Last Chance

by Bradley Boals

  Matthew shot back up, eyes wide, “Are you serious? That guy is from Sector 1.”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  Matthew shook his head and walked around in circles. “He’s looking for anyone who might have information about what happened last night.”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  Matthew grabbed Connor’s shirt and said, “He might come looking for two kids that were looking through their windows last night and saw a strange man staring back at them.”

  Connor pushed Matthew away. “You’re out of your mind; there’s no way anyone knew we were watching that building last night. How could they?”

  Matthew pointed to a walkway light. “Don’t you remember what April told us? There are sensors and surveillance equipment hidden in things all over the sector.”

  Connor looked up toward their window. “Do you think they could have seen us all the way up there?”

  Matthew looked up and said, “I don’t know, but we need to get home and tell April what’s happening.”

  The boys ran back to their complex and made their way up to their apartment. They were careful to avoid security team members and made sure not to bring any attention to themselves. April stood in the living room, waiting on them.

  “Where have you two been? I’ve been worried sick.”

  Matthew responded first. “We got back from the park and saw all the commotion in front of the building, so we wanted to see what was going on.”

  April looked worried. “You shouldn’t be down there involved in those things. It can only lead to trouble.”

  Connor walked over to the window. “Not as much trouble as that security guard, Brett, ran into last night.”

  April looked confused, but curious, and asked, “You mean the Brett that works security for our building? What kind of trouble is he in?”

  Matthew, hands shaking, proceeded to tell April what he and Connor heard while hiding behind the wall. “We just wanted to see what was going on, since we knew something had happened at the warehouse last night.”

  When the initial shock of someone actually being killed next door to their home wore off, a new fear took hold of April. “How do you know something happened at the warehouse last night?”

  “It was Matt’s fault; he got me out of bed to look at it.”

  April asked again. “He got you out of bed to look at what?”

  Matthew grabbed April by the hand and walked her to his bedroom window and explained, “It was right over there; this blinding light coming from that window. How could me and Connor sleep with all that light shining in our window?”

  “What else did you see?”

  Matthew continued, “We saw a security team go in; we saw the light die down, and we saw a man standing in the window looking back at us. I didn’t think he saw us, but he was staring back at us from that same window.”

  April tried to keep the boys from seeing the concern in her face and brought both boys to the center of the room. “What did he look like?”

  Connor attempted to explain. “He was an older bald guy.”

  April pulled back. “That’s it? That’s all you know? He was an older bald guy?” She started to laugh and walked back to the window. “Well, boys, if that’s all you know, I think we’ll be fine.”

  Matthew said, “He was wearing blue suspenders and a gray shirt when we saw him at the game this morning.”

  April paused for a moment, as if turned to stone, and slowly asked, “Did you say he was wearing blue suspenders?”

  Matthew replied, “I’m not sure it was the same guy, but he was bald too and had on blue suspenders and his shirt had some writing on it, but it was all faded out.”

  April paused again to collect her thoughts. “Do you think the shirt had numbers on it, like eight and four?”

  Matthew searched his memory banks and said, “Now that you mention it, yeah, it may have been numbers.”

  April ran back to the living room and began to grab her bag. “I’ll be back in a little while. You two stay here and don’t leave until I get back.”

  Connor ran behind her to the door. “Where are you going?”

  She reached the door and turned back. “I need to see what I can find out from Sam.”

  “But Sam isn’t down there. Some guy from Sector 1—I think his name was Keith Kellington—took him and his supervisor away in a transport,” said Connor.

  A true look of panic engulfed April’s face, and she reentered the living room. “Keith Kellington? Are you sure he said Keith Kellington?”

  The boys nodded in unison and Connor replied, “Yeah, we’re sure. Why?”

  April walked back to her bedroom without saying a word and emerged a few minutes later with instructions. “I want both of you to go to your room and keep a lookout for Sam, and when you see him, let me know. I’ll keep a watch for him from the front window.”

  The boys walked up to April and Connor asked, “Why are we looking out for Sam, and what’s the deal with Keith Kellington?”

  April responded with a calm voice, “Do what I say and go keep a look out for Sam; we need to find out what he told Keith Kellington.”

  Connor asked, “But April—”

  Before he could finish, she barked back at them, “I said go!” The boys jumped back and made their way to their room. April wasn’t one to raise her voice.

  “April never yells at us like that.” Matthew poked his head out the bedroom door and caught a glimpse of April sitting by the window, wiping sweat from her forehead.

  Connor replied, “Did you see the look on her face when we said Keith Kellington’s name? She really wants to know what Sam told him.”

  “Do you think Sam will tell April anything?” asked Matthew.

  Connor poked his head out the window and looked at all the investigators on the street. “I don’t know. If I had someone from Sector 1 down here asking me questions, I think I would keep my mouth shut.”

  The boys continued to watch for a couple of hours as various teams went in and out of the warehouse. Several hours passed with no communication between the boys and April. Each time either Matthew or Connor attempted to leave their room, a quick stare from April drove them back in.

  Just as it seemed their building guard would not make it back from his visit with Keith Kellington, a transport pulled up and out popped Sam. He began to make his way to the building security checkpoint, and the boys relayed what they saw to April.

  Matthew said, “April, he’s back. Sam’s back down at the checkpoint.”

  April ran into the boys’ bedroom to catch a glimpse of him as he rounded the front of the building. She then ran back to the living room to see him as he passed the building’s side.

  “You boys stay here and don’t answer the door if anyone knocks. Just stay in your room and pretend that no one is here.”

  The boys, again perplexed, decided not to question April this time and responded simply, “OK.”

  April grabbed her things and made her way to the building elevator. She was determined to find out what Sam knew and what he had told Keith Kellington. As the numbers on the elevator panel slowly counted down from nine, she prepared a plan of how she would approach Sam. Should she come right at him and demand answers? Should she act scared of the situation and hope that he calmed her down with information? She pondered her move and concluded that there was only one surefire way to ensure success. Sadly, it was the one thing she didn’t want to do.

  April reached the bottom floor and made her way to the front of the building. Various security teams were still walking around the area, taking notes and pictures as they went. She saw Sam, alone, in the office. Sector 37 had not issued a replacement for his recently deceased partner. She took a couple of deep breaths and opened the door to the office. As their eyes met, she hurled herself toward him, grabbed him around the neck, a
nd planted a huge kiss on his unsuspecting lips.

  She slowly pulled away from him. “Thank god you’re all right! I had heard that a security lead from our building had been killed and I just thought the worst.”

  Sam, shocked by the outpouring of emotion, but with a big smile on his face, responded, “I’m fine. It was Brett.” A look of confusion overtook Sam. “I didn’t know you cared so much about me.”

  April walked around the office and acted as if she was embarrassed. “What do you mean, you didn’t know that I cared so much? I would think it would be obvious that I care about you. I’ve been giving you hints that I’m attracted to you for months now.”

  Sam, with an even bigger smile on his face, said, “I never thought you had any feelings for me, other than a passing acknowledgement of my existence. I mean, I’ve always thought you were great.”

  April moved in toward Sam again and gave him another kiss. “Well, now you know I think you’re great, too.”

  Sam and April discussed their mutual feelings for each other for the next twenty minutes as April looked for an opportunity to find out what had happened.

  “I just can’t believe someone was murdered here last night. Do you know what happened?”

  Sam ducked his head and moaned, “The investigation teams are still working on what actually happened.”

  April took Sam’s hand. “Don’t you know what happened? I mean you were here when it happened, right? I’m sure the investigators have given you an idea of what went on.”

  Sam pulled back from April and said, “Look, I can’t go in to what I’ve been told or what I’ve heard. This is an ongoing investigation, and to be perfectly honest, they have people here from Sector 1 looking at it. I don’t want to get in trouble with anyone from Sector 1.”

  April mulled over her next move carefully. She didn’t want Sam to think she was pumping him for information, but she also determined that this was her best chance to find out what he knew. She went with the guilt approach. “Wow, I can’t believe that I actually threw my emotions and my feelings on the table with you and now you just shut me out. If we are going to make something work with us, you have to trust me. I don’t know what is going on in my own neighborhood, people are dying, and the one person that I thought would put my mind at rest doesn’t even trust me enough to tell me what he knows.”

  April began to make her way to the door to leave and turned around one last time. “I guess I was wrong about you.”

  Sam jumped to his feet and pleaded, “Wait, don’t go! I’m sorry. You’re right. If I can’t trust you, then who can I trust? Please, come back in.”

  April slowly turned toward Sam and walked back into the office. They both sat down at his desk, and he told her the details of his meeting with Mr. Kellington.

  “This guy that my supervisor knows, Keith Kellington, shows up here while some sector investigators are going through the warehouse. He wants me to go with him to the primary security headquarters for questioning. I’m thinking that it won’t be a big deal because I really don’t know that much, beyond calling in for backup last night. Brett and I saw this bright light coming from one of the warehouse’s windows about eleven, and it needed to be checked out.”

  Sam took a sip of coffee from the cup on his desk, moved to the office window, and pointed to the warehouse. “We couldn’t see anything but the light coming from that window. Since the building is supposed to be shut down at night, I wanted a security team to make sure someone wasn’t in there that shouldn’t be.”

  Sam moved back to the desk and sat down. “The team arrived within five minutes of the call and came by the office to let us know that they were going up. Brett wanted to go with them, so I told him that he could. I thought it would be some good on-the-job training.”

  April asked, “When did you know that Brett had been killed?”

  “Well, that’s just it; the entire security team came back down after a couple of hours of sweeping the building, and they didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. The room that the light was coming from was empty. The problem was that Brett wanted to go back into the warehouse after the rest of the team left. He kept saying that he thought they missed something. I got tired of listening to him so I told him to go take another look if he wanted to, and he did.”

  Sam began to get emotional as he started to realize that his decision played a part in Brett’s death. April caressed Sam’s hand. “It’s OK. You can tell me.”

  After Sam took another sip of his coffee, he continued, “He hadn’t come back and had been gone for two hours, so I called up the sweep team again.” Sam wiped his eyes. “This time, they found Brett, dead, in the same room that the light had come from.”

  “Do you know how he died?”

  Sam got up from his seat again and looked out the window. “I really don’t know. They won’t show me his body and no one will tell me anything beyond he’s dead. My own supervisor still thinks it may have been an accident, but I don’t think people from Sector 1 show up to investigate accidents.”

  April got up from her seat and joined Sam at the window. “I’m so sorry that you had to go through all that.” April paused for a minute and asked, “What happened at sector headquarters?”

  “We get to headquarters and I go through the whole explanation that I just told you with that Mr. Kellington. He really didn’t say much while I was going through it all, but he did the strangest thing once I got done.”

  April asked, “What did he do?”

  “He asked me to hold this rock that was sitting on his office table, so I did. He just sat there for a minute, didn’t say a word, and stared at me. All of a sudden, he gets up, tells me to put the rock back down on his desk, and that he appreciated my honesty. He directed me back to the transport to come back to the post. My supervisor was waiting for me, and we left a few minutes later.”

  Sam went on to tell April that there was more to the man from Sector 1 than met the eye. “I thought he was kind of strange to be honest. That crazy accent; I could barely understand what he was saying. Then he would say something as clear as me or you would say it. It’s like he was doing it on purpose.”

  April hoped that Sam had told her everything and asked a final question. “So, you didn’t hear any explanation of what might have happened?”

  Sam paused for a moment. “I didn’t hear any explanations about what may have happened, but I did overhear one of the investigators tell Mr. Kellington that they had some surveillance video that he needed to see.”

  April asked, “What kind of video was it?”

  Sam took April’s hand and began to hug her. “I’m not sure exactly, but it sounded like there was someone in your building last night that was watching the lights in the warehouse at the same time that we saw them. It must have been pretty good video because one of the investigators said that they should have a positive ID within the hour.”

  Panic gripped April as she determined that the investigators had surveillance of her boys watching the warehouse. She pulled away from Sam and asked, “What do you think they’ll do next?”

  Sam cocked his head to the side and explained, “I would imagine the person they saw in the video will be getting a visit from the investigation team pretty soon.”

  April began to make her way back to the door as Sam walked after her. “Look, Sam, I am so glad that you’re OK and I’m so happy that we both know what we’re feeling for each other, but I really need to go check on the boys. We’ll have plenty of time to continue our talk tomorrow.”

  Sam rushed to April’s side and asked, “Can I have one more kiss before you go?”

  April responded, “Of course you can,” and proceeded to give Sam a deep and passionate good-bye kiss. As she walked out of the office she turned and said, “I’ll see you soon.”

  Sam responded, “Absolutely!”

  Once April had cleare
d the security post and the investigators on the street, she ran back to the elevator, jumped in, and selected nine. The numbers couldn’t light up fast enough as she tried to calm down and determine what she needed to do next. The daylight was gone from Sector 37 and she knew that it was now or never to save her boys.

  Chapter 5

  room 1313

  The door flew open to the apartment and April began to grab some old bags stored in her closet. Both Matthew and Connor came into her room with looks of dread. They had never seen April look so flustered.

  “So what did you find out from Sam?” asked Matthew.

  April stopped her mad dash of pulling bags from her closet. “I need both of you to take a bag and get some clothes together. We need to get out of here as fast as we can.”

  Connor asked, “Why do we have to leave? Are we in trouble?”

  April, tears welling up in her eyes, pleaded, “Please, just do as I say. I’ll explain everything later.”

  Before another word could be spoken, there was a knock on the door. April put her finger to her lips and signaled the boys to be quiet.

  Another knock at the door, and this time they heard a voice demand, “Sector security! Please open the door or we will open it for you!”

  April knew that the security team would be in the apartment in mere moments. “Wait just a second; I need to put some clothes on.” April turned to the boys and ordered, “No matter what they ask, do not admit that you saw anything last night. Do you understand me?”

  Both boys replied, “Yes, ma’am.”

  April told the boys to stay in her room until she called for them. Before she left, she pulled what looked like a keychain from her dresser drawer and tapped it with her finger. She slid the keychain into her pocket, dried the tears from her face, and made her way to the front door.

  April had her hand on the doorknob, composed herself, and cracked open the door. To her surprise, she recognized the face of Keith Kellington. Mr. Kellington was flanked by four security team members, all of whom were large, intimidating men.