She turned away from the relative safety of the wall and started to crawl toward Rick. Bullets swept the tile a few feet in front of her, so close that she felt bits of it sting her legs. They drove her back to the wall, but as she had realized before, there was literally nowhere to go.
Justin was still advancing, but he was no longer concentrating on the deputy. And no longer firing, since it must be clear by now that she was unarmed. He held the weapon nonchalantly. Confident of his control.
“Don’t do this, Justin. Don’t make it worse.”
She hated the pleading note in her voice. Hated that she’d been so wrong about him. Hated that she’d been lied to and lied to and had bought into all of them.
“Act Three. Like in Shakespeare. Who do you think will be left alive, Ms. Sloan? Who’s the ranking character? Who’s going to be around to restore order when this is over? You?”
“This isn’t a play.”
“It’s all a play, Ms. Sloan. You know that. The old king is dead. Long live the king.”
Some infinitesimal shift in the posture of his body warned her he was about to apply the pressure needed to send another burst of bullets from the muzzle of the powerful weapon he’d used to shoot Rick. And this time she would be the target.
Her eyes left his, looking beyond his thin body, now silhouetted against the wall of glass at the front of the school. Through the still-hazy air of the lobby she could see the flashing lights of the cruisers parked beyond the entrance. And then she focused on another figure, this one also outlined by the sunlight coming through the glass doors behind it.
Jace. No longer carrying the explosive on his outstretched hands. Instead both were wrapped around his weapon, knees once more bent, arms extended.
She would never know if she’d made some sound. A gasp or an intake of breath. Or had her eyes betrayed what she saw?
Justin turned, bringing the gun around with him. His finger must have tightened over its trigger before he had even identified the threat. An arc of bullets shattered the glass of the office, including the blood-smeared panel in the door, tracing an unmistakable pattern. One leading directly to the man now standing in front of the outside entrance.
J
ace blocked the image of Lindsey crouched on the floor from his mind, concentrating on his target. To his right, glass shattered as the boy began to swing around to face him.
His movement narrowed the kill zone by changing the angle of Justin’s body in relation to Jace’s stance. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to hit his torso, presented now in profile like some nineteenth-century dueler. And if Jace missed, his shot could strike Lindsey, directly behind Carr.
There was no time to yell at her to get out of the way. Nor would she hear him over the noise of the automatic weapon and the growing symphony of sirens outside.
In that terrible split second’s realization, Jace knew that all he could do was to wait until Justin completed his turn, unwittingly positioning himself again so that his body would shield Lindsey from Jace’s bullet.
As he waited for that to happen, time telescoped so that it seemed as if the boy were moving in slow motion. As did the path of destruction wrought by the assault weapon he brought around with him. Jace tracked its progress strictly by sound, listening as bullets impacted the glass wall of the front office and then swept ever nearer to where he stood.
Carr’s turn occupied a heartbeat. Maybe two. Yet in that span a thousand images invaded Jace’s mind. The weeks he’d spent in the hospital after he’d been shot. The endless pain and, far worse, the resulting disability. The loss of control over his life. The long rehabilitation, undertaken in a failed attempt to get his job back. And then, finally, the decision to start over. To flee to a place where there were no ghosts. No echoes from a past he’d rather not remember.
He’d come here, a place as foreign to him as another country. And yet somehow he’d come full circle. To this moment. This wait.
As the heartbeat thundered in his head, memories began to speed like the shifting patterns in a kaleidoscope. Meeting Lindsey. The nights they’d spent together. The resurgence of all the fears he thought he’d left behind.
As the kid’s shoulders began to square, aligning for the shot Jace had to make, he fought the almost irresistible need to take his eyes off his target for one more look at Lindsey. Her face still stained with tears. Her eyes telling him far more than the words she had whispered.
But time had returned to those normal split seconds. All you were ever allowed in which to make the decisions that really mattered.
To squeeze off the shot that would end Justin Carr’s worthless existence.
If he failed in that, there were a dozen deputies outside prepared to do it. They’d take care of the boy if he didn’t. Eventually. What Jace had to do was take care of him now, before he could turn around and gun down Lindsey as he’d gunned down how many others today.
Now.
The command of his brain had been coldly rational, calm even, despite the stakes. Jace’s finger closed over the trigger. Fragments of plaster and shards of tile from the wall to his right hit the side of his unprotected face and neck.
He saw the boy’s body jerk in response to his shot before his mind relayed the information that he had exerted the necessary pressure. He continued to squeeze off rounds, watching the impact of each as they struck Carr’s body.
After the third, Justin’s knees buckled. The lean of his body changed the trajectory of his bullets. Instead of striking the wall, they gouged chunks of tile from the floor before ricocheting off into a dozen different directions.
Please, sweet Jesus,
Jace prayed. Not for himself, but for the woman crouching on the other side of the vast, echoing lobby. He couldn’t bear it if they had come this far only to have her hit by one of those distorted slugs. Or more cruelly, by a piece of flying debris. He’d seen men die from one of those same pointless ironies in this kind of shoot-out.
Jace pumped one more round into the falling boy, watching as first the weapon and then his body stuck the floor. Arms outstretched above his head, Justin didn’t move again, although Jace waited a long time, long enough that the fog of smoke and shattered plaster began to clear and the echoes of gunfire fade.
At last his gaze lifted from the boy’s lifeless body to find Lindsey. She was still hunched against the wall, arms over her head. His eyes traced over her, searching for a telltale stain of red. When he didn’t find it, he began to breathe—once and then again—until the familiar pattern was reestablished.
He became aware of the shouting behind him. The doors opened and men rushed past, the soles of their shoes crunching over the debris field of the lobby. One of them stooped down over the body of the boy, but Jace walked past them, his weapon extended as if the threat still existed.
Intellectually, he knew it didn’t. Not from Carr. He’d put too many shots into the area that would have been outlined in black on a shooting range target. In Jace’s mind that’s all he’d done—put his shots into that vulnerable area of the human body, the one that contained the vital organs.
Kill zone.
Using the wall behind her for support, Lindsey struggled to her feet as he approached. He allowed his left hand to release its grip from under the right and then let both of them fall, finally lowering the Glock.
Lindsey closed the last few feet between them, throwing herself into his arms. His left encircled her, crushing her to him. Only with the warmth of her body did the ice that had encased his heart begin to thaw.
She was alive. And she was safe.
Jace was again aware of the sounds that swirled around them. Squad cars and emergency vehicles continued to arrive out front, the scream of their sirens blending with the shouts of the men already pouring into the building. Half a dozen, weapons drawn, rushed through the lobby toward the lunchroom.
You aren’t in charge of this operation,
Jace told himself. The deputies knew there were probably other explosives in addition to the one he’d carried outside.
Whatever the plans for the assault had originally involved, the ringleaders were dead. He had no doubt that Justin Carr and Steven Byrd had been the driving force behind this and everything else that had happened in Randolph. The evil genius he’d long suspected and discovered too late.
Their reign of terror would be over with the rescue the SWAT team was mounting. All that was left for him to do was take Lindsey outside. Walk with her into the sunshine. Away from the blood and the bodies and this place, which for her, as Seneca had been for him, would never again be the same. Whether she could come back here or not was something only Lindsey could decide and that might take a while. In the meantime…
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Where, Jace? Where do we ever go from here?”
“Right now, outside. Eventually…Eventually we go home.”
Whether that was something they’d do together was one more thing only Lindsey knew the answer to. And all he could do was wait for her to figure it out.
“Most of what we know came from the Phillips girl, who on the advice of her lawyer is being very cooperative. She’s got nothing to lose and maybe leniency, given her age, to gain.”
Jace had had one of the deputies take Lindsey to her parents’ house while he’d stayed behind at the school to put together the timeline and motivations for today’s attack. Apparently his role had included interviewing those who’d been involved in the lunchroom standoff, including Jean Phillips. Although it was almost four, he’d told her this was the first chance he’d had to call.
Jace had already given her the death toll. Each victim someone she’d known. Someone she’d interacted with every day.
One of the assistant principals, Lucas Colbert, who’d been unlucky enough to encounter Justin as he was bringing his “project” into the vocational wing of the building, had died from a single shot from Colonel Carr’s Beretta. Melanie Perrin, the registrar, who’d entered the office through its back door, had been killed as she’d unlocked its front. The two deputies who’d responded to the call from the maintenance man had been gunned down as they’d entered the building. Other than Steven and Justin, only one student, Mary DeWitt, had died.
Colbert’s intervention had put the timetable of the attack off track. Most of the students the three had targeted hadn’t even arrived at the school before it was all over. Those names, according to Jace, included kids prominent in school society—popular, involved, attractive. Many of them were among Lindsey’s students.
“What could those students have possibly done to them to justify the kind of rampage they planned?” Lindsey questioned. Renee’s inclusion was especially hard for her to understand, given the girl’s innate kindness.
“Some perceived slight. Simple jealousy. But in most school shootings, no matter the targets, the ultimate victims hinge primarily on opportunity. Mary DeWitt was the unfortunate exception.”
“I thought there was some kind of budding romance there. Between her and Steven.”
“Byrd did, too. The Phillips girl says Mary had rebuffed his attentions, so he put her on the list the three of them composed over the weekend. He knew she got to school early. He was waiting for her when she got out of her car.”
“And he shot her?” The first shots she’d heard occurred after Steven came into her room, but maybe in the parking lot—
“He stabbed her, pushed her body back into the car, and locked it. Then he came into the school to wait for Justin. We didn’t find Mary until we were clearing the lot.”
Then Steven had killed Mary before he’d come to her room. The barrier she’d worried about had already been broken.
“Steven said he wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life in jail. That they were going out in a blaze of glory. What changed? Was it because you talked to Justin again?”
“It started to unravel when they killed David Campbell. To give them credit, they were smart enough to know that.”
“Then why
do
it?”
“We think he surprised them inside Shannon’s house. There’s precedent for that, remember.”
The snake in her hamper. Lindsey wondered briefly what they’d planned to do at Shannon’s. Another warning? Or had the drug they’d brought with them been intended for the counselor?
“Do you think that what they did to Dave they intended to do to her? Because Justin knew she saw through his act?”
“Jean says she wasn’t involved in Campbell’s murder. She may not have been. Like the others, her parents apparently kept her on a tight leash. We’re trying to determine if Steven’s mother was working that night.”
“You think he’s the one who broke into my place?”
What role had his supposed crush on her played into that? Or any of this? Assuming, of course, Justin had been telling the truth. It was clear he’d been trying to divert attention from himself and willing to throw Steven to the dogs to do it.
“Probably. According to the coroner, the drug he believes was used on Campbell is a staple in hospitals.”
“And Steven’s mother is a nurse.”
“That’s
not
reflected on his permanent record, by the way.”
“She probably wasn’t working when he provided the information. They do that at the start of their sophomore year. Steven’s dad walked out on them sometime around that time, and she was forced to go back to work.” Although emergency contact cards were updated at the first of school, other than posting grades and disciplinary actions, the permanent records weren’t. “But…she wouldn’t have stolen drugs for them, believe me.”
“Steven’s been doing some volunteering there. He was familiar with the medication system. And we’ve verified his mom had keys to the cabinets, based on her position.”
“For the community service component of his scholarship applications,” Lindsey spoke her realization aloud.
“What?”
“That’s why he volunteered at the hospital. Scholarship committees want someone who’s well-rounded. For kids who aren’t athletic, and Steven wasn’t, the other things they look at can become more important. His mother probably helped him get the position.”
“I haven’t talked to her yet, but I will. And to Carr. I understand he’s concerned now that someone might sue because his guns were used. He’s called the sheriff twice to detail his security arrangements, but he has yet to say he’s sorry for his son’s actions or take responsibility for them. Or the weapons.”
“My bet is he won’t. I’m sure that in his book he did everything he was supposed to. We’ll be the ones to blame. Justin was bullied or belittled or misunderstood. We failed to protect him until his only option was to strike back.” Lindsey made no attempt to hide her bitterness. She’d heard that, or some variation on the theme, too many times before.
“With the church fires as a prelude, he’ll have a hard time making that case. Justin liked to demonstrate how much smarter he was than everyone else. Who do you think he learned that from?”
Jace was right. That sense of superiority had been taught at home in innocuous doses like the “survival of the fittest” comment. Shannon had been right in thinking it was significant.
And once more she’d been wrong. Tragically wrong.
“And Andrea? Tim? Was that what they were doing when they targeted them? Trying to prove how brilliant they were?”
“In a way. And it seemed foolproof. No one would know where those rumors had originated. If they didn’t work, they’d lost nothing but a little time. If they succeeded, they couldn’t be blamed for that success. And it would have been a good substitute for the rush they’d gotten from the fires.”
“Two for two. Were they really that smart?”
“Jean knew about Andrea’s depression. Even the cutting. They went to church together and had been close at one time. When their friendship fell apart, she was able to use what she knew to do the damage. Apparently she even suggested the youth minister at their church talk to Andrea about her promiscuity. All out of concern for her friend’s soul, of course.”
It was exactly as Jace had characterized it. Diabolical.
“And Tim?” According to Walt, no one had known about his son’s secret. They both had felt there was no one in this community who could be trusted to keep it.