One Breath Away Read online

  “Stay here, girls,” he told Beth and Natalie. “Your grandma will be here soon.” He moved across the sticky floor and met Officer Braun in the center of the restaurant, unclenched his fingers from the newspaper and tried to smooth away the creases as he showed it to the officer.

  “This is the man,” Will said hoarsely, pointing to the crumpled photograph.

  “Who is he?” Braun asked, furrowing his brow.

  “I have no idea,” Will answered. “But I’m going to find out.”

  Chapter 97:

  Holly

  I try to pull myself from the fog of morphine that a nurse has injected into my IV. “Shhh, now,” I hear her say. “Calm down, Holly, if you’re not careful you’ll tear your skin grafts. You don’t want to go through all that again, do you? You’ve come so far.”

  I slap weakly at her hands, trying to push her away from me, trying to get out of the bed, to get to my children. I should never have let them go so far away from me. I want to grab Augie and shake her and tell her that accidents happen, that I didn’t blame her for the fire, for my injuries, that I’m only grateful that she and P.J. were not hurt. My head feels light and my mother’s face comes into my field of vision. “Mama,” I say, something I haven’t called her since I was five.

  “I know,” she says, chin trembling. “I know.”

  Chapter 98:

  Augie

  After we hear the shots, the little girl in the closet with me pounds on the door with her fists and then slams herself up against it, trying to get it open. “Shhh,” I tell her. “It’s going to be okay.” But I know it won’t be. She is crying so hard she’s having trouble breathing.

  “Shhh, I’m supposed to call 9-1-1,” I tell her. “My mom said to call 9-1-1.” I’m shaking so hard that my teeth knock together. I dial the three numbers and a man answers but I can barely hear him because of the little girls’ cries. Finally I just blurt out, “I’m in the school, in Mrs. Oliver’s room, and he’s shooting. I’m in the closet with another girl. Please send help, please.” Then I hang up hoping that he at least got a little information that is useful.

  Finally, the little girl’s cries become quieter and she curls up in the corner. I shine the light from the phone next to my face so she can see me. “I’m Augie.” I sit down next to her and shine the phone light so I can see her better. Her face is blotched white and red and she is making soft hiccuping noises and sucking her thumb.

  She pulls her thumb out and says, “I’m Lucy,” before she stuffs it back in her mouth.

  I can hear someone crying on the other side of the door but it’s not P.J.’s crying. “P.J.,” I yell through the door. “P.J., are you okay?”

  “I’m okay, just a misfire,” I hear him holler back, and I slump to the floor in relief. Just a misfire, I think to myself, only P.J.

  “The police are coming,” I tell Lucy, hoping that it is true.

  Lucy starts sniffling. “What if he starts shooting again?” she wonders out loud.

  “Just hang on, we’ll be out of here in a few minutes,” I promise her. I look down at the cell phone and see that the battery is running low. I quickly enter my mother’s number but after four rings it goes to voice mail. “Mom,” I say. “It’s Augie. P.J. is okay. I’ll call you back in a little bit.” I stop, wanting to tell her more but not sure what to tell her. “I’m sorry,” I finally whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

  From the classroom comes another voice. A woman. “It’s you?” she says loudly, like she doesn’t quite believe it. “Why?”

  Chapter 99:

  Will

  The snow has started falling again, but more softly, as if all the bluster has gone out of the storm, like a child in its last throes of a fit, Will thought. When Holly was little she had the worst temper tantrums. Will often found himself laughing, despite his frustration, at the way Holly would open her mouth as wide as she could and wail, just like a newly born calf bellowing for its mother. His laughter would only fuel Holly’s rage and she would hold her breath until her back arched and her face turned a frightful shade of blue. Marlys would swoop her into her arms, begging her to breathe. “Ignore her,” Will would chastise. “The more attention you give her, the more she’ll do this.” Will wondered now if that is truth. Maybe if he had carefully lifted Holly onto his lap and held her close to his chest, softly singing a half-learned lullaby from his own childhood while gently rocking her to and fro, things would have turned out differently between the two of them.

  “Jesus,” Will lamented to the sterling-silver-and-garnet Seven Sorrows rosary draped over the rearview mirror, its beads lightly clicking against one another. The same rosary that his mother had pressed into his hand just before he left for basic training. He remembered singing to the newborn calves in distress, their mothers suffering from uterine torsion or prolapse. Couldn’t he have afforded his own daughter the same courtesy? He drove recklessly through the snow-driven streets, dark and deserted, back to the school. He didn’t care if he had to drive through the blockades or break into the school; he was going to bring his grandchildren home. Bring them home to his daughter.

  Chapter 100:

  Mrs. Oliver

  Mrs. Oliver feigned death, sprawled out on the floor after the man had shoved her and pointed the gun at her head. She tried to still her breathing, tried to let her muscles go slack. Evelyn, she heard Cal chide her. What were you thinking?

  I don’t know, she mentally answered her husband. For once, I really don’t know. She remembered sitting in front of the television with Cal, watching news coverage of a natural disaster somewhere far away, but still she sat there with tears rolling down her cheeks. Evie, don’t cry, Cal had told her. We’re always one breath away from something, living or dying, sometimes it just can’t be helped. She wondered what her children would say at her funeral. Would they be bitter of all the hours she spent with other people’s children, resentful of the restless nights she spent worrying over some other eight-year-old’s neglectful father, abusive mother, reading disability, social ineptness? Would they linger over the class photographs hung with care on the walls of their childhood home, counting and comparing the number of pictures where their mother was posing with strange children versus the ones with her own flesh and blood?

  A woman’s voice punctured Charlotte’s crying and the poor girl is instantly quiet. “It’s you?” the woman asked incredulously. Mrs. Oliver dared to unscrew one eye to see what was happening. The man had turned away from her, the gun still held tightly in his hand, but now he was pointing it at P. J. Thwaite’s temple, his elbow crooked around the boy’s neck. Mrs. Oliver painfully raised her head, trying to get a better look at the new arrival. Officer Barrett, Mrs. Oliver realized, Maria’s mother. Was this the person that the man had been waiting for? It didn’t make sense, though, nothing about this terrible day had.

  Charlotte and Ethan looked expectantly at their teacher, waiting for her to do something. Mrs. Oliver wanted to shrug her shoulders as if to say I’ve got nothing, but her body hurt too much. But their eyes did not veer from hers, their gazes did not waver. They were waiting for her, waiting for their teacher to do something, anything.

  Chapter 101:

  Meg

  “Stuart?” I say in disbelief, staring at the man. “What are you doing? Put that gun down. Are you crazy?”

  “Crazy?” The man gives a mirthless laugh. “I guess you could say that? Partially in thanks to you, Meg.”

  “What do you mean? I don’t understand.” The sight of Stuart standing in this classroom, holding a gun to a little boy’s head, takes my breath away.

  “You haven’t heard? Haven’t got a chance to read the newspaper today yet, huh?” Stuart asks lightly as if we were having this conversation over appetizers and beers.

  “No, I haven’t heard. Why don’t you fill me in? I�
��m more than a little confused.” Without taking my eyes off of Stuart, I try to assess the situation. Mrs. Oliver, injured on the floor. One male, one female child standing off to my left, apparently uninjured, one male child being held hostage.

  “In a matter of a few months I’ve lost my wife, my children and my job and I owe it all to you, Meg.” Stuart grasps the boy’s neck a little tighter, the barrel of the gun grinding into his temple.

  “Stuart,” I say as calmly as I can, “let the kids go and you can tell me all about it. Please, they don’t have anything to do with this.”

  “I had you going there for a bit, didn’t I?” Stuart flashed an angry smile. “Made you think that your ex-husband was the man in here, didn’t I?”

  “No,” I answer. “Never for a minute did I think Tim would do this. Why did you tell me that he was a suspect?”

  “He was. For about five minutes. My source—” He sees the doubt on my face. “Yes, I do have a source from the sheriff’s office and he told me your mother-in-law called and said he disappeared suddenly. My source was the one who suggested Tim could be the gunman. I thought it was kind of funny.”

  “Tim would never do this,” I say again, and then add, “And I never thought you could do something like this, either.”

  “My wife threw me out. Because she found out about our affair,” Stuart continues as if I hadn’t spoken. I want to amend his statement. I want to say, You had an affair, Stuart. Not me. I didn’t know you were married and had three kids, remember? But I don’t say anything. My job is to keep him calm and keep him talking until the tac team can get into position or until I can get to my gun and fire a shot.

  “I didn’t tell your wife about us, I promise you that, Stuart. I didn’t say a word.”

  Stuart makes a snorting sound and gives a half chuckle. “No one else knew, Meg. It had to be you. Twenty-two years of marriage and she threw me out.”

  Duh, I want to say, but instead I hold up my hands in surrender. “I’m so sorry, Stuart, but I never initiated any contact with your wife. She came to me.”

  “My kids won’t talk to me, I’m living in a shitty hotel. My wife had a lawyer who was more than willing to cut off my balls in order to get her the settlement she wanted.”

  Something about the way Stuart was talking about his wife in the past tense sends a shiver of dread through me. “Stuart,” I ask, afraid of the answer. “What did you do? What do you mean your wife had a lawyer? Did she drop the divorce?” Stuart just smiles condescendingly at me and raises his hands in a could be gesture.

  “Then, when I went into the newspaper yesterday, the editor in chief was waiting for me. Apparently someone has been doing some investigations of their own.”

  “Stuart, I have no—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Meg,” he shouts, causing the boy in his grasp to whimper. “Someone has been making calls and asking questions about my work. They’ve decided that I embellished the truth in my article on the girl who was raped and now they think I made up the whole story about the time in Afghanistan.”

  All the while Stuart and I have been talking, the hostage, a boy I recognize from Maria’s school winter concert, has kept his eyes on my face. His glasses have been knocked askew and his shaggy hair is standing on end but his gaze has been unwavering. “Stuart, why don’t you let P.J. go,” I say, taking a stab that this little boy is Will Thwaite’s grandson. “You know his mom is real sick, don’t you? Was burned badly in a fire. Come on, he’s been through enough. Let the kids go. I’m here, isn’t that what you wanted? You think I’m the one who made those calls and got you fired.” As I’m trying to reason with Stuart, I see P.J.’s eyes slide to the floor where his teacher is crumpled. She is slowly, inch by inch, trying to pull herself toward Stuart. Jesus, I think to myself, I hope she doesn’t do anything stupid.

  Chapter 102:

  Mrs. Oliver

  Mrs. 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

  When 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

  “Stuart,” 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 h
ere.” 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.