CHAPTER
EIGHT
They were less than a mile from the
school now.
As he piloted the van ever closer to
danger, Jake realized with a shiver just how high the stakes had
become. It wasn’t fair.
Some wild, weird conspiracy that he’d
never fully comprehended had cost him his entire life; his future
as well as his past. Over the years, the panic attacks had grown
less common—those sudden rushes of paranoia when someone would look
at him strangely, or those horrifying moments in the grocery store
when someone would say, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”—but
their accumulated burden had robbed him of his faith in people.
Slowly but steadily, the concept of fairness had eroded to the
point where his expectations were painfully simple to meet. Life
was about survival; about making sure that at the end of the day
you still had what was important. Today even that cynical goal
seemed unattainable.
He wondered sometimes what might have
happened if he hadn’t run; if he’d let the justice system run its
course. At the time, it had seemed so much easier to disappear. So
much safer. Now he realized how foolish they’d been. In the eyes of
the world, the very act of running away served as proof of their
guilt.
They’d gotten into this, Carolyn and
he, at a time in their lives when they still believed that it would
all work out somehow. They believed then that bad things didn’t
happen to good people and that given their lifelong efforts to be
decent citizens, they’d somehow stumble onto a happy ending.
Looking back, his naïveté infuriated him.
Over the years, he’d reached a fragile
inner peace with his pessimism that still eluded Carolyn. He feared
she’d never stop looking for the silver lining—never fully
comprehend that they were destined to die young. The real tragedy
in all of this was Travis. What could a boy possibly have done,
even in a previous life, that would warrant parents who would so
destroy his childhood? And who were they to expose him to . .
.
No, don’t
go there, he commanded himself. He’s your son. You’re his father. You have every right.
Every responsibility.
All that mattered was family.
Everything else was gravy. Jake would lie, he would steal, he would
kill to protect them, just
as whoever had set them up would do whatever it took to protect
their sordid secret. And the FBI was happy to help. The Donovans
represented one of the greatest embarrassments in Bureau history,
and Jake could only imagine how its agents’ thirst for revenge had
blossomed over the years. All in the name of justice, of course.
What a crock.
To the government, justice was a
weapon, used to gain power over other people. Politicians and their
pawns cared only about publicity and career advancement. Bring in
the bad guy, get a bigger staff. If ordinary citizens like Jake or
Carolyn or true innocents like Travis had to die to make that
happen, well, so what?
“Jake, are you okay, honey?” Carolyn
looked like she’d been trying to get his attention.
“Huh? Yeah, I’m okay.” He forced a
wholly unconvincing smile.
“Do you think they know
yet?”
He checked his watch: 2:20. “Oh, yeah,
they know. I’m sure that’s why those cop cars were racing all over
town. They’re trying to track me down. They’ll have everything
covered by now—our house, the shop, everything.”
She gasped and swung around in her
seat, grabbing his arm. “They’ll be at the school,
too!”
His expression remained rock-solid.
“Could be.”
She recognized the look for what it
was and gasped again. “Oh, God, Jake, you can’t just go shooting up
a school! What are you going to do?”
He looked at her across the center
console. His face was calm, resolute. “I’m going to pick up my son
and take him with me.”
“And if the police are
there?”
He shrugged and returned his eyes to
the road. “If the police are there, then it’s likely to get
intense.”
“But Jake . . .”
He slammed the steering wheel with his
palm and shouted, “Goddammit, Carolyn, what are my choices? Those
sons of bitches aren’t getting my kid! They’ve taken our lives,
they’re not getting his! I didn’t start this fight. Now, I leave
the school with Travis, or I don’t leave the school at all! I don’t
know how to state it more clearly.”
She stared at him for a long time, but
he refused to look back at her. She wanted to be angry with him,
but deep in her soul she knew he was right. If there were any bad
guys here, it was the cops—the ones in Arkansas who refused to look
past their noses for real evidence on whoever did the shooting that
day.
The Jake she’d married all those years
ago was not the bitter, cynical man who sat next to her now,
avoiding her eyes and flexing the muscles of his jaw. This was a
man created by betrayal and committed to having what was rightfully
his, at all costs.
Family
first, everything else second.
And he was absolutely right: they were
out of choices. She willed away the dreadful sense of doom and
struggled to find some flicker of optimism. This was a time for
strength, not weakness.
The silence inside the van grew
heavier as they approached J. E. B. Stuart Junior High. Carolyn was
tempted to turn on the radio just for white noise, but didn’t,
fearful that they’d tune in a report on themselves. The FBI would
have them classified as murderers, she was sure; that’s what all
the Wanted posters said. Now, as Jake pulled the van to a stop
along the curb at the crest of the steep hill immediately behind
the school, she felt sick with the knowledge that he truly was
willing and ready to kill if he had to—to live down to what was
expected of him.
“Why are you stopping here?” she
asked. “Just pull into the circle up front and let’s get this over
with.”
He shook his head. “No, the cops will
be looking for us in either the Subaru or the Celica. I don’t want
anyone to be able to tell them about the van.” After throwing the
transmission lever into park, he turned sidesaddle to face her.
“Here’s how I see it, okay?” He spoke softly now, his voice
controlled and businesslike. “I want you to wait here with the
motor running. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, leave without
me.”
She tried to interrupt, but he cut her
off. “If you hear shots, count to thirty and leave. Travis and I
will find our way to the safe house somehow. I plan to just walk
out of there, like it’s any other day, but if we come hauling ass
up that hill, scoot over into the driver’s seat and get ready to
book.”
“Are you finished?” She spoke through
pursed lips—it was her angry look.
He thought about it for a moment, then
nodded. “Yeah, I’m finished.”
“Well, let me tell you how it’s
actually going to happen,”
she fired back. “I’m waiting here for you. Period. Two hours, shots fired, I don’t
care. I’m waiting. We’re together forever, Jake.” Her eyes filled
again, and this time she let them.
How long had it been since they’d felt
this close? He smiled as he reached over and cupped the line of her
jaw in his palm. To argue would be a waste of time, and he knew it.
“I love you, y’know.”
Her mouth remained set, yet she smiled
with her eyes as she covered his hand with her own. “Just love me
enough to get back here.”
“I promise.”
Everything that needed saying was
said. He slipped out of the van and closed the door. He pulled his
jacket tight against the chilly breeze, pressing his elbow against
the Glock, just to make sure it was still there. God, what a
beautiful day! He figured it for sixty degrees; way too pleasant
for the business at hand.
He walked quickly down the steep
concrete steps toward the school—the ones that were off limits to
kids, according to a flyer sent home last week. Seems a little girl
tripped, and now they were too dangerous for everyone.
Once at the bottom, he cut across the
deserted playground, then paused for a few seconds to look back up
at the van, before finally disappearing around the
corner.
J. E. B. Stuart Junior High
School—named, like all things in the Deep South, for one of the
Confederacy’s heroes—was a sprawling, one-story structure, not yet
five years old. Constructed of a hideous brown brick, the school
was built for energy efficiency, allowing only one window per
classroom, which could not be opened, except in an emergency. With
an active PTA and an upperbracket population, Stuart fared better
than most South Carolina schools in the standardized tests that
measured whether it was getting the job done.
As he approached the school, Jake
realized for the first time that their escape plan had never
addressed Travis’s schooling. Yet another hole.
Shit.
As a tutor, he felt confident enough
that he could hold his own against the academic challenges of the
eighth grade, but there still remained the question of textbooks
and curricula. How could they have overlooked something so
obvious?
How ironic, he grumped, that after
years of planning and simulations, walking through a million
what-if scenarios, the first major weaknesses were becoming obvious
even before the plan was fully executed. Damn.
His eyes scanned continuously as he
approached the front doors, searching for signs of anything out of
the ordinary. If the police had staked out the school, they’d done
a fine job of staying out of sight. Again, he pressed his elbow
against the Glock.
Please,
God, forgive me for what I might do. A contingent
prayer, hedging his bets with God. The sheer audacity of it made
him smile.
Two sets of double doors brought him
into the lobby of the school, colorfully decorated for Fall
Festival, with splashy banners hanging from the suspended ceiling.
They couldn’t celebrate Halloween in the school anymore because
some religious zealot with too much time on her hands had
discovered that Halloween was a pagan holiday and as such violated
the constitutional separation of church and state.
Behind him and to the right, colorful
ribbon bows had been placed behind the pictures of three children,
arranged under a tasteful sign in Old English calligraphy that read
“In Memoriam.” The sight saddened him. In Jake’s day, kids didn’t
die.
The school’s main office lay just
ahead and slightly to the right. Through the glass walls, he noted
a group of five staffers clustered around the end of the four-foot
counter just inside the door, one man and four women. They appeared
animated, concerned. The man, in particular—whom Jake recognized as
Principal Menefee—seemed especially bothered, a deep scowl creasing
his forehead. The subject under discussion was clearly a burdensome
one, and Jake was willing to bet he knew exactly what it
was.
He made eye contact with one of the
women through the window as he reached for the doorknob. Her mouth
dropped open, and her face drained of color as she tapped Menefee’s
shoulder. He watched the man’s face harden and felt his own stomach
fiip. The principal’s expression was one of resolve, not fear, and
it occurred to Jake that Menefee might turn out to be a problem. He
paused just long enough to unzip his coat before pushing the door
open and stepping inside.
Conversation ceased instantly, and he
realized in that moment how tired he’d grown of uncomfortable
silences. “Hi, folks,” he said as cheerily as he could. “I’m here
to pick up my son.”
No one said a word. All four women
turned their eyes to their boss, who himself seemed unprepared to
respond. “I—I’m afraid we, uh, we can’t, um, do that for you,” the
principal stammered.
Jack smiled patiently. Obviously, the
guy knew about the morning’s events, and he was stalling for time,
probably to protect Travis from what he saw as a threat to his
safety. In his heart, Jake admired the balls it took for Menefee to
stand up to him.
“Actually,” Jake said as softly as he
could, “that wasn’t a request. It was a statement. I’m here to pick
up my son.” When no one moved, he added, “Now.” As he spoke, he
placed his right elbow on the counter, pulling his jacket away from
his side. Whether he moved enough to expose the Glock, he didn’t
know, but certainly, Menefee interpreted the movement for the
threat that it was. “I think you’ll find him in English class about
now.”
Menefee turned to one of the ladies.
“Mrs. Harris, would you please page Mrs. Hawkins’s room and tell
her that Travis Brighton’s father is here to pick him
up?”
Mrs. Harris started to move, but Jake
made her freeze with his words. “Actually, Mrs. Harris, I’d like
you just to tell Mrs. Hawkins to send Travis up to the front
office. You can leave out the part about me being here. That’ll be
a surprise.” Then, as an afterthought, “If you don’t mind, tell him
to bring his books and his jacket with him, too.”
Mrs. Harris nodded obediently and
scooted quickly to the P.A. console. As she did, another woman,
this one wearing a white nurse’s smock, ducked quickly into another
room.
“Stay here, please!” Jake called after
her. He darted over to the doorway she’d just entered. It was the
same woman who’d looked so frightened through the window. Now she
stood frozen in the middle of the nurse’s office, twitching her
eyes as if expecting to get hit. A little girl with a blond
ponytail—she looked less like a student than a student’s little
sister—sat on the edge of a cot along the back wall. Although
clearly scared to death, the girl posed no immediate threat, and
Jake ignored her. “Please,” he urged again. “Let’s just talk
together out here in the lobby until Travis arrives.”
The nurse raised her hands as she
walked, making Jake smile. “You can keep those down, ma’am. I’m
really not here to hurt anyone. I’d just like everyone to stay
together.”
“Did you really kill people, Mr.
Brighton?” asked the ponytail girl out of nowhere.
The suddenness of the question caught
him off guard. He regarded the girl cautiously, looking for
something he didn’t find. She seemed just genuinely curious. “No,
honey,” he said. “I’ve never hurt a soul.” He moved a little
closer, then bent down to look her straight in the eye. “And that’s
the absolute truth.”
Seemingly satisfied, the little girl
smiled. “Good,” she said.
He patted her head, taking care not to
rumple the hairdo, then turned his attention back to the adults in
the office. “Have you made your announcement yet, Mrs.
Harris?”
“N-no,” she said. “I—I thought you
wanted to hear me do it.”
“That’s very thoughtful.” He made a
special effort to show a smile. “Okay, then, let’s get to it. I’m
listening now.”
Mrs. Harris punched a button on the
console. “Mrs. Hawkins?” she asked.
The open mike on the other end sounded
hollow, distant. “Yes?”
Mrs. Harris glanced back at Jake
before continuing. “Would you send Travis Brighton to the office,
please?”
In the background, the open mike
picked up a group “Ooooo” from the class. A trip to the principal’s
office was never good news. “Class! Hush!” At Mrs. Hawkins’s
command, her room fell silent. “Okay,” she said to the microphone.
“Anything else?” Clearly, she was waiting for a
reason.
“Make sure he brings his books and his
jacket with him.” Mrs. Harris looked back at Jake and seemed
pleased by the smile she got in return.
“Which books?” Mrs. Hawkins
asked.
Mrs. Harris deferred to Jake, who
merely shrugged.
“All of them,” Mrs. Harris
said.
“All of them?”
Mrs. Harris fired another look to
Jake, who made a rolling motion with his fingers, urging her to
move things along. She turned back to the microphone, clearly at a
loss for what to say, then gave up and turned the system
off.
Her solution struck Jake as funny.
“Nicely done, Mrs. Harris.” She seemed proud of
herself.
“Why get your son wrapped up in all
this, Brighton?” Menefee asked. His tone had the hard edge of a
father scolding his son.
Jake’s smile disappeared. He glared at
the man for a long time, deciding whether or not to answer.
Finally, he said, “Don’t look at me like I’m some sort of child
molester, Menefee. In case you haven’t realized it yet, this is a
time for you to be very, very careful.”
Menefee shook his head and stood a
little taller, as if finding a lost vein of courage. “I don’t look
at you as a child molester, Brighton,” he corrected. “I look at you
as a murderer, because that’s what you are.”
The ladies gasped as one. Mrs. Harris
brought a hand to her chest—as though she might be having a heart
attack—and shot Menefee a surprised, angry scowl. All of them edged
away from their boss, reminding Jake of that scene in every cowboy
flick where the street clears before the big gun
battle.
Jake never shifted his stare from
Menefee’s eyes, yet he registered precisely what everyone in the
room was doing, where they were going. He sensed that things were
about to come unraveled. Menefee was a fool to draw verbal battle
lines. What could he possibly hope to gain by picking a fight with
an armed man? When Jake spoke, he carefully selected every word.
“If I were a murderer, you’d be dead now, Menefee. As it is, I
haven’t even threatened you.”
“You bring a gun into my school . .
.”
Jake silenced him with an abrupt
movement of his left hand, making Menefee flinch. Under different
circumstances, Jake might have laughed at the reaction, but not
this time. He leveled his forefinger at the principal, six inches
from the end of the man’s nose. “It’s time for you to shut up now,”
he said. “I’ve done nothing wrong. The details are none of your
business, but rest assured that, to date, I have never killed a
soul.” He paused, shifting his eyes individually to each of the
people standing there in the office. One by one, all but the little
girl broke eye contact the instant he landed on them. “Also rest
assured that I will do whatever I have to do to protect my family from
harm. Is that clear, Menefee?”
The principal’s eyes shifted from the
tip of Jake’s finger to the gun on his hip and back again. He
swallowed hard, then nodded.
Jake lowered his finger slowly. “Good.
Now, why don’t you take a seat over there.”
Menefee hesitated for an instant, as
though unsure what to do.
“Please,” Jake said, motioning with
his hand toward one of the three metal secretarial desks behind the
counter. “And don’t touch anything, okay? Especially not the phone.
Really, my business here is almost done.”