by Sam Sisavath
“The shooter. Or shooters.”
“One of them was Asian.”
“And?”
“Tall.”
“Tall?”
“Yeah. Tall.”
“Not a lot of tall Asians out there. Especially women.”
“That’s why it stuck with one of the witnesses. Not that the Houston Police Department would ever profile, mind you.”
“Of course not.” Zoe put her notepad away. “Still doesn’t make any sense the feds would get involved in this.”
“No kidding. Nothing makes sense anymore.”
“Meaning?”
“Feds running off with witnesses, one or three shooters that may be all women? Nothing’s making sense. I’ve been doing this job for two decades, and none of it’s prepared me for the last few weeks.”
“The Wilshire again?”
“The Wilshire, this John Porter guy, the Kobalcom bombing.” Kevin shook his head, looking more frustrated than she was used to seeing from him. “This is Houston, for God’s sake. Not New York. Not DC. Not even LA. Things like that don’t happen around here.”
They do now, Zoe thought, even if she did agree with him. Terrorist attacks and notorious criminal sightings did not happen in a place like Houston. Moving down here and taking the on-air job was supposed to be a proving ground on her way to places like New York or DC—where things like terrorist attacks and notorious criminal sightings were supposed to occur.
And yet, if the last two weeks had taught her anything, it was that you never knew when—or where—news would break. Big news. The kind of news that got you national attention and landed you cushy twenty-four-hour cable news gigs.
“Thanks—” Zoe said when Kevin’s radio, clipped to his hip, squawked loudly and cut her off.
A female voice said through the radio: “All units, all units. We have a hostage situation at Harold Campbell High School. All available units, please respond. Be advised: Federal agencies are already on scene.”
“Harold Campbell High School?” Zoe asked.
Kevin nodded down the street. “Ten blocks from here.” Then, his eyes widening slowly, “What are the chances…?”
Zoe didn’t hear the rest of his question, because she was already running down the sidewalk toward a van parked nearby. She was glad she had slacks and casual sneakers on; anything more “flirty” and she would have been going splat on the sidewalk after the first couple of steps.
Rob was still outside, leaning against the driver-side door eating a hot dog when he heard her coming and looked over. “What—” he started to say.
“Harold Campbell High!” Zoe shouted. “Now!”
Rob Drysdale had one hand on the steering wheel and the other clinging to the remaining half of his hot dog. He was stuffing his face and trying to talk at the same time, and if not for the fact this was a common occurrence, Zoe wouldn’t have been able to understand a word he was saying.
“What’s happening at Harold Campbell High?” Rob asked, though it came out sounding like “Whasahacapahigh?”
“We’ll find out when we get there,” Zoe said.
Rob didn’t get a chance to follow up his question, because Zoe’s phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket, saw the name on the caller ID, and answered it. “Hey, boss.”
“Where are you now?” Joe Kaplan asked through the phone.
“On my way.”
“On your way where?”
“The same place you’re calling to tell me to get my ass there pronto.”
She imagined Joe grinning from ear to ear. “That’s my girl. We’ll have everything ready for a live shot whenever you are.”
“Any new developments I should know about?”
“Nothing yet. Just a hostage situation in progress.”
“What are the feds already doing there?”
“Good question. Your job’s to get me the answers.”
“That’s the plan.”
“What about Barney’s Eats?”
“I’m not sure, but it feels like a dead end. You can get Cathy to cover the press conference in a few hours.”
“She’s already out the door.”
“Anything else?”
“Just get me something.”
“Don’t I always?”
“That’s my girl,” he said, and hung up.
“Must be big,” Rob said when she put the phone away. Or, actually, something along the lines of “Moosabag.”
“Big enough they’re calling every cop who isn’t busy at the diner over,” Zoe said. “Now aren’t you glad they didn’t send you out chasing politicians with Greg and Janice?”
Rob chuckled. “I don’t know; might be less dangerous on the campaign trail.”
“Boring is dangerous, Rob. Never forget that.”
“Boring is how I’m going to live to be a grandfather.”
“That’s boring, too.”
They weren’t exactly speeding, but Rob was swerving through traffic. A stranger might call his driving dangerous, but to Zoe it was perfectly normal.
“This feels big,” Rob said, his words easily understandable now that he’d swallowed down the last of the hot dog.
“It does, doesn’t it?”
“What about the diner?”
“Forget the diner. No one’s going to remember it in a few days. A hostage situation at a school? Shit, I could be doing reports on this all week, Rob. Maybe all month.”
“Maybe you’ll get loaned out to the cable networks.”
She smiled. “From your lips to CNN’s ears.”
It didn’t take them long to reach their destination—or close enough for Zoe to know they weren’t going to be able to go any farther by car. There were already police cruisers in the streets blocking off traffic and uniformed officers setting up sawhorses, while civilian cars were being diverted into side streets, creating a jam at least a block long.
Rob slowed down before coming to a complete stop beside an empty school bus. “Now what?”
Zoe scanned the streets but didn’t see any other news vans in the area. Which meant they were the first on the scene.
“Find a parking space,” she said.
“You mean—”
“We’re going to hump it to the school.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”
Zoe grinned at him. “I told you to go easy on the junk food. This is your penance.”
Rob sighed. “I knew you were going to be the death of me one of these days,” he said, before turning into a nearby McDonald’s.
The helicopter swooped by overhead, its dark color silhouetted against the bright sun in the background. Zoe thought she could see a man leaning out the open side hatch, but it could have been a big blob of something human-shaped, for all she knew. She wasn’t the only one who noticed the chopper’s sudden presence—people on the sidewalk in front of her stopped to gawk, and Zoe had to dodge around them.
She glanced back periodically to make sure Rob was still behind her. He was struggling to catch up, thanks to the heavy camera he was carrying. Zoe slowed down until he was at her heels, then they pushed on together, snaking their way through the sea of lollygaggers drawn forward by the police lights farther up ahead.
Geez, don’t you people have jobs to get to? she thought as she pushed through two big guys because going around them would have cost her a few extra seconds.
The crowd thinned out just before she reached the first police barricade, uniformed officers diverting traffic left and right. They had set up a full block from the school—she could see glimpses of the building in the distance, almost exactly straight ahead. The civilians gathered in front of the sawhorses had either shown up on foot or parked their cars along the curb and walked over.
“Parents,” Rob said behind her, taking the opportunity to catch his breath. “Looks like word got out pretty fast about what’s happening at the school. Makes sense they’d get here first; most of them probably live nearby.”
Zoe heard him
but didn’t answer. She was too busy trying to figure out a way around the gathered throng. First the civilians, then the cops that had almost completely blocked off the street.
She turned around and pushed her way back to Rob. “We have to get up there.”
Rob shook his head. “There’s no way around them, kid. They’re not going to let anyone get close if this really is a hostage situation.”
Zoe looked past Rob and saw what she had been expecting—a van trying to bully its way up the street through heavy traffic. It was white, so probably Channel 13.
She turned back to Rob. “Come on.”
“Where we going?”
“Just follow me.”
Rob sighed, then followed her away from the crowd. They slipped behind a Wendy’s, its employees and customers gathered outside on the sidewalk looking toward the school. She saw an apartment complex—more people out in their yards, those on the higher floors standing on their balconies—and circled around it.
“You know where you’re going?” Rob asked between pants.
“Trust me,” Zoe said.
“That’s what my ex-wife said before I caught her on the sofa with my best friend. No brownie points if you guessed they weren’t playing Jenga.”
“What’s Jenga?”
“The game?”
“Board game?”
“Never mind.”
“Hey, you brought it up, old timer.”
Rob might have rolled his eyes, but she didn’t bother to check. Besides, Rob feeling as if she was leading him to certain death was nothing new. They had been working together ever since she got to Houston, and her cameraman had always bitched and moaned, but in the end always kept his part of the bargain: to lug the camera around and point it at her when it was time to go on air.
It took another twenty more minutes before Zoe was finally sure of which direction to take. Sixteen more minutes after that, and she caught sight of the school’s white walls, along with its flagpole on the other side of someone’s yard. The homeowner wasn’t around, and thankfully there were no dogs, so they were able to climb the three-foot fence and make their way around the two-story house without having to explain themselves.
She expected Rob to protest when they came up to the fence, but he didn’t. He also kept uncharacteristically quiet when they crossed the backyard and emerged out alongside the brick building, where her partner went into a crouch and started checking his camera.
“How did you know?” Rob asked.
Dumb luck, Zoe thought, but said, “This is why I get paid the big bucks.”
“Since when did you start getting paid the big bucks?”
She grinned. “Company secret.”
“Of course,” Rob said, and rolled his eyes.
Harold Campbell High School was directly in front of them, separated by a driveway and fifty yards of recently mown grass. There was nothing, not even a fence, to divide the two grounds. Not that anything short of the Great Wall of China would have stopped Zoe, but it would have been harder for Rob, with his camera (not to mention his slightly out-of-shape body) to vault the obstruction.
Police cars had taken over the school’s parking lot, and Zoe could make out not one, but two SWAT vans near the back. There were also more than a few unmarked sedans among all that gathered law enforcement.
“FBI,” she said quietly.
“What?” Rob said behind her.
“The Crown Victorias. That’s FBI.”
“What’s the FBI doing here?”
“What were they doing at the diner?”
“Barney’s Eats? Where we just were?”
“Yeah. They beat us there.”
“Are these the same feds?”
“I don’t know. What are the chances of that?”
She was answering Rob, but Zoe was really talking to herself. She was always better at solving problems when she could hear them out loud. It was an old trick she’d learned in high school, thanks to her dad.
Zoe looked back at Rob. “You ready?”
“Yeah.”
Rob was hiking the camera up to his shoulder when another helicopter (or was it the same one?) swooped by overhead, sending a swirl of fresh air around them. Zoe glanced up after the aircraft but could only see its black belly as it angled toward the school. This time she was absolutely certain there were men in black fatigues leaning out the open side hatches, the sunlight glinting off their rifle barrels.
“Snipers,” Zoe said.
“Federal or local?” Rob asked.
“I don’t know. Do we even have airborne SWAT?”
“You’re asking me? I’m just the cameraman.”
Zoe looked back at the army of law enforcement continuing to fill up the school’s parking lot. She didn’t have to guess where most of the action was centered—there were at least a dozen men in drab olive uniforms flanking a pair of classroom windows near the school’s front doors. They were clearly concentrating on one very specific classroom—one that, unlike the others, had its blinds closed, though Zoe thought she caught a glimpse of one of the blinds flicking open for a brief second or two before closing back up.
“Oh shit, look,” Rob said, pointing.
She looked where he was pointing. “Whoa.”
Students. A lot of them. They were coming out of a side door to the right of the front entrance. There was a steady stream of teenagers and adults racing outside and into the arms of even more men in fatigues before being herded into a waiting area with uniformed patrolman. It should have looked chaotic but wasn’t. Whoever was in charge clearly knew what they were doing.
Rob had already stood up, and, still using the side of the house as cover, was filming the controlled stampede coming out of the side of the school.
“You ready?” he asked.
Zoe stood up and grabbed the remote microphone out of the pouch alongside Rob’s hip. The cameraman continued shooting the students even as he took a few steps away from the brick wall to get a better angle. Zoe took ten seconds to check her makeup on her smartphone’s camera before fast-dialing Joe’s number.
The station manager answered on the first ring, his voice coming through the phone’s speakers so Rob could hear, too: “Where are you?”
“At the school,” Zoe said.
“Where at the school?”
“Close enough that Rob’s taking shots of students running out of the place as we speak.”
“Fan-friggin’-tastic, guys.”
“When am I going on?”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
“How about now?”
“You got it.” He went silent for five seconds and was back on the sixth: “Sixty seconds to live.”
Rob nodded and flicked on the live feed controls on his camera. “Fifty seconds to live...”
Zoe put the phone away and nodded at Rob. “How do I look?”
“Like a million bucks.”
“I’ll settle for a first-class ticket back to Chicago. Or New York. I’m not picky.”
“How about DC?”
She made a face. “Who wants to cover old wrinkly politicians all the time?”
“I hear that—”
The boom! of an explosion tearing through the school and blowing out a dozen windows made them both involuntarily duck. Car alarms began screeching up and down the block, with smoke billowing out of the shattered windows across at least three classrooms along the front side of the school.
“Rob!” Zoe shouted. “Stick with me!”
“What?” Rob said, confused.
“Stick with me!” she shouted, and was already running toward the school when the gunfire began, the pop-pop-pop ripping across the afternoon sky like firecrackers.
Faster, she told herself. Faster, girl!
Chapter 5
Quinn
Dust flitted off both sides of the CD when Quinn plucked it out of the sliding case holder. It was generic, silver, with the letter T scribbled in large permanent black marker on one sid
e and nothing else.
“We started backing up all the files about two months before the fire,” Doug Patterson said. “Scanners being what they were back then, that part took the longest, which is why we only made it through half of the records. We always planned on reconstituting the missing pieces, but by then the home had begun to run low on funds, and there were other needs.”
There were twenty-six CDs in all—one for each letter of the alphabet. Quinn slid the holder closed and took a thin, protective plastic case from a nearby shelf and slipped the disc inside like precious cargo. The idea that she could be holding what might very well be the last vestiges of her past made her both anxious and sad.
This is what my past is. A CD disk. A plain-looking, cheap CD disk…
“I can’t guarantee your files are in there,” Patterson said. “Martha and Kyle, who did the backing up, didn’t always work alphabetically. Not that they could, anyway. The records were usually out of order. But if your files are anywhere, it’ll be in there.”
They were inside the garage next to the house, where one entire side of the building had been converted into a storage area. The shelves were stocked with moving boxes and plastic crates, each one carefully marked with relics from the past. Another pang of sadness struck her upon realizing that this was everything Patterson had managed to salvage from the place so many people considered their homes.
Oh, get over it. This is your past. This is what you came here to find, isn’t it?
“You wouldn’t happen to have a CD player, would you?” Quinn asked.
“Sorry, but computers were never my thing. I only have those discs because no one wanted them, and, well, I couldn’t bear to throw them away. As you can see, I may be clinging just a tad to the past.”
“It’s a good thing you did.”
“You don’t have something that can read it?”
“I have a laptop in my car, but it doesn’t come with a CD player. Most computers aren’t even sold with those anymore. Thumb drives and cloud storage have basically put burning data onto a disc out of business.”
“Maybe you can find one in a store somewhere.”
“I’m sure I can,” Quinn nodded. “Thank you, Doug, for hanging on to this after all these years.”