nice voice, and I relaxed.

“I’m okay,” P.J. answered, looking up at him like he was God or something. “How are you?” I had to roll my eyes. He’s such a little old man. Before my dad could answer, an ancient-looking woman with short, poodle-permed gray hair and a white coat came over to us.

“I’m Dr. Ahern,” she introduced herself, shaking each of our hands, even P.J.’s. “You’re the family of Holly Baker?”

“Yes,” my father said. “Well, I’m Holly’s ex-husband, and these are her children, Augie and P.J.”

Dr. Ahern nodded in understanding. “The burns on Holly’s hands and arms appear to be quite severe. We’ve started an IV of antibiotics to prevent infection and we have her heavily sedated to keep her comfortable. The other burns, on her face and ear, appear to be less severe, but we will monitor her carefully.”

“Is she coming home tonight?” P.J. asked. His lower lip quivered and his eyes filled.

The doctor shook her head. “I’m sorry, your mother will be in the hospital for several days. The burn team will assess her injuries, but I imagine that she will be with us for a while.”

One fat tear rolled down P.J.’s face, leaving a dirty path down his cheek. He looked over at me. “Where will we go?” I was wondering the same thing and I looked over at my dad, who was doing his best to not look back.

“Can we go and see her?” I sniffed, trying to keep my own tears from falling. If it hadn’t been for my stupidity my mother wouldn’t even be in the hospital.

She shook her head no. “Not just yet. We’ll get her settled and have someone check in with you periodically. If you’d like to go and get cleaned up, you can leave your number at the nurses’ station and we can call you when you’ll be able to see her.”

P.J. and I both looked over at my dad. “I’ll take you over to the house and you can shower, and we’ll get you some clean clothes.” He pulled me close to him and it felt so good, but I couldn’t help but notice P.J. standing off on his own a bit. No hugs for him.

“P.J., too?” I asked.

“Of course,” my father said, as if it was a silly question, though I knew better.

Before I can tell Mr. Ellery that I need to go find my brother he slides off his desk. “Stay here,” he orders. “I’m going to look just outside the door.”

“I don’t think you should,” Beth says, scrambling to her feet and reaching out for his sleeve.

“It’s okay, Beth,” he tells her. “I’m just going to take a look out into the hall.” He walks over to the door and presses his face onto the window, rolling his forehead against the glass, first left, then right, trying to see down the long hallway.

He turns the knob and silently, slowly, opens the door, being careful not to let it squeak.

“Where are you going?” Beth says frantically. “You can’t
leave
us.”

“Shhh, Beth,” Mr. Ellery orders. “Go back and sit down.”

“No, don’t go out there,” Beth insists. I’m surprised at the panic in her voice. She is usually so calm and unbothered by anything.

I stand and go to her and pull at her elbow, trying to lead her away from Mr. Ellery. “Come on,” I say softly into her ear.

“What if he comes in here?” Beth asks in a wobbly voice. “What if he’s here to get me?”

“Who?” Mr. Ellery says, looking hard at Beth’s pale face. “Do you know anything about this?”

“She thinks it’s her dad.” I whisper so no one else can hear. “She thinks he’s coming to get her.”

Beth glares at me; her scared eyes have become hard and angry. There went my one friendship in Broken Branch. Gone, just like that.

I hear the faintest click as Mr. Ellery closes the door. He leads Beth away from the door, away from the other students to another corner of the room. I want to go with them, hoping to make it up to Beth, but Mr. Ellery gives a short shake of his head and I go back to my spot on the cold floor.

“What the hell is that all about?” Noah asks. I shrug and feel my face get hot when my stomach growls loudly. I wish I would have eaten something for breakfast, but
in true Augie fashion,
as my mom would say, I backed myself into a corner. I was mad at my grandpa and because he told me I should eat something before I got on the bus this morning, I told him I wasn’t hungry. Plus, I didn’t eat anything but a bag of chips at lunchtime. Now even though I’m scared and feel sick to my stomach, I am hungry.