by Webb, Debra
Vance looked a little nervous. Rain dripped down his cheeks like tears. Claire experienced a quake of dread at his hesitation.
“Where is he, Vance?”
She had to find that child now.
“He didn’t want to paint today, Miss Grant.” Vance scrubbed at the water slipping down his face. “He said he was too tired. He was going to hide in the restroom and maybe take a nap.”
Christ. Claire turned to Pat who had come up behind her. “I’m going back in for him.”
“No.” Pat shook her head vigorously. “I’ll go back for him. You stay with the kids.”
“He’s my student,” Claire reminded. “You stay.”
Not waiting for any more of Pat’s resistance, she raced across the drop-off lanes and the inner courtyard. Her blouse and slacks were beginning to plaster to her skin. Her ponytail was drenched as well but she didn’t care. If there was any chance whatsoever that this drill was real—even if it wasn’t real—she had to find that child.
She couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t come out of hiding when he heard the alarm. The students were instructed over and over again on the proper response to the sound of that alarm.
And then she knew.
He was too tired to paint and wanted to take a nap.
Peter was diabetic. His blood sugar had probably dropped too low. He could be unconscious in that bathroom. If the alarm hadn’t gone off, Pat would have called roll by now and she would have noted his absence and sent someone to look for him.
Not only could he be in grave danger assuming the alarm was real, if his sugar level had dropped that low, every minute counted.
The long, empty main corridor in the fifth-grade wing felt ominous…as if certain doom was about to descend. She had to find that child.
“Miss Grant!”
Claire had just turned left toward the corridor leading to the art room when her name resounded behind her. She twisted around to face Principal Allen. “Sir, I’m—”
“You should be outside with the others,” he cut her off. “What’re you doing back in here?”
The material plastered to her skin and the water puddling around her feet confirmed his assumption that she’d already been outside. “I’m missing a student.”
The words rang in the ensuing silence. Words no teacher ever wanted to utter. It was the worst-possible scenario under any circumstances. That there could possibly be a fire in some part of the school only increased the urgency.
The whiteness of fear overwhelmed the red flush that had appeared on Mr. Allen’s face during the hurried evacuation efforts. “I’ll radio for additional assistance.”
“Let’s check the boys’ bathroom first. He’s probably there.” She was already moving in that direction as she spoke. “I’m worried about his sugar level. If he were conscious I’m sure he would have come outside when he heard the alarm.”
It wasn’t impossible that he was outside amid the throng of students. A couple of minutes were required for every single student to be counted. If so, someone would notice that he was out of place and escort him to his own group.
Just when her heart was about to rupture with fear, Mr. Allen’s walkie-talkie crackled. “Mr. Allen, Claire Grant is inside the building looking for Peter Reimes. Let her know he’s with his group now. He came out with the music class.”
Relief rushed through her and her knees wobbled just a bit. “Thank God.”
Mr. Allen, acknowledging the reaction, patted her shoulder gently. “It’s all right now. You get back to your group and I’ll finish checking this wing.”
She nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Claire trudged back outside, ignoring the continuing drizzle.
However bad she’d thought her morning had been, the rest of her day had just taken a major bad turn. Even the mere thought of losing a child tore her apart…made her second-guess the most basic of her teaching skills.
Darlene offered her a hang-in-there smile across the damp quad as Claire rejoined her students.
She surveyed her group and said a silent prayer of thanks as she caught her breath. The kids were okay and that was all that counted in the end.
By two that afternoon her world was back to normal. Claire doubted her blood pressure would be back below stroke range anytime soon, but it would fall eventually. The mere idea of having one of her students left inside the building during an actual emergency situation still took her breath away. It would be days before she stopped obsessing on the horrific notion.
Thank God there hadn’t been a fire or any other threatening situation.
The alarm had reacted to an anomaly in the system, whatever that meant. All Claire knew for certain was that it hadn’t been a planned drill; it had been a mistake.
Peter had bounced back after a carton of apple juice. As she suspected, his sugar level had dropped and he’d put off taking care of the situation until he briefly lost consciousness. He didn’t like that he needed to monitor his levels. A typical man in the making, he assumed he could get through the low without asking for help.
With less than an hour to go, her students, who had all changed from their damp clothes into their gym attire, had settled back into their work. Instead of reading aloud this afternoon, she’d decided to have quiet, individual reading time. She could catch up on the lesson planning she’d missed during the unintended fire drill.
Like her, most of the teachers kept a change of clothes at school. Working with kids this age had taught her long ago to expect most anything.
Her hair, much to her dismay, had coiled into its natural abundance of unruly curls. The ponytail barely restrained the wild mass. She spent at least a half hour every morning smoothing the kind of mane others paid stylists top dollar to create.
Not Claire. She had always hated her naturally curly hair. Almost as much as she loathed her full figure. It wasn’t that she was fat, exactly. Darlene called her curvaceous.
Claire worked out. She really did. And she ate right…except for the chocolate. It was her one major downfall. There were far worse bad habits, she reminded herself on a regular basis. And, the fact of the matter was, all the women in the Grant family were healthy-sized…so to speak.
You couldn’t fight genetics.
Scuffling in the hall snapped her back to the present and jerked her head up. She was on her feet and moving toward the door before the possible sources of the sounds fully penetrated. Once in a while some of the boys came to blows, but not that often. She was shocked that anyone had been allowed in the hall long enough to get into trouble after the watery fire drill.
She turned the knob and pulled the door open far enough to ease out of the room. She’d just gotten her students settled. Whoever was making all the ruckus was going to get a glimpse of her less-than-pleasant side. “What’s going on—?”
The rest of the words evaporated in her throat as her brain analyzed what her eyes saw.
Two men wearing black ski masks had Mr. Allen trapped against the wall, a gun to his head.
Fear throttled through Claire. Before her brain even gave the order she had already pushed the door closed behind her in hopes of somehow protecting her students.
An arm came around her throat and jerked her backward against a hard body.
“Don’t make a sound.”
The threat was whispered against her ear.
Her gaze met Mr. Allen’s and she saw the extreme fear that mirrored her own.
“Bring him into this room,” the man holding her ordered.
The two thugs jerked Mr. Allen away from the wall and started toward Claire.
…this room.
They meant her room.
“No. We can’t go in there. My students—”
Fingers twisted in her hair and yanked her head back. “Shut up!” he hissed in her ear.
Her captor opened the classroom door and shoved her inside.
“Lay your heads down!” Claire ordered, barely catching herself from the momentum of his bruta
l push. She didn’t want her kids to see this. The terror she felt was nothing compared with what their impressionable minds would experience. “Lay your heads down!” she repeated. The longer she could put off their panic the better.
Heads went down onto folded arms. She let go a ragged breath and thanked God that they had obeyed quickly enough that they wouldn’t witness the horrible scene unfolding around them. The three masked men entered the room with Mr. Allen in tow. Claire kept a close eye on her students, hoping their curiosity wouldn’t have them peeking.
She should have known better than to hope.
“Down on the floor,” the goon in charge growled to Mr. Allen.
A single gasp ignited a rush of wide, curious eyes peeking above little arms.
That was when the screaming began.
Chapter 2
Claire moved from student to student attempting to calm them down.
The man who appeared to be in charge pointed at her. “You. Come here.”
He leveled his weapon on her as she approached. It was difficult for her to draw in a breath, much less put one foot in front of the other.
When she stopped about four feet away she looked him straight in the eye. “Yes?” Somehow her anger had overtaken her fear. Or maybe she’d gone numb or stupid with the business end of that automatic rifle pointed at her heart. Whatever it was, she hated this man for scaring the children like this.
What kind of animal terrorized children?
“Move everyone to the back of the room.”
He gestured to the area behind the children’s desks, where a long window that filled most of the wall looked out over the inner quad. Claire blinked in disbelief. She hadn’t noticed until then that the police were already on the campus. Beyond the inner quad, just past the drop-off point, at least a dozen official vehicles had gathered in the front courtyard of Whitesburg Middle School.
She turned back to the man doling out the instructions and nodded her understanding. He was taller than the other three, but slight, not nearly as heavily built. His voice, though mean and uncaring, sounded young.
“Line up as many of the children as possible on the window stool with their backs to the room. Do what you must to keep them quiet.”
Her heart thumped hard at the oddness of his request. “Why?”
Cold black eyes glared at her. “Do it or die.”
Somehow the order to move made it from her brain to her legs and she took the necessary steps to follow his order. As she moved back across the room she glanced at Mr. Allen. One of the masked men had secured him to the chair behind Claire’s desk with what looked like yellow nylon rope. The bindings were clearly too tight. Her heart went out to him.
What did these men want? Why were they doing this? Why her school?
She scolded herself for letting the questions splinter her attention. She had to keep her head about her.
One by one she ushered the children to the back of the room. “Help me move the projects and plants, okay?” She had lined the window stool with plants that the children helped water and projects that had been completed recently.
“What’s happening, Miss Grant?” Kira Hall stared up at her, her hazel eyes round with worry. “Why are those men wearing masks and holding guns?”
“I’m not sure, Kira. Let’s just do what they tell us to do and be very quiet. I think everything will be okay if we do that.”
Claire prayed she wasn’t lying to the child.
Please, God, don’t let this turn out badly.
Once the window stool was cleared, she assisted one child after the other onto the wide marble ledge. “Face out the window,” she told them quietly. They would be better off not seeing whatever was about to happen in this room.
By the time she’d reached the other end of the window, her entire class stood on that ledge staring out at the cluster of law enforcement vehicles.
Claire chewed her lip. Maybe this was worse than sitting in their desks staring at those men. She just didn’t know. Seeing those police cars out there would only alarm the children all the more.
“You!”
She pivoted to look at the man, the one she presumed to be in charge.
“Come here.”
“Stay very still and quiet, boys and girls,” she said once more, her voice as soothing as she could make it. Then, with a deep breath for courage, she walked back to her desk where the three men waited.
“Go through each backpack and purse, including your own, and remove any cellular phones. Bring them here to me.”
Few of her students had cell phones but she knew she would find one or two. She nodded. “All right.” Her gaze met the principal’s briefly as she turned to do her captor’s bidding. The image of the children lined up in that window, their backs turned to the hateful intruders, had her stomach dropping to her feet.
It was at that exact moment that she realized the purpose of putting the children in the window.
The realization made her heart follow the path her stomach had already taken.
The window stool was about forty inches off the floor and the window towered another five feet above that. There were no drapes or blinds to draw.
He was using the children to block the view into the room. And, probably, as a reminder of what was at stake. No way could a sniper attempt to take out any of the bad guys with the children lining the window. It was too risky.
These evil men had considered every contingency.
But why?
As she checked the backpacks hanging on a line of hooks mounted on the wall that divided her room from the hall, she wondered again why this school had been chosen. Why her classroom? Was it simply because she’d stepped into the hall at the wrong time? Or was there some other reason she just didn’t comprehend yet.
Peter Reimes. A new jolt of fear shook her. His father was a state representative who took an aggressive stance on fighting terrorism. His name and face would be known to men like these. His family would be an easy target.
She couldn’t be sure…but it was the only theory that made sense so far.
The men spoke perfect English. Were these men terrorists in the most-prevailing sense of the word or were they just thugs?
By the time she’d reached the final backpack she’d discovered five cell phones. Her first instinct was to keep one. Somehow attempt to hide it in the pocket of her slacks. But if she was discovered, it could cost her more than she wanted to pay. The way things looked, it wasn’t like she would get the opportunity to use it. The chances of all three men stepping out of the room at once was about nil and if she turned on the phone and entered 9–1-1, the operator’s voice would give her away. And that wasn’t even counting the one man watching her every move. She might not be restrained the way Mr. Allen was, but she by no means had free rein. The leader knew the best way to use her to keep the children quiet. If she appeared under control, the children would respond better.
So she took the phones and placed them on the desk. She purposely avoided going around behind the desk to get the one in her purse. Maybe he wouldn’t notice that she hadn’t done that. Maybe he would assume her purse had been in one of the backpacks. Plenty of teachers carried backpacks, too.
“Remove the one from your purse,” he instructed when she met his gaze.
So much for that plan. She crouched next to Mr. Allen and reached into her purse. She took the phone and placed it on the desk with the others.
“What do you want me to do now?”
He gestured to the window filled with children. “Stay close to your students. Ensure that no one makes a mistake that would get him or her killed.”
Fear barbed ruthlessly. Still, she managed a nod before going off to do his bidding. Right now cooperation was essential.
Resuming her position in the row of children, who remained surprisingly quiet, Claire turned to face her desk. She didn’t want her back to these men. Whatever happened next, she wanted to see it coming.
The man giving
all the orders used the muzzle of his weapon to slide Claire’s phone across her desk to Mr. Allen. “We’re going to make a call and you’re going to do the talking for us. Do you understand?”
Mr. Allen nodded, the movement jerky.
Claire thought about how he’d had a heart attack last year. The red blotches amid the pallor of his face had her worried. But what could she do?
Nothing.
The man in charge nodded to one of his associates who picked up Claire’s phone and entered a number before placing the phone against Mr. Allen’s ear.
“Identify yourself and state your situation.”
“This is Principal Dale Allen from Whitesburg Middle School,” he said. “Approximately twenty fifth-grade students, a teacher, Miss Claire Grant, and I have been taken hostage by what I believe to be a group of three terrorists.”
Shock rumbled through Claire. Terrorists? She looked at first one man then the next and the next. Were these terrorists promoting some cause or was this about money? Were they foreigners? She couldn’t see their faces. Their voices sounded as American as her own. She’d already considered the concept that this was a terrorist act…but somehow hearing Mr. Allen say it made it more real. Mr. Allen kept up with the ongoing terrorist threats of the world. He would have a better grasp than she.
What could they hope to accomplish for their cause at her school? It didn’t make sense. Kidnapping a state representative’s child wouldn’t carry the kind of worldwide leverage terrorists usually went after…would it? Sure, the Reimes name was one associated with antiterrorism, but was that enough to cause these men to promote their agenda in this manner?
She surveyed the students to ensure no one had turned to face the threat or had moved out of position.
“Tell them,” the man instructing Mr. Allen went on, “that we wish to speak directly with State Representative Paul Reimes.”
Reimes. Claire’s gaze settled on the back of Peter Reimes’s head. So they were here about him. Again, she wondered if this was a kidnapping gone wrong. Maybe they weren’t terrorists. Maybe this was about money.