by Britney King
“Texting Dad.”
I grip her elbow hard enough that she releases the phone. It drops to the tile. I pick it up and shove it in my purse. “Your father isn’t going to save you,” I say, crouching down beside her. “And neither is that fucking phone.”
Pulling my Colt Combat from my bag, I tell her to stay low.
“Mom?” Her mouth drops and hangs open. “Why do you have a—”
“Don’t worry,” I assure her. “You’re going to be fine.”
Sweeping the safety down with my thumb, I take Hayley by the hand, and lead her toward the back of the store, away from the gunfire.
It’s relentless, and it’s growing louder and closer. My mind processes the scene quickly. Gunpowder. The screams. Bodies hitting the polished concrete. Pleas. Low moans. The metallic scent of fresh blood. Cries for help. Fear. I register it all.
We manage to make it down several aisles, venturing toward the stock room and the loading docks, before the gunman pauses to reload.
We are hovering behind the deli counter, a mere five steps from the stock room entrance, when I spot a woman and a young toddler hiding behind a cardboard display adjacent to where we are crouched.
Something about the boy reminds me of Sophie. It’s the pajamas, I eventually realize. She was obsessed with a pair exactly like the ones he is wearing when she was that age. They have little trains on them, and if my memory serves me correctly, the little trains glow.
The thought stops me in my tracks. I glance from the boy to his mother, who is in shock, wild-eyed, and probably unmovable. “Over here,” I say, motioning with my pistoled hand.
Panic registers in her eyes as they fix on mine. Almost imperceptibly, she shakes her head.
I tell her with my eyes and my mouth, with my entire body to send the boy in my direction.
Her eyes flit from one side of the store to the other. Shots ring out like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
“You have to move,” I call out to her. “Or you are going to die.”
Hayley clutches my sweater in her fist. The fire ceases momentarily. I feel her pulse reverberate in my ears. “Mom, come on.”
The gunfire resumes. Closer this time, too close. I realize he wasn’t just reloading, he was on the move. “Go,” I instruct Hayley, eyeing the back door. “Now.”
“I can’t,” she cries.
“It’s sixteen steps,” I tell her. “You can.”
She clutches me tighter, pulling my shirt so that it’s half hanging off of me.
“Go.” I listen as between rounds the thick rubber soles of the gunman’s boots squeak as they move along the tile floor. “I’ll be right behind you.”
In the oval mirror fixed in the corner of the ceiling, I spot the top of the gunman’s capped head. With a shove and a reassuring nod, I shove Hayley toward the exit. Then I turn and motion to the woman one last time.
Sensing that it’s her final chance, as people tend to do when faced with death, she peels away at the little boy’s grip on her. I watch her lips move as she tells him to run to me. He does as she says.
But then he stops.
His eyes are like the rest of his little body. Frozen.
I wave with both hands, trying to get him to move.
Amid the chaos and the sound of rounds being shot off, I feel the boots closing in on us.
Darting from behind the meat market counter, it takes me three strides to reach the kid. Scooping him in my arms, I make a beeline back to the cover of the counter. We crouch, huddled together. The boy weeps silently.
Until he doesn’t.
You can barely just make out his cries over the sound of bullets spraying. Over and over, he screams just one word: Mommy. Just beyond the chaos and the carnage, my brain registers what is about to happen.
Cupping my hand over his mouth, I glance toward the display where he and his mother had been hiding.
Looking back at me, I see eyes that mirror my own. The woman, sensing her child is about to be killed, lets out the most guttural cry I have ever heard, the kind that lodges itself into your brain and never leaves.
She has the gunman’s attention. As he trains his gun on her, I fling the boy aside.
In my periphery, I watch as she makes the worst and most natural mistake possible. She attempts to flee in the direction of her child.
A flurry of gun shots ring out, some of which are my own.
I manage a hit to the groin, disappointing, but I do have a screaming toddler clinging to me, digging tiny fingernails into my bare leg.
Just as the gunman steadies his gun on me, and I know we are goners, someone attempts to tackle him from behind, knocking him off balance.
This gives me the fleeting second I need to get off a chest shot. I fire once, a direct hit, and watch as he goes all the way down, his rifle spraying bullets at the florescent lights overhead.
Within seconds, I find myself standing over him, his eyes fixed on mine. The light slowly draining out of them, it’s apparent in the way that his fingers can no longer grip his gun. I nudge it away from his body with my foot, while simultaneously aiming my own at his head.
For a fraction of a second, I glance back at the woman sprawled out on the tile, her small basket beside her. Inside, a single package of diapers. The boy’s head rests on her chest. Blood pools around them. “He had trains on his pajamas,” I say and fire the shot.
Chapter Thirteen
JC
She attended to me with a flippancy I found unnerving, despite my desperation to be attended to. That’s how I first came to know her, on a long haul flight.
She wasn’t old, but she wasn’t young, and I couldn’t help but wonder what a woman like her was doing in a job like that.
I spent the majority of the flight watching her when she wasn’t looking, which as it turned out was most of the time. I came to know the smooth curve of her neck, studying the spot where it connected at the spine. Her flat stomach was something that could be appreciated, and to top it off, I found it quite appealing the way her breasts rounded out that hideous uniform.
Her chestnut hair, possibly the only fake thing about her, was tied neatly up, resting gently at the base of her skull. Her eyebrows are perfection, neither too thick nor too thin, not like you see on most women. She wasn’t beautiful in the striking kind of way, but more subtly, in the natural kind of way.
If I had to pinpoint one thing that both gave her away and solidified it for me…it would have to be the faint crease etched in the skin between her brow. She’s a deep thinker, something I find suitable to my tastes.
She didn’t seem to notice me watching. That or she didn’t care. In her line of work, she’s probably used to it. I couldn’t yet tell, so I focused on the things I knew. First principles and all. Her nose, slightly up turned, was a little too small for her face but preferable over the alternative. However, it was those eyes that captured and held my attention more than anything. Heavy-lidded, somewhere between blue and green, like the ocean on a cloudy day. And don’t get me started on that mouth of hers. It’s indescribable. I’d better not try.
Straight-backed and purposeful, it was captivating the way she walked the aisle. Every now and again, she’d let out a small sigh, as though there was really something else she’d rather be doing.
Inevitably, I started trying to figure out what that something else was.
Like I said, it was a long flight.
Straight away I knew that she was married. She wore a simple gold band, tasteful and understated. It bothered me in the sense that a woman like that should have more, should want more, but it made her interesting in that she apparently didn’t.
I hadn’t thought that she might have children. A wife, I could picture her in that role. The kids were a curveball I hadn’t seen coming. She didn’t seem like the motherly type. It’s funny the way you think you know a person and then out of nowhere they go and surprise you.
I suppose that’s where it all started, with the curveball.
A seed was planted and with it the decision was made. I had to follow her. It was supposed to be a one-off thing. Just to see what new bit of information I might get out of it. It wasn’t like I was stalking her. I was curious, is all.
It was simple stuff I watched her do at first. Mundane things, everyday things. Things like dropping her daughter at school. I found it amusing, the way she practically shoved her out with a distant smile. At the gas pump, I studied her profile and noted the way she pulled a cloth from her backseat, careful not to touch the handle. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was always so discreet.
I followed her to the airport. She brakes hard, follows too closely, and drives just above the speed limit. I worry about her on the road. I worry about her everywhere.
That’s why, despite the shit show that it turned out to be, I was glad I was there in the grocery store that evening. Anti-stalking laws aside, if it weren’t for me, she’d be dead.
Chapter Fourteen
Charlotte
Where you’re supposed to be is on a plane bound for Chi-town, on a cloudy day, with terrible weather. You don’t mind because you’re doing what you were born to do and you’re getting paid to do it.
Me, I’m standing at the bottom of the stairs in the foyer that’s covered in flowers and cards in a home that doesn’t feel like my own. But only in a physical sort of way. The rest of me is I don’t know where.
On that plane headed for O’Hare, maybe. In that bloody grocery store, perhaps. In the school auditorium, occasionally.
It’s a double-edged sword, fame is. One day you’re shopping for the perfect laxative in which to dose your teenage daughter’s crush, just to prove a point, and the next you’re bombarded with reporters trampling your lawn. Suddenly, life is magnified. Lights, camera, action.
Suddenly, you’re a character in your own life. And the rest of your family is the supporting cast.
The doorbell rings again. I don’t move to open it. What’s the point, if they just keep coming? Not that I can blame them. The well-wishers. It’s a circus around here, and everyone loves a good sideshow. They all want to know how we’re doing. Considering.
I can’t come right out and say it, but personally, I feel fine. Well, fine if you ignore the fact that I’ve become a glorified prisoner in my own home. Media tents and trucks line the block. The neighbors have delivered endless casseroles and flowers and still they don’t seem even half as put out as I am about all of the extra sets of eyes canvassing the neighborhood.
As Henry advised, I’ve refused all interviews. Or at least I had until yesterday, when I was so desperate to get out I agreed to visit the elementary school Sophie and Hayley attended. I should have said no. I know that. But I needed to get out. I needed to get to that hotel and wrap my hands around Geoffrey Dunsmore’s throat.
Call it cabin fever, call it murderous rage, call it not wanting to leave a job undone. Call it what you want. Henry will surely be pissed. But students at that school are grieving the loss of two classmates, one of whom happened to be shopping with his dad, who was also a teacher there.
The older of his children died holding strawberries as his father tried to shield their bodies with his.
I don’t know why this matters, but reporters keep asking me what I saw on the way out of the grocery store, once SWAT had arrived. They all want to know the same thing: if I got a gander at the kid clutching the strawberries.
I hadn’t actually. But I did see a kid Sophie’s age with a hole in his stomach the size of a man’s fist, still pumping out blood. I did see an elderly man with half his face shot off, but somehow his death isn’t what they want to hear about, even though the details are quite gruesome, because, you know, a life well-lived and all.
Anyway, at the school they let the students ask the questions. The event was broadcast live. On the replay, the ticker across the bottom hailed me as Incredi-Mom or Wonder-Mom or something like that, and I guess it’s all about branding these days.
The point of visiting the school was to assuage the public’s fear and to let the kids know that there are more good guys (even if they’re women) than bad. The free clothes and the hair and makeup were nice incentives, I won’t lie. I was asked not to bring up the fact that I used a gun to take the assailant down, nor has the media shown much interest in reporting that fact either.
It’s better, I was coached, to let them think I stopped the assailant with my bare hands. Which I might have done, had I been able to get close enough. Which I wasn’t able to do, not without my weapon, which I am thankful for, because without it there would be a lot more people dead, myself included. But no one wants to hear that. It detracts from the message, they said.
I’m a hero, they said.
I give people hope, they said.
The producers made a big point of mentioning several times that it’s perfectly okay to cry on air. I’m not sure what that will solve and still I think back to yesterday, wondering if maybe I should have heeded their advice. If only I’d shed a tear…then maybe.
I imagine it playing out differently, like if I’d just said the right thing, if I’d just sniffled a few times this could all be over.
I replay the scene, picturing myself going through the motions. I see the kids seated on the floor of the cafeteria. I am on stage under hot lights, and all I can think about is being on that plane, arriving at O’Hare, killing the mark, waking up and doing it all again. It’s the simple things in life that make you most happy. That is what I was thinking sitting there, my face broadcast around the world.
Fame is such a distraction.
I smile for the camera.
The irony does not escape me.
Neve Jordan, anchor of Good Day America, asks the audience if they have any questions for Incredi-Mom. One by one, I watch as tiny hands shoot up in the air. Most of the students want to know about superheroes, about what it’s like, if I know any, until this one kid, the kid that ends it all, raises his hand. Suddenly, my face feels tight and frozen. My fake smile is plastered on, while my hands remain folded neatly in my lap. The kid stands up slowly, tilts his head, and says very curiously, “So what does it feel like to shoot a man in the face?”
I swallow hard, looking directly into the camera. I smile nervously as if to say, kids these days. And then I turn to him and answer honestly. “It feels really, really good.”
Chapter Fifteen
Charlotte
The camera pans to the left and then to the right again, before shakily zooming in on the girl’s face. Up close, she looks different. Younger.
Nonetheless, it’s obvious who it is.
The girl on our flight from Fort Lauderdale to Austin.
Wearing nothing but a faded T-shirt and underwear that might have once been white, the transformation is shocking. For one, she’s rail thin. Thinner than just a few days ago. Dirtier, too. Her knees are blackened. Dark circles outline her eyes.
Whatever they’ve done to her, it’s drastic.
The camera shakes as a deep male voice orders her to remove the shirt. When it steadies and zooms in on her face, I notice a subtle shift in her eyes, a flicker of fear or surprise, maybe both, which causes my palms to instantly sweat. Wiping my hands on my silk trousers, I mentally catalog everything I can about the girl and the room and the voice.
It doesn’t sound like Geoffrey Dunsmore, but I can’t be sure.
“Nice pants,” Henry says, drawing my eyes away from the screen. “What are they…Reiss?”
I smile. Henry looks out of place standing at my bar, his coffee mug untouched making it all too obvious idle chit-chat is not why he’s come. “Yes.”
“Well, they suit you. But it’s strange,” he says, rubbing at his chin. “I don’t see how he doesn’t see it.”
I don’t ask who he is talking about. I don’t have to. Michael has driven the girls up to his mother’s for the afternoon to get away from everything—namely, all of the foot traffic on our lawn. I stayed behind, feigning the need for a b
it of quiet and, with any luck, a nap. “See what?”
“Nothing...never mind.”
Shrugging nonchalantly, I pull out a barstool and motion toward it. “Sit.”
I can tell he’s still angry with me over the unfortunate events that took place during our last flight. But, I can also tell that this isn’t the half of it. “It doesn’t make any sense,” Henry says, perching himself on the seat. “You’re wearing three-hundred-dollar pants. Meanwhile, he’s driving around in a beat-up Honda.”
Refusing the bait, I tap the back button, rewinding the video fifteen seconds. The muffled voice plays again, seeping equally with desire and control. “You think he’s using a voice changer?”
“It’s possible.”
As the girl pulls the T-shirt over her head, I watch intently hoping to see something I missed before, although what exactly, I’m not sure. A clue, a birthmark, anything.
“She can’t be more than thirteen,” Henry says, staring over my shoulder. The girl covers her chest with the crumpled T-shirt and both hands.
“Why are you here?” I ask, addressing the elephant in the room.
“You mean other than the fact that you’ve majorly fucked up?”
“Yes—other than that.”
“Because I wanted you to see this.”
I refuse to indulge Henry in his games. At least not in the way he wants. Which is why I don’t respond. It’s easier to let him drive his point home. Mostly because I’m aware this is not the only reason he’s here, sitting in my kitchen, at my bar. This is Henry’s way of once again making one of his points.
“Two guesses who’s behind this?”
I give him a sideways glance. The truth is it could be anyone in the video. Sure, the M.O. closely resembles that of Geoffrey Dunsmore. Buy a girl, keep a girl, film the girl, discard the girl by whatever means strike his fancy. But that isn’t saying much. This world is full of small time traffickers, but we’re rarely paid to dispose of people involved with one of those. It’s the more nefarious rings we’re paid to infiltrate, those who have select clientele, those who are competition for one reason or another, those who think they’re immune to getting caught—those who make a big production of it, like the one we are watching on Henry’s phone.