by L. T. Vargus
“Right, but if we think Luke is the one orchestrating—”
“There’s more. Luke’s ex-wife gave me a box of his old stuff. His high school yearbook was inside. Actually, it was her high school yearbook, but judging by the amount of time and effort he spent defacing it, I’d say he has a lot of leftover bitterness about that place.”
There was a brief silence over the line, and Darger imagined Loshak mussing up his own hair.
Finally he said, “I suppose I can see the appeal for him. If you’re raging against all of the various societal ties that bind, why not direct it at a place you spent years being told what to do and how to act?”
“And it didn’t sound like he was a star when it came to academics or extracurriculars. Unless setting a record for highest number of suspensions counts,” she added.
“Is it even open?”
“What?”
“The school. Seems early.”
“I looked it up. Classes start today.”
“Cripes,” Loshak said, and she knew what he was thinking: that perhaps the Foley brothers wanted to make this school year start with a bang. “You heading over there now?”
“Yeah, I’m two minutes away according to GPS.”
“You call for backup?” he asked.
“Do you count?”
He snorted. “I’m on my way, I’ll see if I can borrow some bodies from Atlanta PD.”
Chapter 64
Loshak called again as Darger strode down a long hallway leading past the gym. Judging by the smell of chlorine in the air, the pool was also somewhere nearby.
“The main student and visitor entrances have a security checkpoint with metal detectors,” Darger relayed. “I’m checking all of the other doors to see if any of them have been forced open or otherwise tampered with.”
She reached a door at the end of the corridor. After a brief inspection, she moved on to the next.
“Agent Dawson and I thought we’d cruise around the parking lot, see if the Wrangler’s out here.”
“Good idea,” Darger said. “Call me if you find anything.”
“If you’ll do the same,” Loshak said and hung up.
Her shoes squeaked over the vinyl floors as she rounded a corner. Ahead, Darger could see a wheeled cart loaded with a metal trash bin.
As she passed by, a custodian backed out of an open door, nearly bumping into her. He startled and stopped short just in time, muttering an apology.
The janitor reached up to adjust the brim of his baseball hat. As the blue sleeve of his coverall slid along his arm, it revealed a long white scar that ran almost from wrist to elbow. That must have been a nasty surgery.
Not breaking her stride, Darger thought about how they had always been so strict about students wearing hats in school when she was a kid, which she’d never understood. Was it still like that?
Her eyes were on the door ahead, and something was nagging at her. She scanned the door itself, looking for something out of place, but there was nothing notable that she could see.
The janitor’s trolley emitted a squawk that echoed down the passage, and she stopped. Turned.
He was pushing it down the hall in the opposite direction.
He didn’t seem to be in any hurry. If anything, his sauntering gait was completely relaxed. She had yet to pin down what it was that was bugging her when he pivoted to follow the cart around the bend. And then she saw the rolled cuff of his uniform sleeve and remembered the scar, and it all came together.
Your brother is in surgery right now, having his bones screwed back together.
Levi’s surgery after his ill-planned stunt on the roof.
The man in the janitor’s uniform glanced back, saw that she was watching him. His spine went rigid, and then he took off.
“Shit,” Darger said.
She sprinted after him, pausing briefly at the cart now laden with a single garbage can. It appeared empty aside from the plastic bag, but on a hunch, she ripped the plastic liner away.
Resting on the bottom was a brick of plastic explosives with pins protruding from it.
How many had they planted? They could have one in every classroom, on every floor. Near emergency exits. In stairwells.
Jesus God.
She had to get everyone out of the school. Glancing up, she saw the man she was now certain was Levi Foley heading for another set of doors. But she also couldn’t let him get away.
Darger noticed the red rectangular box with white letters protruding from the wall. She pulled the handle, setting off the fire alarm as she jogged past, immediately triggering a shrill siren.
Continuing after Levi, and dodging the students now crowding the cafeteria area on their way out of the building, she tugged her phone from her pocket.
As soon as she heard the click of Loshak picking up, she shouted into the phone. “Loshak! They’re in dark blue janitor suits. I’m chasing Levi on foot, headed west, I think. I don’t see Luke, but he’s gotta be here somewhere. They’ve planted explosives all over the building.”
“We’re on it,” Loshak said. “Be careful.”
He hung up.
Levi bounded through a door that led outside, knocking into a woman carrying a stack of three-ring binders. As Darger hurried past, she called out to him.
“Levi, stop!”
He seemed startled by that, his head swiveling around to look back at her. She didn’t know why. Surely he was aware they knew his name, knew all about him. He must have seen his picture plastered on the news and in the papers at least a dozen times by now. He and his brother were in the midst of their fifteen minutes of fame.
Because he wasn’t watching where he was running, his foot caught an uneven seam on the sidewalk and he stumbled for a few steps. Darger held her breath.
This was it. He was going to fall, and she was going to capture him.
Chapter 65
Luke heard the fire alarm go off.
Shit. Something was very wrong.
He looked both ways, finding empty hallways sprawled out before him, and ran for the door.
The car was parked in the employee lot, and the remote detonator was wedged under the seat on the driver’s side.
He had to blow it now, and hope that Levi was out in time. They both knew the deal going into this. Death was always a possibility.
No fear. No regrets.
When he jammed through the big steel door, he found a familiar face in the side lot, standing in front of the Ford Focus. It was the FBI Agent from TV, Victor Loshak. The one who wrote the book about serial killers.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
He slowed to what he hoped looked like a nonchalant walk and rounded the corner.
Loshak appeared to be fiddling with his phone. Luke didn’t think the Agent saw him.
When he got to the front of the school, he stripped off his janitorial jumpsuit and ditched it in some bushes set in a bed of decorative gravel.
He jogged out toward the busy intersection, hoping to fall in with the growing stream of foot traffic and blend in. He suspected the Braves hat he had pulled down over his brow would make him nondescript enough to go unnoticed. Or at least he hoped.
Chapter 66
Ahead of her, Levi managed to regain his footing and kept running with renewed vigor.
Darger continued her pursuit, following Levi as he cut a path through a baseball diamond behind the school.
A part of her kept waiting to hear it. The big boom. Why hadn’t they blown the school yet? Luke had surely heard the fire alarm. She supposed he might be worried that Levi was still inside, but that suggested they expected to… what? Get out of this alive? Or did they have more planned?
The thought spurred her forward, despite the ache building in her legs.
Levi passed beyond a copse of poplars along the edge of the athletic fields, disappearing from her view momentarily. When she crossed under the canopy, she saw him dashing down a residential street that backed up to the school grounds.
An elderly woman hunched over a patch of marigolds planted along the side of the house. She spewed a series of panicked bird-like noises with her mouth as they blitzed past. Finally, she managed to shriek, “What! What! What is this? Who are you?”
Darger ignored her, her focus solely on Levi.
He took a diagonal path across the next lane, slipping through the open gate of a very tall privacy fence.
If this fence goes all the way around, then I’ll have him, Darger thought. He would have nowhere to go. She rounded the corner of the house, and her hopes sank. There was a cord of firewood at one end, stacked high enough to bring the top of the fence within reach. He could climb the pile and have no trouble hopping the fence. And that’s exactly what he did.
It wasn’t until Darger was in the middle of the yard that she saw the dog.
Chapter 67
Luke proceeded at what he hoped was an inconspicuous pace, disappearing into the throngs of humanity swarming over the sidewalk. It had been a long time since he traveled through the city on foot. It looked different from this perspective.
A pair of cop cars flew by. Sirens screaming. Lights twirling. It wouldn’t be long before they circled back to patrol this area more thoroughly. Canvassing. Setting up roadblocks. He needed to flee this vicinity faster than walking.
He cut right, leaving the busier streets to look for a more residential area. The foot traffic waned. Within a block and a half, he was the only one walking. He felt exposed, but it was OK, he told himself. In a minute here, he’d have a car.
Peggy Sanchez headed out to her car, visions of Sean Hannity dancing in her head as usual. Right as she jabbed a thumb at the key fob to unlock her Saturn, a gruff voice spoke up from behind her.
“Give me the keys, and I won’t hurt you.”
She turned in slow motion, the faces from the news flickering where they’d been burned into her brain.
It was him. It was one of the killers. A baseball hat rode low over his brow, but she could tell.
She did not hesitate.
She doused Luke Foley with the small can of pepper spray on her key chain, her heart thudding.
The killer screeched and brought his hands to his face, dropping to the ground in agony.
She kicked him once in the ribs and ran inside, locking the door behind her.
Her thoughts were jumbled, everything aflutter, but she took a breath, counted to three, and moved to call the police.
Chapter 68
The dog caught up with Darger as she reached the woodpile and began clambering up the side. It had the perky ears and fluffy fur of a teddy bear and a tail that curled back on itself. The eyes were so deeply set in the fur that Darger mostly saw the face as a big snubbed nose.
A far cry from a snarling Rottweiler, but still, she could tell its intent was more than a friendly sniff of the crotch.
It was a Chow, she was pretty sure. She remembered hearing somewhere that it was the breed most likely to turn on its owner.
As that thought ran through her mind, it launched itself for the attack. Darger tried to pull her legs up under herself, but it was too late. She felt the bite of canine teeth sink into her calf, penetrating the fabric of her pants as if it were wet paper.
She tried to yank away. When that didn’t work she gave the leg a shake, but the dog held tight, using its powerful neck muscles to wrench back and forth. Darger’s hand strayed toward the holster at her waist. She didn’t want to shoot the animal, but she wasn’t sure what choice she had. Despite being half her size, it was strong.
It gave another tug and Darger slid a few inches down the woodpile. One of the logs came loose under her, rolling to the grass. And that gave her an idea.
Darger reached for a piece of wood, clutching it with desperate fingers. She hefted it over her shoulder and swung it like a club, catching the dog on the side of the head. The Chow emitted a high-pitched whine and unhinged its jaws. Darger lifted the wood again, but the dog backed just out of reach, growling.
Not releasing her hold on the chunk of wood, Darger scaled to the top of the stacked logs. With one quick glance over the side of the fence, she hopped down. The impact of hitting the ground sent an almost electric sizzle of pain up and down her wounded leg.
Ignoring her injury for now, she whirled her head around. She was in an alley, walled in by high fences with a dead end to the right. He could only have gone one way.
With a limping gait, Darger ambled down to the crossroad, hoping she’d be able to tell which direction he’d gone from there.
When she reached the street, she heard a car horn blare to her left, and then another. She took a guess at what they were honking at and veered that way.
Chapter 69
Luke scrambled. His eyes burned. Excruciating. The left one a bit worse than the right, a sting that stabbed somehow, an ice pick skewering his eyeball to the hilt.
He could kind of see out of the right eye, but barely. Keeping it open for more than a fraction of a second was a lost fight. Still, he had to move.
He jogged down what he thought was the sidewalk, hands bobbing in front of him to feel for obstacles.
Milk. That’s what people dumped in their eyes during times like this. He didn’t know if it really worked, but he’d be willing to give it a try with a gallon or ten, even if it only helped a little.
Sirens blared somewhere behind him. The mourning wail growing closer and closer.
He needed to get inside somewhere. Anywhere. For just a few minutes.
Maybe the adrenaline helped or something, but he could keep his right eyelid open now, looking at the world through one narrow peephole.
He swiveled toward the closest house, crashing through the bushes to get to a window.
His flattened palms butted up against the pane of glass, trying to force it open.
Locked.
Fuck.
He had to think. Heart beating so hard, so fast.
He stripped off his shirt and wrapped it around his left arm and fist the best he could.
He punched the glass, feeling that brittle sheet cave against his balled hand. The crash was so loud and sharp and musical. A glassy burst that made him shudder.
He cut the punch short and retracted his covered arm with care, managing to come out of it unscathed.
Shards of glass still hung in the window frame, so he poked out a couple of big pieces, snaking his hand through the opening to unlock the window.
The sirens wailed right on top of him now, and the twirling lights twinkled in the corner of his eye.
He ducked into the bushes and waited, expecting with all of his being to hear the cruiser slow when it got to him, but it didn’t. It slowed at the intersection and then picked up speed again, zooming past.
He rose, threw open the sash and climbed into the house.
It took a second for his good eye to adjust to the shade inside the house. He found himself in a bathroom.
Tyrone heard the sirens first. Multiple sirens. Close. He sat up, checked the alarm clock. It was 7:44 AM — later than he usually slept, and for a second, a twinge of panic passed over him at seeing those numbers, but it was OK, he reminded himself. Today was his day off.
All of this killer stuff in the news had messed him up, and he’d been looking forward to sleeping in until 9:00 or 9:30. That didn’t seem likely anymore.
He listened for a moment. The sirens grew louder, moved closer, but he didn’t quite care enough to go take a look.
He let his head plop back to the down softness of the pillow, blinked a few times, and closed his eyes.
And then glass exploded somewhere on the other side of the house. The
impact sounded like a blunt stroke, maybe dampened somehow, but it was unmistakably a window in his home.
He extended his hand over the side of the mattress and fumbled around underneath until his fingers found what they sought — the fire poker. It felt right in his hands — heavy metal. Hard and cold. An instrument of death.
He cocked it in his arms like a baseball bat, ready to take the intruder’s goddamn head off, and lifted himself from the bed to investigate.
Chapter 70
She caught up with him at the foot of the bridge, the central support arching across the water like a strange bent spine. Darger followed him up that subtle slope for a time, and then Levi slowed as they reached the midpoint.
He stood still for a moment, facing the water. And then he climbed up onto the rail.
“Don’t,” Darger said, only able to get out the single word between breaths. It had to be 200 feet from here to the river below.
He got to his knees at first and then stood, swaying a little. Gusts of wind battered him and let up, battered him and let up, seemingly determined to knock him off his perch, but he rode the turbulence out, his t-shirt flapping against his torso. His arms splayed to his sides like wings to help him keep his balance.
For the first time, Darger saw the gun in his hand and shuffled back a couple steps. Her hand went to her own holster, but she stopped herself. Pointing a gun at a suicidal man didn’t seem wise. For the moment, he paid her no mind, so she side-stepped to the rail, still keeping her distance.
Dark water swirled below when she glanced over the edge. A churning, burbling place to die.
“You don’t have to do this, Levi,” she said. “You can come with me. This can end peacefully for everyone.”