Heather Gudenkauf - One Breath Away

He was right.

For some reason, she hadn’t quite figured out why, she couldn’t handle the emotional moments life had to offer. Or maybe it was that she handled them too well. Cal was the one who had cried at their children’s births, at their weddings, when Georgiana miscarried her first child. It wasn’t that Mrs. Oliver didn’t cry. She did. But in private, locked in the bathroom, with the water running and the fan on.

She glanced over at P. J. Thwaite, who was still enraptured with the stranger. The man appeared to be counting the number of people in the classroom or looking for someone in particular. Maybe he was here after one of her students? she wondered. The only domestic situation she was aware of was the divorce of Natalie Cragg’s parents. She hadn’t seen Mr. Cragg in years, didn’t know if she would even recognize him. Mrs. Oliver looked over at Natalie Cragg, who was looking down at her desktop, crying softly. When she looked back to P.J., his eyes hadn’t wavered from the man’s stern face.

“P.J.,” she whispered, trying to get his attention. He just continued to look at the man’s face. Not at his gun or the knapsack he carried filled with God knew what. It was his face P.J. was memorizing and this more than anything scared Mrs. Oliver. The man would notice, sooner or later, P.J.’s odd fascination with him and she was afraid that he would in turn find reason to focus his attentions on P.J. “P.J.,” she said more loudly, and P.J. reluctantly turned away from the man. P.J.’s black shock of hair, still mussed from his stocking cap, fell into his eyes, and he looked dazedly at his teacher. P.J. had told her once that he wouldn’t let anyone but his mother cut his hair and he wasn’t going to get it cut until she came to get him. “P.J., don’t stare at him,” she whispered fiercely.

“What are you saying? What are you telling him?” the man demanded, raised his gun and pointed it at Mrs. Oliver.

“I told him not to be scared,” Mrs. Oliver lied.

“I’m not scared,” P.J. piped up.

The man leveled his gaze at P.J. and Mrs. Oliver trembled. This was a cold, cruel man with dead eyes, she determined. He would kill every single one of them without a second thought. “Why aren’t you scared?” the man asked P.J.

P.J. hesitated and bit his lip before answering. “Because you said you wouldn’t hurt us. Not if we did what you said.”

“Smart kid,” he answered with a bitter smile.

I assure Dorothy that we will look into the possibility that Blake could be the one in the school and send her on her way with the order to call me if she hears anything from her son. Already I’m frustrated. We don’t have enough personnel to chase down all the leads that are forming and the weather is growing worse by the minute.

My phone buzzes again. Another text message from Stuart. I read his latest text first. Come on, Meg. For old times’ sake. Just one comment? I shake my head and snap my phone shut without reading the first message. I already know what it says. Stuart would do anything to get the inside scoop on a story, even resort to blackmail, and the intrusion at the school could be the biggest of his career. Up until the Merritt case, Stuart’s investigative reporting in Afghanistan while covering the war a few years ago was the peacock feather in his cap and earned him the Pritchard-Say Prize for Investigative Journalism. Then there was the Merritt story, which was, besides the whole married thing, the decisive nail in the coffin that was our relationship. Now Stuart is back. He can’t resist the scent of a big story and this standoff. I could see Stuart relishing the thought of a Columbine or Virginia Tech–type massacre just for the byline he would get.

By the time I’ve circled the school with the police line tape, the chief has called in our other off-duty officers and our reserve officers, townspeople who have gone through eighty hours of training and forty hours of supervised time with our small police force. The only time I remember our reserve officers being called in was a few years ago when a tornado ripped through the town of Parkersburg and we were asked to assist. The fact that the chief has requested them tells me this is the real thing.

A large crowd has gathered in the main parking lot. I fill in Chief McKinney on what Dorothy has told me and he digests the information silently.

“Any new info on your end?” I ask him.

“Nothing of use besides the man who phoned and said he is in the school and has a gun.” He shakes his head, releasing the snowflakes that had settled in his hair. “Besides that, we have lots of information that only makes things even more confusing. I swear to God, why the hell are cell phones allowed in school? You’d think that we’d get good solid information from inside, but all they’ve done is jam up the phone lines and cause otherwise sane people to go crazy.”

“No one has seen anything?” I ask in disbelief. “We don’t know why he’s in the school, what he wants?”

“From the calls we’ve got from within the school, here’s what we know.” McKinney pulls off a leather glove and ticks the points off on his fingers.

“We’ve got one gunman. We’ve got three gunmen. We’ve got a man with a machete, we’ve got someone—can’t tell if it’s a male or female—with a bomb. We’ve got shit, that’s what we’ve got.” McKinney runs his hands over his mouth and his icy mustache crunches beneath his fingers.

“We just wait it out, then? We don’t go in?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“We do just what we’re doing right now, containing the scene and falling back. If we can communicate with the suspect we can get those kids and teachers out safely. It’s this weather I’m worried about,” McKinney says, looking up at the iron-gray sky. I do the same and instantly my vision becomes blurred as snowflakes fill my eyes. “Interstates and highways all over the state are already closed. I’ve called in all the off-duty and reserve officers and dispatchers, and asked Sheriff Hester to bring in his off-duty folks. I’ve got them covering each corner of the building.”

I look to where he’s pointing and see the sheriff’s deputies walking around with M4s slung across their backs. “You think we’re going to need a tac team?” I ask. A tactical—or tac team, as we call it—is a group of officers that comes from all over the state and are specially trained to respond to situations like this.

“Looks that way,” McKinney says. “But if it keeps snowing like this, we’re not getting one. We’re the tac team.”

I see movement through one of the main office windows and place a hand on McKinney’s arm. “Look,” I say, peering through the veil of snow and touching my sidearm like a talisman.

The cold from the floor is seeping through my pants and it feels as if we have been sitting here forever, but it’s only been like half an hour. All I can think about is that after all that’s happened, I’m not going to be able to see my mom. We’re supposed to get on a plane to Arizona tomorrow and spend the week there.

I wonder what she looks like now. The last time I saw her, her hands were all bandaged up, her hair was all frizzled and her face was bright red like she’d taken a walk in the desert without her hat. Her eyelashes were gone and the nurses had rubbed a thick, shiny lotion all over her arms. P.J. and I talk to her every night, but usually for just a minute or two. She’s too tired or drugged-up from pain medication to talk for very long, but mostly I think she just sounds sad. I know she feels terrible that P.J. and I had to go away, especially to Broken Branch, which she always told us she spent the first seventeen years of her life hoping to leave.