MAY 22
FRIDAY
10:48 AM
ON THE DRIVE OVER to the high school, Hazard called 911.
“But I just sent Norman and Gross to that mailbox that exploded in Smithfield,” Andrea Ehlers, who was on dispatch that day, said.
“Send somebody else!” Hazard shouted into the phone. “This girl is threatening a school shooting!”
“There isn’t anybody else!” Ehlers screamed back at him. “They’re all at Eldon!”
“Then get out of your fucking chair and do it yourself!”
Hazard disconnected and called his husband. When it went to voicemail, he disconnected and placed the call again. They didn’t live far from the high school, and he was driving recklessly, his body’s response to the threat making it hard to gauge his surroundings. He felt lost. And he felt like he’d been driving forever.
“Sorry,” Somers said. “This has been a waste of time; nobody knows who called in the threat—”
“It was Kirsta.”
“What?”
“It was Kirsta. All of it. She called in the shooting at Eldon to get the police out of town, and she set off explosions to keep the remaining officers busy.” And then Hazard filled in the rest. He had to slam on the brakes halfway through a stop sign he’d missed; a mother in a minivan gave him a death stare as she continued through the intersection. Hazard ignored bleating horns as he hit the accelerator again. “John, her real target is the school. I’m going to call the sheriff’s department—”
“They’re here.”
“What?”
“They’re here, Ree. Active shooter at a school. All hands on deck. Engels might have a couple of deputies dicking around, but—Ree, Jesus Christ, Colt.”
“I know.”
“Is he—”
“I don’t know. He’s not answering. Find somebody, John. Get somebody over to the school!”
“I’ll call Principal Wieberdink, have her evacuate—”
Even with adrenaline tunneling his vision, Hazard could make out the throngs of students and staff pouring out of the school as he reached the parking lot. “Too late. Shit’s already happening.”
“Ree, wait for—”
“Hurry,” Hazard said and disconnected.
The mob flooded the parking lot, so he abandoned the van on the shoulder of the road, his keys still in the ignition, and ran. The holstered Blackhawk dug into his hip and thigh, and it threw off his gait slightly, but the real challenge was navigating the screaming, milling chaos. One girl had been knocked down, and although a friend was trying to buffer her, every time she tried to rise, the students rushing past knocked her back down again. White-haired Mrs. Alcorn, who had taught Family and Consumer Science since it was called Home Economics, was blowing a whistle and waving a rally flag. At the school’s front doors, Principal Wieberdink had wedged herself into the vestibule and was directing students outside. All those fucking drills, Hazard thought. All the fucking practice. And it goes right out the fucking window.
He used his shoulders and elbows to force a path through the crowd. One big boy, who had to play defense for the Wildcats, must have perceived Hazard as a threat because he threw a punch. Hazard grabbed the boy by the arm and yanked him forward, using his own momentum against him, and the boy stumbled and landed on his knees. He shouted as the crowd trampled him, but the flood of students was thinning; he’d be fine. By the time Hazard reached the front door, an Indian girl on crutches was being helped out by a white boy in a baseball jersey; the boy was crying, but his voice was steady as he said, “Good job, Amira, you’re almost there.”
Principal Wieberdink waited until they had passed her before she started into the building, but Hazard had reached her by then, and he grabbed her arm.
“Stay out here.”
She twisted, trying to get free of his grip. “Mr. Hazard, let me go—”
“There’s nothing you can do in there. The police are going to be slow getting here. You need to move these students away from the building; she could come out here and start shooting again.”
“I’ll radio my assistant principal and the hall monitor; they’ll get everyone moving into the neighborhood.”
“I want you to—”
“Mr. Hazard, let go of me. I am responsible for these students, and I am going to make sure everyone is out of this building.”
Hazard released her, and she ran inside, already speaking into her radio.
He jogged after her. They passed the abandoned reception desk. They followed the hall past the commons. The school looked like what it was: the aftermath of a combat zone. A backpack hung from the stair rails by one strap; the other strap dangled loosely, torn, Hazard guessed, in a student’s panicked attempts to get free. A WET FLOOR sign lay flat on the linoleum. Geometry worksheets had drifted and banked against one corner of an intersection. Light twisted along brass and glass, old trophies and dusty cases. The air smelled like the commercial deep fryers, a hint of what Hazard’s months with a teenage son told him was probably mozzarella sticks. And, like something bitter under his tongue, the tang of gunpowder. The only sound was their steps slapping the vinyl flooring.
When they went around the next corner, Hazard stopped. The school resource officer, Liz Kirkman, lay on the ground, motionless. Her back was to them, and the lower part of her shirt and the full length of her trousers were soaked in blood. Shot in the thigh, Hazard assessed as he crouched next to her. A dark bruise marked the side of her head. And then knocked unconscious. Because, he realized, today was about eradicating pedophiles. Mommy’s little soldier on a holy war. Kirkman had just gotten in the way. Joyce Sturgis and parents like her had been weaponizing their children in the culture wars for a long time; Kirsta had simply taken that weaponization to its logical end.
“She’s bleeding a lot,” Hazard said, eyeing the principal’s scarf. “There might be an arterial nick. You’ll need to tie the tourniquet here.” He indicated above the wound. “It’s almost too high on the leg, but you should be able to make it work.”
Principal Wieberdink’s dark eyes were huge, and they were the only color in her face. “She—”
“She’s very possibly bleeding to death. Do you know how to tie a tourniquet?”
“We had trainings—”
“Great. Radio again and let them know about the SRO; the police will need that information, and you’ll want the paramedics to get to her as soon as they can.”
Hazard stood and unholstered the Blackhawk.
“Mr. Hazard—” Wieberdink’s voice wavered. “My responsibility—”
“You’re doing your responsibility. The tourniquet needs to be tight; she might wake up, and if she does, she’s not going to be happy, but it’s better than bleeding to death.”
He left her before she could reply, trying to soften the sound of his boots on the linoleum as he ran. He knew where Kirsta was going. He knew what she meant when she said pedophiles. She was cribbing from her mother’s talking points, parroting her words. The teachers indoctrinating, conditioning, warping, grooming. The teachers. The sick, perverted teachers who want to fill our children’s minds with their filth. And there was one teacher in particular who was responsible for everything that had gone wrong in Kirsta’s life.
When he turned down the next hall, he could hear voices coming from Theo’s classroom. Theo’s voice. Low. Calm. Controlled. If there was fear there, it was buckled down tight. And then an answering shout, Kirsta’s ragged voice.
“I said don’t talk! Shut up! Shut up!” Her breathing had a wet fringe. “You’re confusing me!”
“You don’t want to hurt them, Kirsta,” Theo was saying. “You’re a good person. They didn’t do anything wrong. You’re not the kind of person who hurts innocent kids.”
The same heavy, gasping breaths answered. And then Kirsta echoed, “I’m a good person.”
“I know. Everyone knows. That’s why you’re going to let them go, right? Because this is about me. You’re here because of me.”
“I don’t—” Kirsta made a noise that warbled toward a screech. “My head hurts really bad! Why won’t you stop talking?”
The silence was an undertow, dragging Hazard forward.
“Go,” Kirsta said. “You two. Ok, now you two. Why are you staring at me? Go!”
Rapid footsteps came toward the door, and a moment later, a stream of terrified teenagers emerged into the hallway. A black girl with her arm around a sobbing white boy stared at Hazard; a white girl with a dark stain on the front of her jeans didn’t even seem to register him. Some of them Hazard recognized as Colt’s friends; others were strangers. He held a finger to his lips and stepped aside, and they streamed past him in silence broken only by sobbing and their uneven steps.
“Not him,” Kirsta said. “No! You have to stay!”
“Colt’s just a kid,” Theo said with that same calm. “He’s a nice kid. He’s always been nice to you, hasn’t he?”
“It’s ok, Dr. Stratford.” Colt sounded like he was trying to mirror Theo’s affect, but his voice was too tight. “I’ll stay.”
“Colt and Ash can leave,” Theo said, “and then it’ll be the two of us, and—”
“No!” Kirsta laughed, the sound a jangling scale of notes. “Ash can go. Colt stays.”
“Colt is your friend—”
“Nobody’s my friend! I’m not stupid; everyone thinks I’m stupid. They think I don’t know what they say behind my back, how they laugh at me. But I’m not. And he’s my ticket out of here, so he’s staying.” The silence raised the hair on Hazard’s neck, and in an unworldly calm, she added, “Ash, you can go.” There must have been some sort of nonverbal communication because Kirsta said, “Fine.”
“Bruh,” Colt half-whispered, “go!” Another pause followed, and Colt said, “Don’t be stupid.”
“Stop talking,” Kirsta said. “Now it’s my turn to talk. I’ve had to sit here and—and listen to your sick, twisted ideas for too long. It’s not fair. I’m a good, Christian girl from a good, Christian family. And I had to sit here, and I had to listen to you, and you—you put things in my head that God didn’t want to be there. So, now it’s my turn to talk.”
Hazard eased the revolver out of its holster and stepped into the doorway. He offered a mental fuck, but he lined up the shot anyway; Kirsta stood on the far side of the classroom, where Theo sat at his desk. Colt and Ashley were sitting halfway across the room, directly between Hazard and his target.
Kirsta’s head whipped around. She held a hunting rifle, and she swung it around to point at Hazard.
“Put it down,” Hazard said.
“You put it down!” She wore no makeup today, and Hazard saw her for the first time without it. She looked younger, softer, strangely childlike. The color had left her face, and she looked about two minutes from passing out. From somewhere, though, she mustered reserves and shouted, “D-drop it!”
“I don’t think you came here to hurt Theo. Or anyone, for that matter. You’re doing a lot of talking. If you’d wanted to hurt someone, you would have done it already.”
Kirsta blinked away tears. “I—I killed Officer Kirkman. She’s dead because she would have stopped me. I’m protecting these kids. I’m saving them!”
“Officer Kirkman is fine. Everyone else made it out of the school safely. You’re standing here, you’re talking, and inside you’re looking for a way out of this mess. You feel trapped because you made a bad decision. But you’re not trapped. You can walk away from this right now. The police aren’t here yet; you made sure they’d be busy—you called in that fake shooting at Eldon, and you set up those explosives around town to keep the remaining ones busy. So, right now, it’s just you and me, and I’m telling you that you can walk out of here.”
He could see it in her face, how much she wanted to believe it. “You’re trying to trick me.” She shook her head as though she’d walked through cobwebs. “You’re—you are a dirty fag, and you’re lying to me.”
“Kirsta, you’re in over your head, and you don’t want to hurt anyone else. Put the rifle down. Nobody wants this to go badly.”
“I can’t!” The words were a shriek and a sob.
“Put the rifle down.”
She was crying now, the barrel of the rifle dipping.
Hazard could take the shot. He would, if it came to that. But she was a child, and she was frightened and unwell and had been twisted by her parents into something that would take up a gun to try to kill the thing she hated inside herself.
“Put the rifle down,” he said as gently as he could.
“Kirsta,” Theo said, “you’re a good person. You can help a lot of people right now by putting the gun down.”
She drew in a shuddering breath and gave that cobwebby head shake again. “No. No, I can’t.”
“Kirsta—”
“I said no!” She coughed and tried to wipe her nose on her shoulder. “Colt, get up.”
“Stay in your seat, son.”
Colt’s gaze remained locked on Kirsta, but he stayed in the chair.
“Get up!” Kirsta screamed. She cut her eyes toward Hazard. “Tell him to get up, or—or I’ll kill everyone! I want to leave, and he’s going with me!”
“He’s not going anywhere. He’s my son—”
“No, Pops,” Colt’s voice was thin, “I can—”
“—and he’s not going anywhere with you. Drop your gun, and we can—”
“I said get up!” Kirsta stumbled a few steps toward Colt, grabbed his shirt, and hauled him up from the chair. Ashley clutched Colt’s arm, but Colt shook him off, his eyes still locked on Kirsta. “We’re leaving, and—”
The words broke from Hazard before he could think them through: “If you need a hostage, take me.”
Kirsta stared at him, agape.
“You know it’s a better idea.” The idea started firming up, and then the words. “I’m an adult; I’m more resilient, and I won’t panic and slow you down. I’m the chief of police’s husband, which makes me valuable in a negotiation. And, of course, you hate me, which means if it comes time to kill me, you won’t have any qualms about it. I can help you find a safe path away from here. And here’s the most important part, Kirsta: if you try to take my son, I’m not going to let you. That means things are going to go very badly, maybe for a lot of people. But if you take me, I won’t cause any problems.”
“No, Pops—”
“Emery,” Theo said, “Kirsta, let’s all take a breath—”
“Fine,” Kirsta said. She shoved Colt away from her, and he fell; Ashley caught him, leaning out of the seat to grab him before he could hit the floor. When Colt tried to push himself up, Ashley’s hold tightened. “Let’s go.”
“No,” Colt shouted. “No, Pops—Kirsta, stop, I’ll go!”
“Drop the gun,” Kirsta said.
“Ashley,” Hazard said as he eased his finger off the trigger, his gaze still on Kirsta in case she tried something, “do not let him come after us. Theo, you know what to do.”
“Kirsta,” Theo said, “you don’t have to—”
“Be quiet. Everyone be quiet. There’s too much talking for my head.” She gestured with the rifle’s muzzle. “You’re taking too long!”
Hazard lowered the Blackhawk to the linoleum. He stood and displayed both hands, empty.
“Let’s go!”
“Pops!” Colt shouted. He was grappling with Ashley, trying to free himself, but Ashley held on with a grim resolve. “Let me go! Pops, don’t—Ash, let go!”
Hazard stepped back, and Kirsta followed him. When he turned, presenting his back to the rifle, a frisson ran up his spine. His guts felt loose and watery. The sounds of Colt and Ashley already seemed far off.
“Not that way.” Kirsta gestured with the rifle again. “Out by the gym. Hurry, but if you start running, I’ll shoot.”
He took the lead, navigating corridors he remembered from his teenage years, taking them toward the rear of the building and the exits near the upper gym. When he hit the crash bar and pushed out through the fire doors, a perfect May day met them: the sun hot on his face, the smell of freshly mown grass, a synthetic smell that came from the rack of basketballs that some industrious PE teacher had set out for pickup games on the last day of school. A food truck with the Ace in the Hole logo was parked by the loading docks—the truck she had used to kidnap Ashley, the truck that supposedly had been stolen—and Kirsta gestured him toward it.
How long had she been planning this, Hazard wondered as he trotted toward the truck. He was amazed that he still didn’t hear sirens. Maybe they were coming in dark, but it felt impossible that they couldn’t have driven the forty minutes from Eldon yet. It felt like he’d lived hours in Theo’s classroom. The automatic locks chirped when Kirsta fumbled a fob out of her pocket, and he wondered again how long she’d been planning this. How many sleepless nights, how many classroom daydreams, how many bits and pieces, little flashes of satisfaction at even the possibility, until something made it all come together?
Hazard opened the door and rested a hand on the frame. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Get in!”
She was already making mistakes, as he’d thought she would—she was letting him get in the passenger seat, and she had no way to restrain him. On top of that, she had a gun that was too big for the small space of the truck’s cab; once she was inside the vehicle, she wouldn’t be able to wield it effectively, and he could force the barrel away and disarm her. Hazard held up his hands again, another surrender, and got into the truck.
To his surprise, she followed him around to the passenger side, still training the gun on him. She released it long enough to toss the fob at him. “Start it.”
Hazard sorted the keys. His hands were shaking, adrenaline pulling his strings, making him dance. He got what he thought was the right one and leaned over to insert it in the ignition. It fit, and he turned it, but the truck made a distressed beep.
He straightened, turning back toward Kirsta. “It won’t work without your foot on the brake—”
The butt of the rifle came toward him. Then it connected with his head, and the world exploded into shadow.