by Sam Sisavath
Zoe looked past Ron and at the school. She didn’t remember when the shooting had stopped, but there was just the whup-whup-whup of helicopter rotors in her ears now. People were beginning to come out of the front doors—teenagers and adults, and men in commando fatigues and ballistic helmets with HRT written across their assault vests.
Feds. How the hell did they get here so fast?
Someone jerked on her arm, and she winced with pain. “Easy there, Tex.”
“Shut up,” the man behind her grunted.
Tough guy, huh? she thought, looking around before she found the young cop holding the camera trailing behind them. “That’s our property, mister. If it goes missing, you’ll have to answer to our lawyers. And I’m talking about you.”
The cop stared back at her as if he had been scolded by his mom.
Zoe glanced away before he could see the grin on her face.
“You’re crazy, Zoe.”
“One of your cops already told me that.”
“It deserves a second mention. You’re truly out of your mind. Maybe it’s all that ‘Zoe on the Case’ bullshit Channel 9’s running every other hour. Is that it? You starting to believe your own hype?”
Zoe rolled her eyes at him. If she didn’t already know how badly Detective Craig Mansfield was smitten with her, she might have taken his diagnosis more seriously. Not that it was a one-way street. Craig was thirty-eight, blond, blue-eyed, and in terrific shape underneath that custom suit and tie. He was also married with a six-year-old, but she hadn’t let that stop her. But then, it took two to tango, didn’t it?
“You know how much I hate that tagline,” Zoe said.
“Which one?” Craig asked.
“You know which one.”
“‘Zoe on the Case’ has a nice ring to it.”
“It makes me sound like a fifth-grader opening a PI firm with my identical twin sister.”
Craig chuckled before taking a key out of his pocket and dangling it in front of her. “Promise me you won’t go running off if I use this.”
“Is that the key to the cuffs you left behind in my condo or for these?” she asked, holding up her handcuffed hands.
He smirked before checking to see if anyone had heard. Luckily for him, they were all alone in the back of one of the police cruisers in the parking lot. Most of the uniform cops who were gathered here earlier had gone to help clear out the school. A dozen or so sheriff’s deputies were directing traffic nearby, with civilians coming and going at regular intervals.
The real activity was behind Craig, on the school lawn where the news media had finally been allowed in now that the danger had passed. The stations were doing their live feeds, and those that weren’t were getting ready while their cameramen took shots of the uneventful police action behind them.
Better luck next time, boys and girls.
Zoe made eye contact with one of the reporters. Adrian Hall. Twenty-five, blond, the hottest thing on two feet according to Ron and most men at the station. But Adrian Hall was going to have to wait for another story, because Zoe had this one. A shot of Harold Campbell High School after the exciting stuff was over wasn’t going to be jack shit compared to the footage she had sent to the station in real time an hour ago.
Suck on that, Adrian.
Zoe smiled at her, and the other woman looked away when her cameraman said something.
“She’s cute,” Craig said as he unlocked her cuffs.
“Who?” Zoe asked.
“Who,” Craig repeated with a smile. “Your heir apparent. Adrian Hall.”
“She wishes.”
Craig put the key back into his pocket. “Needless to say, don’t leave town. Command hasn’t decided if they’re going to charge you yet.”
Zoe gave him a wry look. “Charge me for what?”
“Interfering with law enforcement.”
“Bullshit.”
“There’s nothing bullshit about a felony, Zoe.”
“It’s a good thing I know a lot of really good lawyers, then.”
“Money can’t buy you out of everything.”
“Says who?”
She rubbed at her wrists to get the blood flowing again. The metal had left behind purple indentations that were going to take a few hours to get rid of—longer, if she was lucky, because it would mean she could show them off when she got back to the station and did the live interview Joe was setting up right now.
“What were you thinking, running into the open like that?” Craig asked.
“I was thinking Emmy.”
“Emmy? More like a jacket at the psych ward. They tell you to do that at Channel 9?”
“No, but they don’t discourage it, either.”
“Must be one hell of a management team you got over there.”
“We’ve been number one for ten years straight. If it ain’t broke…”
“Until one of you gets killed.”
“Yeah, well, talk to me when that hypothetical finally happens.”
Craig grunted but didn’t reply. She wondered if he actually cared, and looking at his face—
Maybe?
Zoe wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. She tended to steer clear of men who got too emotionally involved, which was why she usually targeted the married ones. Cheaters were easy to ditch when you got tired of them or needed to work another source more…vigorously.
“Where’s Ron?” Zoe asked.
“Who?” Craig said.
“My cameraman. And don’t think I forgot about the camera. I want it back in perfect working condition, or you’ll be hearing from those same lawyers I just mentioned a few seconds ago.”
Craig glanced around the parking lot, then nodded toward an ambulance parked about forty yards away. Zoe stood up and looked over, saw Ron with a couple of EMTs at the back of the van being looked over.
“He’s fine,” Craig said.
“What about my camera?”
“It’s been impounded.”
“What the hell for?”
“Gee, I don’t know, because you and your buddy were running into an active police situation with it? If it comes back clean, you’ll get it back.”
“‘Comes back clean?’ What the hell does that mean? What do you think it is, some kind of hidden bomb?”
Craig shrugged. “It could be anything.”
“It is something—a friggin’ camera.”
“We’ll see about that.”
She pursed her lips and juggled the pros and cons of going off on him. There really wasn’t much in the way of pros except a little venting and feeling better about the situation, but what would that achieve, really? Not very much except instant emotional gratification.
Keep your head on your shoulder, girl. He’s just trying to tweak you anyway.
She looked away from Craig and at the school. Police officers were still coming and going—a mixture of uniformed cops and commandos. She recognized the HPD and Harris County SWAT units, but the HRT she’d seen earlier were gone.
“What happened to the feds?” Zoe asked.
Craig glanced over at where she was looking. “They left.”
“When?”
“Can’t say for sure. I’m not the liaison, so when they come and go isn’t my job.”
“Did they take any casualties?”
Craig smiled at her.
“What?” Zoe said.
“Are you pumping me for information?”
She returned his smile. “Do you want me to pump you for information?”
Craig scanned the parking lot again. Then, dropping his voice, “Tonight? Dinner?”
“Dinner?” Zoe said. “Since when do we have dinner?”
“I’ll bring some ramen from that place you like.”
“You mean the one opposite your side of town where your wife would never visit in a million years?”
He squinted in annoyance at her. “Yeah, that one.”
She shrugged and sat back down on the back bumper of the s
quad car. “Did they take any casualties? The feds?”
He didn’t answer her, but he didn’t look away, either.
“Okay, okay, ramen tonight,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Now…”
“Five left with gunshot wounds,” Craig said. “Can’t tell you how life-threatening. You’ll have to find that out for yourself at the joint HPD-FBI news conference later tonight.”
“How many hostage takers?”
“Two. A man and a woman.”
“Where are they now?”
“In body bags, being transported back to the FBI building.”
“Both dead?”
The detective nodded. “That’s what happens when you go toe-to-toe with HRT. Those boys don’t fuck around. Especially not after what happened at the Wilshire with Porter. They went in there like the Wrath of God was on their ass.”
Craig sat down next to her, the car rocking slightly as he put his weight on the bumper, before “accidentally” touching her leg with his fingers as he adjusted his blazer.
“Be careful; those cameras might be pointed at you,” Zoe said.
The detective quickly scooted a good foot away from her.
Zoe smiled to herself, said, “Where are the kids?”
“What kids?”
“The ones in the classroom that got took over.”
Craig nodded at the group of cars that had parked on the other side of the lot. A few civilians were still standing outside their vehicles. “Parents have been picking their kids up for some time now.”
“You’re not interviewing the kids?”
“Not today. We’ll get to them later, but there’s no rush. Terrorists are dead, and those kids are traumatized enough without forcing them to relive it so soon.”
“What about the feds?”
“What about them?”
“Didn’t they want to talk to the kids?”
“They’re the ones who told us to let them go. Again, terrorists are dead. The danger’s over.”
“Is that what we’re officially calling them? Terrorists?”
“That’s what they are. Or, well, were.”
“What did they look like?”
“The terrorists?”
“No, your wife’s next, more faithful husband. Yeah, the terrorists.”
Craig snorted and again gave her that slightly annoyed look. “Have I told you how much I like your sense of humor?”
She smirked. “It’s hard to know what you’re saying when you’re biting my pillow.”
He mimed a dramatic faux “laugh,” before grunting, “Funny.”
“So, what did they look like?”
“Feds will be showing their pictures later tonight.”
“Yeah, but you’re here now.” She reached over and put a hand on his leg. “Give me a jump on the competition, Detective.”
He smiled and put his hand over hers, then squeezed. “I’m gonna need more than ramen tonight, you know that, right?”
“Depends on what you tell me.” Zoe smiled back.
Twenty-two students and one teacher were in the classroom when the FBI’s commandos assaulted it—but not before the terrorists tried to blow their way out using explosives.
“Explosives?” she had asked.
“C4, according to our SWAT guys,” Craig had said.
She had then asked him about what the terrorists looked like for the third time. “Someone must have seen them when they were brought out.”
“Maybe. Feel free to ask everyone who was here.”
So she didn’t have names or faces, and Craig left her and Ron standing in the parking lot as the last few parents collected their kids and drove off.
“They took the camera,” Ron said.
“We’ll get it back,” Zoe said. “How’s your face?”
“Sore.” The older man rubbed his cheeks. “Totally ruined my model good looks.”
“Depends on what you’ll be modeling for. Halloween masks?”
“Kick a guy while he’s down, why dontcha,” Ron said.
She smiled and watched a Honda Civic drive off, leaving a couple of uniforms standing around talking to one another. It seemed like a pretty animated conversation, and she caught the confused look on their faces even from a distance.
“Wait here,” Zoe said before walking off.
“Where you going?” Ron said after her.
She turned around, but continued backpedaling. “To talk to those guys,” she said, hiking a thumb over her shoulder at the two young cops.
“What about me?”
“Guys, Ron, guys.”
He chuckled. “Right. Guys.”
She spun back around and jogged the rest of the way over.
They looked young from across the parking lot but were actually even younger up close. Both early twenties, and she didn’t have to wonder what they were doing out here directing civilian traffic. The new patrolmen always got the shit job.
“Hey, guys,” Zoe said, flashing her best smile. “Zoe McIntosh, Channel 9. Can I get a moment of your time?”
They looked surprised to see her, and one of them might have even done a double take.
Eureka, he knows who I am, Zoe thought, turning and concentrating on the younger of the two men.
“Zoe,” she said again, sticking out her hand.
He smiled. Or tried to. It came out awkward. “Yeah, I know. ‘Zoe on the Case.’”
Zoe gritted her teeth and smiled back. “That’s me. You a fan?”
“I never miss a show.”
“Awesome. Always nice to meet a fan.”
The kid (well, he wasn’t really a kid, but he couldn’t have been more than twenty-two) enthusiastically shook her hand and either forgot to introduce himself or was too slow on the uptake. She read his name tag instead: Jefferson.
“All the parents left with the kids?” she asked Jefferson.
The other one, Howard, didn’t know if he should talk or walk away. He stood quietly next to Jefferson, but she noticed how he stared at her while trying very hard not to give it away.
Another fan? Must be my lucky day.
“Uh, yeah,” Jefferson was saying. Then, “Wait, no.”
“No?” She smiled again. “Yes or no?”
“I mean, not all of them. We still have one more kid waiting over there,” he said, nodding at a group of police cars parked about thirty or so yards behind him.
Zoe looked over. She could see the cars but no kids. “Who?”
“Hmm?”
“What kid? You said one more kid was still waiting for his parents to pick him up?”
Jefferson turned around, as did Howard next to him. “There’s one kid left back there.” He paused, then, more to Howard than her, “Where’d he go?”
“He was there a minute ago,” Howard said.
“One of the kids from the classroom that was taken hostage?” Zoe asked.
“Yeah,” Jefferson said. “We had them all waiting over there while their parents picked them up. There was one kid left…”
Howard broke away from them and jogged over to the vehicles. Zoe watched him looking into the cars, then actually dropped to the pavement to peer under them, before popping back up and looking over at Jefferson. He gave them an I have no idea shrug.
“What the hell?” Jefferson said.
“What was his name?” Zoe asked.
“Who?”
“The kid you guys just lost?”
“Um…” Jefferson seemed to think about it.
“You did get his name, didn’t you?”
“Of course.” He took a small notebook out of his jacket and flipped through it. “We wrote it down and crossed them off when their parents picked them up.” He found what he was looking for, said, “Ichabod P. Freely.”
“Did you say Ichabod P. Freely?”
“I know, right? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone named Ichabod before.”
“As in the headless horseman?”
“Who?”
“Ichabod Crane. He’s the hero in Washington Irving’s ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.’”
“Is that right? Never read it.”
“What’s the P stand for?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Ichabod P. Freely?”
The patrolman closed his notebook. “That’s it. I asked him twice, too, just to be sure. Like I said, never heard anyone named Ichabod before.”
Zoe chuckled, then glanced around the parking lot.
“What’s so funny?” Jefferson asked.
She could see Ron across the lot looking back at her, and the other reporters still doing their live feeds in front of the school. A few stragglers—all adults—continued coming out of the building, but there were no signs of Jefferson and Howard’s missing kid.
“Ma’am?” Jefferson said. “You know something?”
She turned back to Jefferson. “Ichabod P. Freely.”
“Yeah, so?”
“I pee freely?”
Jefferson stared at her for a few seconds too long before it finally registered.
“Oh,” he said.
“Yeah,” Zoe said, and began laughing.
Chapter 9
Quinn
“Officially, there were two hostage takers. A man and a woman. Both were killed during the assault, but the authorities are keeping their identities under wraps until a joint HPD-FBI press conference scheduled for later tonight.”
“Unofficially?” Quinn asked.
“Unofficially, the Houston SOPs are saying it was an Asian woman in her thirties and a Caucasian male in his forties, possibly early fifties. Does any of that that sound familiar?”
Quinn nodded.
“You know them,” Sarah said. It wasn’t a question.
“The descriptions match Xiao and Trevor.”
I should never have left Houston. God, why did I abandon them?
“What else?” Quinn asked. “Was there anything about a third person at the school?”
“There’s nothing about a third person,” Sarah said. “How sure are you that Aaron had to be there?”
“Trevor and Xiao would never leave him alone.” Not after what happened to Porter, she thought, but said instead, “Not unless they didn’t have any choice.”
“Maybe that’s it; they didn’t have any choice.”