John Gilstrap - At all costs

“What?” Sherwood gasped playfully, bringing both hands to his face. “And violate the Fifth Amendment rights of our visiting felons?”

Shit. “I didn’t think so.”

“Too many lawyers are consulted on that phone,” Sherwood explained, serious once again. “Judge told us ‘no way’ on the recordings.”

“Okay,” Irene said, mentally checking off one more possibility. “What do we know about the lovely Mrs. Donovan?”

“We know she killed a shitload of people,” one of the lieutenants grumbled as a third one-Roper, according to his name tag-answered a ringing phone.

“Why, thank you, Lieutenant. How helpful. Do we know if she stuck with our boy long enough to become Mrs. Brighton?”

“Well, you know what they say,” Sherwood offered with a big grin. “Nothing cements a relationship like a good killing spree.”

“Got something!” Roper announced, dropping the telephone receiver onto its cradle. “We ran the name Brighton through the computer, filtering out everything outside of Phoenix-start small, right? And get bigger. Anyway, we got a single hit. A Travis Brighton is registered in the eighth grade at J. E. B. Stuart Junior High. Same home address as Jake’s-Farm Meadows Mobile Home Park.”

Irene smacked the table with both palms. “That’s it!” she proclaimed. “That’s our best shot. Stake out the kid, capture the parents.”

Sherwood started issuing orders, even as his staff was carrying them out on their own. “Get all units out to the school,” he commanded. “Everybody but the people already committed to Brighton’s house and the body shop. Call the school. Have them put the kid under wraps somehow.” As everyone sprung into action, Sherwood brought it all to a stop with a wolf whistle, freezing people in their tracks. “Remember, everyone! This one requires a bit of diplomacy. We’ve got a known murderer snatching his kid from a school. This one has ‘bloodbath’ written all over it, okay? Tell everybody to be very goddamn careful.”

The image of automatic-weapons fire and bleeding children raced through Irene’s head and gave her a chill. “How long till you have units on the scene, Chief?”

He placed his hands on his hips and took a deep breath as he glanced at the map and ran calculations. “Ten minutes, I’d guess. Maybe twelve. Kinda far off the beaten path.”

She checked her watch and sighed. Somehow it seemed like forever.

They were less than a mile from the school now.

As he piloted the van ever closer to danger, Jake realized with a shiver just how high the stakes had become. It wasn’t fair.

Some wild, weird conspiracy that he’d never fully comprehended had cost him his entire life; his future as well as his past. Over the years, the panic attacks had grown less common-those sudden rushes of paranoia when someone would look at him strangely, or those horrifying moments in the grocery store when someone would say, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”-but their accumulated burden had robbed him of his faith in people. Slowly but steadily, the concept of fairness had eroded to the point where his expectations were painfully simple to meet. Life was about survival; about making sure that at the end of the day you still had what was important. Today even that cynical goal seemed unattainable.

He wondered sometimes what might have happened if he hadn’t run; if he’d let the justice system run its course. At the time, it had seemed so much easier to disappear. So much safer. Now he realized how foolish they’d been. In the eyes of the world, the very act of running away served as proof of their guilt.

They’d gotten into this, Carolyn and he, at a time in their lives when they still believed that it would all work out somehow. They believed then that bad things didn’t happen to good people and that given their lifelong efforts to be decent citizens, they’d somehow stumble onto a happy ending. Looking back, his naivete infuriated him.

Over the years, he’d reached a fragile inner peace with his pessimism that still eluded Carolyn. He feared she’d never stop looking for the silver lining-never fully comprehend that they were destined to die young. The real tragedy in all of this was Travis. What could a boy possibly have done, even in a previous life, that would warrant parents who would so destroy his childhood? And who were they to expose him to…

No, don’t go there, he commanded himself. He’s your son. You’re his father. You have every right. Every responsibility.

All that mattered was family. Everything else was gravy. Jake would lie, he would steal, he would kill to protect them, just as whoever had set them up would do whatever it took to protect their sordid secret. And the FBI was happy to help. The Donovans represented one of the greatest embarrassments in Bureau history, and Jake could only imagine how its agents’ thirst for revenge had blossomed over the years. All in the name of justice, of course. What a crock.

To the government, justice was a weapon, used to gain power over other people. Politicians and their pawns cared only about publicity and career advancement. Bring in the bad guy, get a bigger staff. If ordinary citizens like Jake or Carolyn or true innocents like Travis had to die to make that happen, well, so what?

“Jake, are you okay, honey?” Carolyn looked like she’d been trying to get his attention.

“Huh? Yeah, I’m okay.” He forced a wholly unconvincing smile.

“Do you think they know yet?”

He checked his watch: 2:20. “Oh, yeah, they know. I’m sure that’s why those cop cars were racing all over town. They’re trying to track me down. They’ll have everything covered by now-our house, the shop, everything.”

She gasped and swung around in her seat, grabbing his arm. “They’ll be at the school, too!”

His expression remained rock-solid. “Could be.”

She recognized the look for what it was and gasped again. “Oh, God, Jake, you can’t just go shooting up a school! What are you going to do?”

He looked at her across the center console. His face was calm, resolute. “I’m going to pick up my son and take him with me.”

“And if the police are there?”

He shrugged and returned his eyes to the road. “If the police are there, then it’s likely to get intense.”

“But Jake…”

He slammed the steering wheel with his palm and shouted, “Goddammit, Carolyn, what are my choices? Those sons of bitches aren’t getting my kid! They’ve taken our lives, they’re not getting his! I didn’t start this fight. Now, I leave the school with Travis, or I don’t leave the school at all! I don’t know how to state it more clearly.”

She stared at him for a long time, but he refused to look back at her. She wanted to be angry with him, but deep in her soul she knew he was right. If there were any bad guys here, it was the cops-the ones in Arkansas who refused to look past their noses for real evidence on whoever did the shooting that day.

The Jake she’d married all those years ago was not the bitter, cynical man who sat next to her now, avoiding her eyes and flexing the muscles of his jaw. This was a man created by betrayal and committed to having what was rightfully his, at all costs.

Family first, everything else second.

And he was absolutely right: they were out of choices. She willed away the dreadful sense of doom and struggled to find some flicker of optimism. This was a time for strength, not weakness.

The silence inside the van grew heavier as they approached J. E. B. Stuart Junior High. Carolyn was tempted to turn on the radio just for white noise, but didn’t, fearful that they’d tune in a report on themselves. The FBI would have them classified as murderers, she was sure; that’s what all the Wanted posters said. Now, as Jake pulled the van to a stop along the curb at the crest of the steep hill immediately behind the school, she felt sick with the knowledge that he truly was willing and ready to kill if he had to-to live down to what was expected of him.