One Breath Away (27 page)

Chapter 102:
Mrs. Oliver

M
rs. Oliver’s entire body felt battered. Her breath sent a spasm through her jaw and her injured hip pulsed with pain. But what hurt more was the realization that she failed to protect her students.

This horrid man, now holding a gun to P.J.’s head, obviously had no intention of leaving this room alive and didn’t appear to care who he ended up taking with him. She wished she had one more opportunity to talk with her children and with Cal. She wanted them to know how happy her life had been, how loved she felt. She wanted her children to know that even though she had a room at home filled with artifacts from her life as a teacher—photos, homemade ornaments, carefully worded letters and meticulously drawn pictures by her students over her forty-year teaching career—what she prized most was her children’s love.

Deliberately, painfully, she slid her hand across the floor until one fingertip grazed the cool metal of the MegaSnap stapler.

Chapter 103:
Augie

I
feel around the closet for a light switch but all my hands find are stacks of construction paper and baskets that are filled with markers and crayons. A shiver travels down my back and I reach behind my neck to knock away what I’m sure is a spider when my fingers graze a string hanging from the ceiling. I pull the string and a lightbulb pops on. Lucy covers her eyes with her hands at the brightness. I look around the closet trying to find something that will help us get out of here but there is nothing.

The voices in the classroom are getting louder and louder. “This is all your fucking fault!” the man shouts. “My job, my wife, my kids, all gone!”

I can’t understand what the woman is saying, but it must have made the man furious because he yells, “One by one, Meg, and it will be all your fault!”

“What does he mean?” the girl asks me. “What’s he going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. But what I do know and don’t say out loud is if the man opens this closet door, there is nowhere for us to run. I look above me and see a large vent. I look back at Lucy. “I think I have an idea,” I say.

Chapter 104:
Will

W
hen Will pulled into the school parking lot, everything was so still and quiet he thought for a moment that everyone had gone home, that the standoff was over. As he drew closer, he could see that the police were still very much present, as were the ambulances, their vehicles glazed over with snow. Will pulled up next to the RV and, still holding the newspaper, got out of his truck and pounded on the RV’s door. No answer. Will looked back at the school. The parking lot was eerily quiet and void of movement. Only the telltale wisps of exhaust from the ambulance tailpipes gave any indication that someone was inside.

Something had to be happening inside the school. Will reached back into his truck, retrieved his shotgun and jogged to the front entrance of the school. Locked. He made his way around the perimeter of the school, trying doors, all locked, until he came to a first-floor window whose screen had been kicked out. He carefully set the gun on the windowsill and with shaky arms tried to hoist himself up onto the low sill and pull himself inside. His boot slipped on the slick brick and he couldn’t find his footing. He was just about to try again when he heard the chilling click of a gun being cocked.

Chapter 105:
Meg

“S
tuart,” I say in a low voice, trying to placate him. “I can see you’re upset. But please, please, don’t take it out on these kids and their teacher. Let them go.”

“You know they are going to take the Pritchard-Say away from me? I’ll have to pay back the hundred thousand dollars.” He shakes his head. “I don’t have the money anymore. I spent it on a goddamn house for my wife.”

“Stuart, please…”

“I had hoped Maria would have been here today,” Stuart says bitterly. “I knew that if Maria was here, you would come right away.”

My heart clenches at the mention of Maria’s name. “I still came, though,” I say in a small voice. “See, I’m here.” I’m hoping that our meager tac team is in place, already moving this way.

“Yes, but if Maria was here and I had a gun to her head, what would you do, Meg?” Stuart asks.

I look at Stuart in disbelief, but choose my words carefully. “I would do just what I’m doing right now, Stuart, try to talk with you, try and help you,” I say when what I want to say is,
If you had a gun to my daughter’s head I would blow your fucking head off, you crazy son of a bitch.

Stuart snorts and shakes his head. “No, you wouldn’t, Meg.” He taps the barrel of the gun on the top of P.J.’s head.

“If you shoot him, you will go to prison for the rest of your life,” I say. “Kid killers aren’t real popular in prison, Stuart.”

“You and I both know I’m not coming out of here alive, Meg. The only good thing that will come out of it is that you get to live with the knowledge that the death of these kids and their teacher is all because of you.” The magnitude of what Stuart is saying crashes down on me. He lured me here. He lured me into this classroom, would kill as many of the hostages as he could before I could get to my weapon.

“Why?” I say again helplessly, all the while trying to think of a way to take him out before he got his first shot off.

“Because I can,” he answers coldly.

Chapter 106:
Augie

I
climb up to the vent near the ceiling using the shelves screwed into the closet walls as stair steps. “Hand me a pair of scissors,” I tell Lucy, and she digs through a box on one of the shelves until she finds one and passes it up to me. I’m trying to unscrew one of the four bolts that hold the cover on the vent when I hear the man say something about killing the kids and I drop the scissors to the ground. Lucy quickly picks them up and hands them back to me.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“We’re going to hide you in there,” I tell her. She looks at me doubtfully. “Listen, if he opens up that door and is pointing a gun, you’re going to want to be up here.” She nods and I start unscrewing the bolt again with the scissor tip. The bolts loosen more easily than I thought they would and in just a few minutes I have all four unscrewed. “I’m going to pull the cover off the vent and hand it to you. You think you can grab it from me?” I ask.

She nods and I hand her the vent cover. “Climb up here with me, Lucy.” She looks at me doubtfully but carefully uses each shelf as a stepping-stone until she is standing next to me. “I’ll give you a boost in and, whatever you do, don’t come out until I tell you to.”

“You’re not coming in, too?” she asks. “Please come with me,” she begs.

“We both won’t fit,” I tell her. “You’ll be safe, I promise. He won’t waste time looking up here for you.” Lucy gives me a long, sad look, but does as I ask and pulls herself into the dark, dusty vent until I can only see the bottom of her tennis shoes. “I won’t put the cover on, Lucy. I’ll just move this stack of papers in front so he won’t see you, okay?”

“Okay,” comes her scared voice.

“Remember, stay put until you know it’s safe.” I push a pile of colorful construction paper in front of the open vent. I climb down, trying to listen to what is going on in the classroom. It’s quiet. Too quiet. Somehow I have to get to P.J. I twist the knob and throw my body against the door and the chair moves just a bit.

From above me in the vent, Lucy is calling, “What’s happening?”

“It’s okay, don’t worry,” I tell her, lying flat on the floor to peek beneath the narrow opening at the bottom. I can’t really see anything, just the chair legs. I look around the closet. There has to be something I can use to get out of here. In the corner I see a long, thin, wooden meter stick and grab it. Sliding the stick beneath the door, I try to shove it against one of the chair legs. The chair slides forward, just a little bit, away from the door. I do the same to the other leg and it moves, just a centimeter. Using the stick and going back and forth I shove at the legs until I see the chair nearly tip over but then land upright, just a few inches away from the door. Carefully I try the knob; it turns and the door bumps into the chair, but it isn’t blocked anymore. All I have to do is push it all the way open and I’ll be out of the closet and back in the classroom with P.J.

Chapter 107:
Will

“D
on’t move,” came the voice from behind Will. “Drop the gun, put your hands over your head and turn around slowly.”

“I’m just trying to find my grandkids,” Will explained, but he did as he was told.

“Jesus,” the officer said once he could clearly see Will’s face. “Mr. Thwaite, what the hell are you doing?” It was Kevin Jarrow, one of the part-time officers on the Broken Branch police force. Will went to lower his hands but Jarrow kept his gun aimed at him. “Keep your hands up,” he ordered.

“I’m just trying to find P.J. and Augie,” Will tried to explain. “Augie called my daughter from inside of the school. She heard a gun go off.” Will looked at Jarrow imploringly. “I couldn’t stand it—I had to find out what was going on.”

“That’s exactly what we’re trying to do and we don’t need any interference. Jesus, I could have shot you.” Jarrow bent over and picked up Will’s shotgun from the ground, emptied the barrel of bullets and dropped them into his pocket.

“Really, Kevin, I meant no harm. But I have to get my grandchildren out of that school,” Will said, allowing Officer Jarrow to pat him down. Satisfied that he didn’t have any other weapons, Jarrow led him back to a squad car, settled him into the backseat and told him to stay put. “I don’t want to cuff you, Mr. Thwaite, but I will. I need to focus my attention on the school and can’t waste my time babysitting you, got it?” he said severely.

Will nodded miserably. “I’m sorry.”

Jarrow softened his voice. “Just stay out of trouble. We’re doing all we can to get everyone out of the school safely.” He soundly shut the car door and left Will sitting alone, helplessly trying to look out windows that were thickly covered with snow, blocking his view of the school.

Will’s phone vibrated. Seeing that it was Marlys, he was tempted to ignore the call, but knew that he couldn’t do that to his wife. She was just as scared and starved for news as he was. He just didn’t know how he was going to tell her that he had nearly been arrested for trying to break into the school with a shotgun and had no information on her grandchildren. “Hello,” he said, trying to infuse confidence into his voice.

“Dad?” came a tearful voice, and Will’s stomach plummeted. “Please tell me Augie and P.J. are okay.”

Chapter 108:
Mrs. Oliver

M
rs. Oliver pulled the heavy stapler slowly toward her, its heft a comfort beneath her hand. This was her last chance, she figured. If she could distract him just for a second, she knew that Officer Barrett would be able to reach her gun and put an end to this terrible day, maybe even put an end to this terrible man.

With difficulty Mrs. Oliver raised herself first on her elbows, then her knees. Her first thought was to swing the stapler as hard as she could to knock the gun from his hand, but she wasn’t sure she had the strength to disarm him.

“Stuart,” Officer Barrett pleaded, “let P.J. go. You don’t have to kill innocent people to get what you want. You want to commit suicide? Just point the gun at your own head. You don’t need me to shoot you.”

It happened so quickly, Mrs. Oliver didn’t even have time to flinch. The man turned and without hesitation pulled the trigger. The stapler dropped from her fingers and she was thrown backward from the impact. Sprawled out on her back, Mrs. Oliver looked down curiously at her hand, which had suddenly become useless, and at the stream of blood pumping from her arm. Just as quickly, the man turned away from her and aimed the gun at P.J.’s head. “No,” she tried to shout, but her mouth had finally stopped working, her unhinged jaw frozen in place. She closed her eyes against the impending gunshot. She was so sorry and her only comfort was that she would be there, in death, to guide the children into the light or wherever it was they were going to go.

The sound wasn’t as loud as she thought it would be, but muffled and far-off sounding. She hoped, rather absurdly, that maybe this meant that the gunshot wouldn’t have hurt so much for P.J. as it did for her.

Chapter 109:
Augie

I
trip as I push open the door and as I’m falling I see the man holding a gun to P.J.’s head. I try to call out to him, but my voice catches in my throat as I fall to the floor. I hear Lucy’s screams echoing from out of the vent. The man turns and points the gun toward me and I see the surprise on his face. I cover my head with my hands and the sound of another gunshot explodes in my ears. Suddenly I can’t seem to hear anything but the ringing in my ears and when I dare to look around for P.J. all I can see is blood everywhere.

Chapter 110:
Holly

I
’ve calmed down enough for the nurses to leave me alone and I finally convinced my mother to give me her phone. “Dad?” I say again, and at his silence I know things are anything but okay. “Please,” I beg.

My father clears his voice before speaking. “I don’t know anything else, Holly. I’ve tried to find out exactly what’s going on, but no one’s telling me anything. I’m so sorry.” I crumple as his voice cracks.

There are no words spoken as we both cry for a minute. I don’t think I’ve ever heard my father cry before, never heard him sound so helpless. “Tell me about them,” I finally whisper. “Tell me what I’ve missed.”

My father sniffles a few times and when he speaks his voice is thick and filled with emotion. “Oh, Hol, you’ve got the best kids,” he begins, and I lean back into my pillow and nod into the phone as he talks. Yes, I do, I think. I really do.

Chapter 111:
Meg

T
he second that Stuart turns away from me, I reach into my holster to pull out my Glock. I see Maria’s teacher fly backward as a bullet rips through her shoulder. By the time Stuart turns back toward P.J., I’m shouting for the kids to get down and P.J. instantly drops to the floor and scurries behind the teacher’s desk. A noise comes from behind Stuart and for a brief instant Stuart pauses; his head turns toward the sound and Augie Baker stumbles from the closet. Stuart has the girl in his crosshairs and without hesitation we both take aim and pull our triggers.