“I’ve got the first-aid kit.” Sarah, out of breath, set it next to Jill.
“Open it.” Jill glanced into the kit. Son of a … A couple of dozen finger-sized band-aids, safety pins, ointment that had leaked throughout, aspirins—expired—and a finger splint.
“Nothing useful there.” Sarah’s shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry. None of this will help, will it?”
Jill shook her head.
“Shawn. Shawn.” Jill gripped his hand. He didn’t respond. “Shawn. Open your eyes.”
Through rapid breathing, he asked, “Am I gonna die?”
Sarah’s hand covered her mouth as she gasped.
Jill stroked his face with a finger. “I will not let that happen.” Jill’s jaw clenched. This could have been Joel. Tears welled in the corner of her eyes. She clutched his hand again. “Remember how brave you are.”
Sarah curled her legs under her at Shawn’s head. She brushed a few strands of hair from his forehead. “Oh, Shawn. Please be okay.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Precious little boy.”
“What does he like?” Jill asked.
“He loves reading.” Sarah chewed her lip and took a deep breath. “He always has a book or two on the go. He signs more books out of the library than anyone else.” Sarah brushed her fingers through his hair.
“Shawn. What books do you like?” His hand was limp in hers.
Sarah glanced toward the street. “The sirens are getting louder. That’s good, right?”
Jill nodded. Help was close. “Shawn. Shawn. Open your eyes.” She glanced down his tiny body, his T-shirt soaked in blood. She checked the boy’s pulse—weak and rapid. His breathing, shallow, gasping and fast. She spun at the sound of boots. Shit. Tactical cops with guns, not EMS.
“Ma’am, move back so we can assess the kid.”
“I’m Jill Cook. A paramedic. I’ve assessed him. Gunshot wound to the chest. Any chance you’ve got a decent first-aid kit?”
“I’m Charlie Zerr.” He pointed to his partner. “Sam Steele.
Zerr opened a pouch on his ballistic vest and tossed a package to Jill.
“What’s this?”
“Trauma dressing.” Zerr spun away and swept his gun back and forth across the hill.
Zerr glanced back at Sarah. “Who’s she?”
“Sarah. She’s a teacher here,” Jill said.
Zerr did a double-take, pursed his lips, then stared across the schoolyard.
Jill ripped open the dressing, pulled her hoodie off Shawn’s chest, then placed the trauma dressing over the wound. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for the shooter,” Zerr said.
“You think he’s still here?” Sarah’s eyes were wide with fright.
Jill hoped not.
Zerr kept his gun pointed at the hill. “No reason to think he isn’t.”
Jill glanced at the back door of the school. Oh, Joel, stay inside. She twisted toward the hill. She’d forgotten about the shooter once she saw Shawn and dragged him to cover, but the protection of working in the car’s shadow was minimal. Shit. We’ve been a target for the last five minutes.
The sirens were so loud it was difficult to talk.
“Shawn. Shawn.” Jill leaned close and gently shook his shoulders. He didn’t respond. She placed a hand on his tiny chest and her ear over his nose and mouth. The chest barely rose, but little puffs of air brushed her ear.
“What do you need?”
Jill glanced up.
“Oh, god. Dixon and Thompson. Am I glad to see you. Gunshot wound to his right chest. Shawn’s about ten—unconscious, shallow breathing, rapid pulse. External bleeding on his chest is under control. I haven’t checked his back.”
Dixon nodded. “Thompson, get the ambulance ready.”
“No time for that.” Jill scooped Shawn into her arms.
Thompson sprinted back to the ambulance.
When Jill arrived at the ambulance, Thompson had the stretcher at the back bumper. Jill gently set Shawn on the bed and they lifted him into the ambulance.
Dixon swung toward her. “I need you with me.”
“I can’t. My son …” She glanced back at the school. “I have to call my ex-husband to get Joel.”
“Shawn needs you,” Dixon said. “The cops will keep the school locked down. Call your ex from the hospital.”
Oh god, Joel—please be safe.
Jill jumped into the back of the ambulance. She rolled Shawn onto his side, exposing a sizeable hole in his back—Dixon applied bandages. Jill glanced over her shoulder.
Sarah stood at the back door, arms hugging her chest tight. “Is he … okay?” Her jaw quivered.
“Sarah, you’re coming with us as his guardian,” Jill said. “Get in.”
A cop closed the back doors, and the ambulance sped away.
“Dixon, I need suction.” Jill’s voice was calm, but firm.
Blood bubbled out Shawn’s mouth and nose.
Zerr watched the paramedic hustle to the ambulance with the boy in her arms. It didn’t seem promising.
Zerr lifted his rifle to his shoulder and scanned through the scope. He swung it back and forth across the hill.
Shot a kid. Zerr ground his teeth. One shot. All he needed was one shot. A glimpse of a shoulder. An ear. Come on, you son of a bitch—look at me.
“See anything?” Steele swung his gun across the hill.
Zerr lowered his rifle but kept his eyes focused up the hill. “No. Had to have come from the top. I’d be above the trees on the hill.”
“Why?”
“I’m a sniper. That’s where I’d be. Where would you be?”
Steele glanced at the wet pool of blood behind them, merely twenty feet from a set of monkey bars. Deep frown lines creased his face. His eyes roamed from the blood to the hill. “Top of the hill.”
Briscoe strode over with his new rookie, Caterina Toscana, at his side.
“Is the school locked down?” Steele asked.
“Yup,” Toscana said. “First thing I did.”
“It’s pandemonium out front,” Briscoe said. “Parents are running in from all directions. I’ve got cops making sure the right kid gets with the right parent.”
Steele nodded. “What about roadblocks?”
Briscoe swung his arm in an arc. “Everything out front of the school is blocked.”
Steele rotated and pointed away from the school. “We need roadblocks at the top of the hill.”
“Why?” Toscana asked. “We’ve got all the roads out front barricaded.”
“He didn’t shoot from the front,” Steele said. “He shot from the hill.” He stared at Toscana. “Tell me you ordered roadblocks at the top of the hill.”
Briscoe watched Toscana’s face pale. He slid off his cap and rubbed the bald spot on his head. Damn. He watched Steele and Zerr race up the hill.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Brad sat at a table in the gym, pouring over the stack of tips that had come in during the night. Around the room, dozens of cops worked through their own piles. He tossed a handful of useless tips onto the table, leaned back, rubbed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Mistake. Four days of up to one hundred cops working in the gym, around the clock, and forgetting about personal hygiene. The odor was worse than a locker room after a football game in ninety-degree heat. Garbage cans overflowed with coffee cups and take-out food containers. The only people not working this case were the caretakers.
Two detectives stood at the wall in front of the suspects list. One deleting suspects, the other adding additional names.
Spaced around the gym were TVs atop five-foot-high carts. A few were silent, the others on low volume. The closest TV to Brad showed the weather report—sunny but cool today and snow this weekend. Fall in Alberta.
Then a banner flashed across the screen. “Breaking News.” The screen changed from weather to an image of a school and an ambulance racing away. Dozens of emergency vehicles had parked anywhere they could around the fro
nt and side of the school. Cops, guns drawn, rushed from cars toward the back of the school.
Brad knew that school—Cliff Bungalow. He jumped up and cranked the volume.
“—student shot moments ago. Our news crew was blocks away and provided this footage.” The newscaster put his hand to his ear. “We have an on-scene report. We’ll go live to Sadie Andrus at the school.”
The TV changed to an upper-body view of Sadie Andrus, with the school in the distance. “About ten minutes ago, a boy, ten-years old, was shot at Cliff Bungalow School in the Mission District. We understand a paramedic was dropping her child off and provided immediate aid.”
“Oh my god.” Brad stepped backward and dropped into his chair. He closed his eyes and his head dropped into his hands. “No. Not a kid.”
They increased the volume from the other TVs. Brad glanced up. Everyone was standing, eyes on the TVs, jaws dropped. Other than Sadie’s voice, not another sound was heard in the gym.
Brad stared at the TV but didn’t hear a word. A boy, barely ten, shot. He rubbed the stubble on his chin. We didn’t do enough. I didn’t do enough.
His caution to Sadie and her news report hadn’t been enough. He clenched his fists. Son of a bitch. I’m coming for you, asshole.
Brad grabbed his coat and sprinted out of the gym.
The ambulance bounced several times as it rolled over the curb and onto the street. Dixon started IVs in each arm. A cardiac monitor beeped at a rate of over one hundred and fifty.
Jill sat at the head of the stretcher, alternating suctioning of blood out of Shawn’s mouth and nose and ventilating him with a bag-mask.
“It’s getting harder to ventilate,” Jill said.
Dixon nodded and picked up his stethoscope. He listened to each side of Shawn’s chest. “Decreased on the right. He’s developing a tension pneumothorax.”
“Are you doing a needle decompression?”
“Not yet. I’m going to loosen the occlusive dressing. If that lets the air escape, we won’t have to put another hole in his chest.”
Dixon leaned toward the front of the ambulance. “Thompson let the Children’s Hospital know we’re coming in with an approximately ten-year-old child with a GSW to the right chest. He’s gonna need a trauma team and a chest tube.”
The cardiac monitor beeped wildly with a heart rate of one hundred and eighty.
Dixon glanced up, then peeled back the tape covering the gunshot wound. As he did, air escaped.
“It’s easier to ventilate,” Jill said.
The cardiac monitor slowed back to one hundred and fifty.
Dixon wiped his hands. “That will buy us some time. Hopefully enough to get us to the emergency room.”
“Two minutes out,” Thompson shouted.
“All right,” Dixon said. “Let’s get ready to move him out as soon as we arrive.”
Jill switched the oxygen to a portable tank. Dixon removed the IVs from the hooks on the ambulance wall and attached them to an IV pole on the stretcher. He listened to Shawn’s chest. “Breath sounds faint on the right again—he needs a chest tube. But we bought him some time.”
Brad turned right off Fifth Street onto Twenty-Second Avenue. The street in front of the school was jammed with marked cruisers, cops, and news vans. Shit. All the media is here. Brad parked a block from the school.
Reporters shouted questions as he sprinted toward the police tape that surrounded the building. Several cops tried to stop him, but he flashed his badge as he elbowed past. He continued around the school to the back, heading toward Briscoe and Toscana, who were staring up the hill. Briscoe had his portable radio in his hand. Briscoe was telling dispatch they needed help with all the traffic from parents approaching the school. Toscana was on the radio, too. It surprised Brad when she mentioned roadblocks on Hope Street. That was at the top of the hill.
“What’s happening on Hope Street?” Brad asked.
“Steele and Zerr figure that’s where the shot came from.”
“Shit,” Brad said. “Where are they?”
Briscoe nodded toward the hill. “They headed up there about five minutes ago.”
“I’m heading up there, too.”
“I’ll go with you,” Toscana said.
“Boy scout can make it on his own,” Briscoe said. “You need to make sure our roadblocks are in place.”
“But I can help—backup. In case the shooter is still there.”
Briscoe sneered. “He doesn’t need backup. If Brad finds him on the way up, your gun won’t clear your holster before he’s got the gunman in his sights. We all have critical things to do. I need you to check on the roadblocks.”
Brad drew his pistol, jogged into the trees, and keyed his radio. “Steele, Zerr. I’m on my way up.”
His radio clicked twice in acknowledgment.
Trees and bushes completely overran the hill. Branches slapped at his face, and thorns snagged on his pants and jacket. The backs of both hands were bleeding. By the time he pushed through at the top of the hill, he was breathing hard, and blood oozed from dozens of lacerations.
He stepped out of the trees into a backyard and faced rifles held by Steele and Zerr. “I told you I was coming up.”
“We can’t be too careful.” Steele slung the rifle over his shoulder.
“That hill is dense, like thousands of hands grabbing at you.” Brad glanced at his bleeding hands.
“We made it up fine,” Zerr said.
“You drove.”
Steele laughed. “We took the path.”
“There’s a path?” Brad stared wide-eyed.
“You bet,” Zerr said. “How do you think the kids get to school?”
“Ah, shit. Where?”
Steele shrugged. “About four feet to your left.”
Brad’s head dropped to his chest. “Are you shitting me?”
“No.”
“How did you find it?”
Steele smirked. “We asked the kids.”
“Did Briscoe know?”
Zerr nodded. “He sure did. Why?”
Brad shook his head. “No reason. Bring me up to date.”
“The houses on this block all overlook the school,” Zerr said. “The shot could have come from any of them.” He pointed down the street a few houses. “That’s where he shot from.”
“That’s where Zerr thinks the shot came from,” Steele said.
“Where would you shoot from?” Brad asked.
Steele shrugged. “Same spot.”
Brad rolled his eyes. “Have you been over there?”
“Not yet,” Zerr said.
“Let’s go.” Brad followed Zerr and Steele down the street.
Zerr stopped in front of a house. “This is it.”
Brad called to a couple of cops leaning against their car. “I need this entire block taped off. No one in or out. Get additional cruisers here and do a door-to-door canvass. I need to know if anyone saw anything suspicious this morning.” He pointed to Zerr. “Lead away.”
Zerr headed up the driveway, then to the right of the house, and followed a sidewalk to the backyard. He stopped where the yard dropped off. They stood at the edge, gazing down toward the school to where the boy was shot.
Zerr hiked along the edge of the hill. “Boss, I’ve found footprints in the dirt. He was here for a while. Right there.”
Zerr planted his feet near the trampled ground and raised his sniper rifle. “I can see Briscoe’s bald head in the crosshairs.”
“Let me see,” Brad said.
Zerr handed the rifle to Brad, who raised it to his shoulder and stared through the scope. It was directly in line with where the boy was shot. “This is it. Shit.”
“He changed his plan,” Steele said.
“He shot from outside the vehicle.” Brad lowered the gun. “There was planning—this specific location. You don’t just find this. You have to scope it out. We need this area canvassed quickly.”
Brad stared at the school. “I told paren
ts to drive the kids to the back of the school.”
“What?” Zerr said. “That’s what Sadie Andrus said on the news.”
Steele punched Zerr’s arm.
“What? Oh,” Zerr said.
“I told the shooter how to defeat the measures I’d suggested. They’d always shot from the front, from across the street. I told parents their children would be safe behind the schools. I screwed up.”
“There are hundreds of schools in the city,” Steele said. “There was no way to know they’d pick this school.” Steele pointed toward the school. “If he used a rifle, the case would eject …”
“To the right,” Zerr said. “Let’s find the case.”
They spread out and searched. After fifteen minutes, Brad was ready to give up. “The shooter must have picked up his case.”
“Bingo.” Zerr pushed branches back with his rifle and pointed to the base of a tree. The case sparkled in the light.
The ambulance swung off Seventeenth Avenue onto Richmond Road, then quickly turned left and into the ambulance bay. A dozen gowned nurses and physicians waited. As soon as the ambulance’s back doors were opened the stretcher was pulled out and rushed down the hall. Jill stood on the stretcher frame and used the bag-mask to provide oxygen to Shawn.
They passed reception and into the trauma room. Bright lights reflected off the white walls, giving the room an eerie otherworld feel. The stretcher was surrounded by trauma staff and Shawn was quickly lifted onto the trauma bed. A respiratory therapist took over from Jill and provided suction and breaths for Shawn.
“Shawn is a ten-year-old boy,” Jill said. “Gunshot wound entered the upper right chest and exited his right back. External bleeding controlled. He developed a tension pneumothorax in the ambulance and Dixon released the pressure. Breathing is shallow, and we assisted with a bag-mask. Heart rate one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty. We could not get a blood pressure.”
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