The phone rang three times before she picked up. “Hello?”
“Abby, it’s me.”
“John?” She hesitated. “Aren’t you supposed to be on the bus?”
“Yeah. Hey, real quick. Don’t go to the game tonight.”
There was another pause and John prayed she’d understand. He didn’t have enough time to go into lengthy details. She finally recovered. “Why not?”
“A threat came into the office today. Something about the game.” John steadied himself against the office desk. “The police think it’s a hoax, but you never know . . . I don’t want you there. Just in case.”
“Was it Nathan Pike?”
“They’re not sure. It might be.” He glanced at his watch. “Look, I gotta run. Just know that I love you. And please . . . don’t come to the game.”
“But John—”
“Don’t come, Abby. I gotta go.”
“Okay.” There was concern in Abby’s voice. “I won’t. I love you, too.”
“See you in a few hours.”
“Wait . . .” She hesitated. “Be careful, John.”
“I will.”
He hung up and jogged to the bus. He was the last one on. The ride to North County took fifteen minutes, and though the team was in high spirits, John stared out the window at the countryside wondering how it had come to this. He hadn’t told Abby all the details. They would have terrified her.
Apparently the phone call came into the office about one o’clock that afternoon. A raspy voice told the school secretary that a suicide bomber would be in attendance at that night’s game.
“It’s gonna be big, lady.” The caller had chuckled. “Ya hear me.”
The secretary motioned for the principal to pick up the line, but he was busy talking with a parent at the front counter. “Who . . . who is this?”
“Right!” The caller laughed again. “You’ll know soon enough. Just tell Coach it’s too late to help me now. Tonight’s the big night.”
“If this is a prank, you better say so.” The secretary scrambled for a piece of paper and a pen. “It’s a felony to make these kinds of threats.”
“This is no threat, lady. People are going to die tonight. You heard it here first.”
Then he hung up.
Pale and shaken, the secretary pulled the principal into a private office and told him what happened. Police were on campus asking questions within fifteen minutes. Had anyone made death threats at the school before? How were such incidents handled? Did anyone have knowledge of a student with access to explosives? Where was that night’s game being held? And how many entrances to the place were there? Did anyone have something against the football team?
Time and again the answers pointed to Nathan Pike, but there wasn’t a thing the police could do. They couldn’t even talk to the boy about the phone call.
Nathan Pike was out sick that day.
Determined to question him, police had gone to Nathan’s house. Apparently his mother had answered the door, a bewildered look on her face. Her son was at school as far as she knew. She hadn’t seen him since that morning.
All of it turned John’s stomach. Okay, so police would be at the game, posted at every entrance and scattered throughout the crowd. What good would that do? Suicide bombers didn’t advertise. They merely walked into a crowded setting and blew themselves and everyone around them to the moon. By the time the police spotted Nathan Pike, he’d be just another body in a line of corpses.
It was no comfort that John and the team were a safe distance from the stands out on the field. Hundreds of teens would be at the game that night. Thousands, even. If a bomb went off amid that crowd—
John couldn’t bring himself to think about it. Of course the person could wait until after the game when the stands emptied onto the field. Then there’d be nothing the police could do to stop a kid from—
“Coach?”
His fears dissipated as he turned around. It was Jake Daniels.
The boy had been one of the bright spots in the past few weeks. He’d let up quite a bit on Nathan. Three times he’d even stopped in to talk to John about the pressures of high school and his concerns for his mother. Apparently she was furious with his father. The two fought whenever they were forced to talk, and Jake felt caught in the middle. Jake always seemed more relaxed after a half hour of sharing life with John.
This was why John still coached, to help young men like Jake. And since they’d started talking again, Jake seemed happier, more at ease. Less likely to join in with Casey Parker and the others who thought they ran the school.
John had even wondered if that’s why they were doing better on the field. There was no question Jake’s numbers had led them to their recent victories. Now, though, Jake looked troubled.
John managed a smile. “Hey, Jake.”
“Uh—” the boy glanced around as though he wanted to make sure no one saw the two of them talking—“can I sit here for a minute?”
“Sure.” John slid over. “What’s on your mind?”
“There’s a rumor going around that . . . well, that Nathan Pike’s going to shoot people at the game tonight.”
John held his breath. If the media ever had to compete with teenagers for getting a news flash to the public, the teenagers would win every time. He exhaled hard. “A threat came into the office. Yes. Police have checked it out. They’re not worried about it.”
“Serious? There was really a threat?” Jake’s eyes grew wide. “Coach, what if the police are wrong? Nathan Pike’s a freak; don’t they know that?”
“The police are aware of Nathan.” John worked to appear calm, but inside he was as anxious as Jake. What business did they have showing up at a game where there were threats of murder and mayhem? What football game could ever be that important?
“So no one’s doing anything about it?”
“The police’ll be at the game.”
“Yeah, but that won’t stop him. I mean, what if he doesn’t care about dying?”
“The police are pretty sure it’s not a serious threat, Jake. If it was, they’d call off the game.”
“I doubt it.” Jake held his helmet in his lap and now he hugged it to his middle. “All everyone cares about is winning this game. You know, so we can go to districts.”
Jake was closer to the truth than he knew. “You have a point.”
“Coach—” Jake lifted his eyes to John’s, but only briefly—“I know who’s writing the letters.”
“Letters?”
“Yeah, the ones that talk about getting you fired.”
John’s heart sank. It was enough that
he
knew about the angry swarm of parental protests against him without his players knowing. Especially kids like Jake, who had always looked up to John. He wanted to know what the boy knew, but he wouldn’t ask. He patted Jake on the knee. “A coach will always have his critics.”
“Casey Parker was talking in the locker room the other day. He said his dad had it out for you, bad. They’ve had meetings.”
“His dad and him?”
“His dad and some other parents. At first the other people didn’t want to come but . . . well, after we lost. More people came. They’ve talked to Mr. Lutz.”
“That’s their right, I guess.” John worked his mouth into a smile. “All I can do is my best.”
“You’re not leaving, though, are you?” Jake’s eyes were wide, and John wished he could say something to encourage the boy. “I mean, you won’t quit on us, will you? I still have one more year.”
“I’d love to be here next year, Jake.”
“So you will, right?”
“We’ll see.” John didn’t want to share too much information, but he didn’t want to lie either. The odds of him coaching another season at Marion High were growing slimmer all the time.
“You mean you might quit?”
John sighed. “I might not have to quit if Mr. Lutz fires me first.”
“He won’t fire you! Look at everything you’ve done for football at Marion High.”
“People don’t see it that way. They see their sons not getting playing time, the team not winning enough games. If you get the wrong parent upset with you, well . . . sometimes there’s nothing anyone can do.”
John refrained from saying anything more about Herman Lutz. It wasn’t his place to undermine the man’s authority in front of a student. But ultimately John’s professional fate lay in Lutz’s hands, and he was notorious for letting parents have their way. If Casey Parker’s father wanted him out, Lutz would likely oblige.
If John didn’t quit first.
“If it matters any, Coach, I’ll win the game big for you tonight.”
John smiled. If only it were that simple. “Thanks, Jake. That means a lot.”
Jake fiddled with the chin strap on his helmet. “What can I do about Nathan Pike and the whole threat thing?”
“Pray about it.”
Jake’s eyes grew wide and his mouth hung open for a moment. “Me?”
“Not just you—the whole team.” John lowered his brow but kept his eyes on Jake’s. “You guys haven’t exactly been kind to Nathan this year. The threat isn’t a surprise, really.”
Jake swallowed hard and stared at the seat in front of him. “So you want me to pray with the guys about it?”
“You asked.”
For a moment, Jake was quiet. “Coach, I think he’s jealous of my car.”
“The Integra?”
“Yeah. A few days after I got it, I saw Nathan’s mom drop him off at school. She has this, like, beat-up old station wagon with a dent on the side. Right then he looked at my car and then at me. Usually he looks at me like he hates me, but that time it was more like he wanted to
be
me. Like he would’ve given anything to trade places with me.”
“Is that why you’ve let up on him these past few weeks?”
Jake nodded. “It wasn’t right. I was such a jerk before.”
“You were.”
“But now . . . what if it’s too late? What if he really does do something?” John searched the boy’s eyes. “I told you what I’d do.”
“Okay, Coach.” Jake tightened his grip on the helmet. “We’ll pray. I’ll make it happen.”
Nothing in the world could have kept Abby from the game that night.
Yes, John would be upset with her. She’d have to deal with that later. But if someone was going to harm students or players or even her husband, Abby wanted to be there. What if there was something she could do, a student she could help, or a life she could save? What if it was the last time she saw her husband alive?
These thoughts went through her head in an instant, the moment John told her what had happened at school that day. He was late for the bus, so she couldn’t argue with him. But there was no way she was staying home.
She filed into the stands and took her place at the far end, near parents from the other school. Bomb threat or not, she didn’t enjoy sitting with the parents of John’s players. Not this year, at least. Rarely ever, in fact. It simply didn’t work to be involved that way.
After John took the job at Marion High, Abby had reveled in her role as the head coach’s wife. She had the idyllic sense that she would sit with the parents, chat with them, befriend them. And at first, she did just that. Those were the years when she invited parents over for Thanksgiving dinner and Saturday night socials.
“Be careful, Abby,” John would warn her. “You think they’re your friends now, but wait and see. Sometimes people have an agenda.”
Abby had hated his insinuation that the wonderful people she sat with at games were merely being kind to get their sons in good with Coach Reynolds. She disagreed with him time and again, insisting that people weren’t that shallow; football wasn’t that important.
But in the end John had been completely right.
One couple—people who were Christians and had shared many meals with the Reynolds—was the first in the office complaining about John’s coaching when their son didn’t get enough playing time. Other parents turned out to be phony as well, talking about Abby behind her back and then presenting big smiles and happy hellos when she came around.
They weren’t all that way, of course, but she’d learned her lesson about players’ parents, and she no longer took chances. For years now she sat by herself or with one of the other coachs’ wives.
Tonight, though, she had no intention of sitting with anyone. She would camp out in the far side of the stands and watch. Not the game, but the stands, searching the students for any sign of unusual behavior, any sign of Nathan Pike. She had seen Nathan enough times on campus to recognize him. Of course, Nathan and his cronies were easy to spot, dressed as they were in black clothes and spiked collars. Tonight Abby wanted to be the first to notice them, the first to recognize any indication that one of them might be about to blow the stadium to pieces.
The minutes ticked off the clock and halftime came, all without incident. Police were stationed throughout the stadium, some—Abby guessed—in plain clothes. But so far the most remarkable thing that had happened all game was Jake Daniels’s five touchdown passes. Abby was fairly certain that was a league record. Kade had been one of the best quarterbacks to come out of that area, and he’d never come close to throwing five TDs in one half.
The second half was uneventful as well. Jake was pulled in the third quarter and replaced by Casey Parker, who had two passes intercepted. Despite that, the Eagles went on to win by thirty points. As the final buzzer sounded, the crowd spilled onto the field, embracing the Eagles as though it hadn’t been a season wrought with controversy and parental complaints.
What did it matter now? The Eagles were going to districts.
Abby stood and made her way down to the field.
Where is he, Lord? Where’s Nathan Pike? If he’s here, please, Father, show me.
She scanned the crowd . . . and then hesitated. Had something moved along the far fence of the stadium? Cornfields surrounded the huge structure on three sides. A parking lot was on the fourth side.
Abby stared, eyes narrowed . . . Yes. There amid the tall corn . . . Abby could swear she saw movement.
Taking the stairs in an almost trancelike manner, Abby walked along the bleachers, drawing closer to the place where John and his players were receiving congratulations from hundreds of students and the entire marching band. The whole time she kept her eyes locked on the place in the cornfield.
Suddenly a figure emerged—a figure dressed in black.
Before Abby could do anything—before she could get close enough to be heard by John and the others, to run or duck or grab a police officer—the figure slipped through a hole in the fence and jogged through the crowd toward her husband.