He looked right at her and walked away toward the command center the Hillsboro PD had established directly in front of the school.
Susan’s phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID. It was Ian. For the fourth time in ten minutes. He wasn’t going to be happy.
“Anything?” he said. “We need an update for the Web site.”
“SWAT arrived,” Susan said. “They’re inside the school.”
“I know,” Ian said. “Charlene Wood is live with it on Channel 8. Anything else?”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Susan said, glancing over at Charlene, who was broadcasting live in front of the command center, her piano legs poked into black high heels. “She just got here.”
“Well, she’s scooped you,” Ian said. “Find something. I want Web updates every ten minutes. We’ve got a photo team on the way.”
“Every ten minutes?” Susan asked.
“You can call them in. Don’t make me wait. Welcome to the information age, babe.”
Something was going on in the school. Susan hung up the phone and pressed forward. More cops were streaming inside. Portland PD. Hillsboro PD. State cops. FBI. How did they all get here so fast?
Susan pressed against the thin strip of plastic crime scene tape and tried to record everything she saw. A few parents had arrived and stood sobbing next to a female patrol officer. They were young. Susan’s age. Tears streamed down one father’s face. But his wife was stoic, solid, her arm draped around the man’s shoulder. Susan felt bad for them. Their suburban lives menaced like this. She knew that losing a kid was a parent’s worst nightmare. She couldn’t relate, but their fear was so naked that it made her glad for a second that she didn’t have kids. She was safe, at least, from that kind of helplessness.
She heard the sound of children before she saw them. Their voices floated on the air like birds. And suddenly there they were, streaming from behind the building, in rows, boy-girl, smiling at the activity. Like it was just another fire drill.
The cops were evacuating the back of the school. That was a good sign, right? Susan searched the crowd for any sign of Archie. Nothing. She had seen pictures of his children, and didn’t see them in the crowd, either.
Her phone rang again. Crap, she wished Ian would leave her alone. She picked it up.
She heard her mother’s voice say, “Hi, sweetie.”
“Bliss,” Susan said, annoyed. “I’m working.”
“You got chocolates from Archie.”
“What?” Susan asked, shaking her head slightly to try to make sense of her mother’s statement.
“Chocolates. With a card from Archie Sheridan.”
Susan giggled despite herself, lifting her hand to her mouth. “Seriously?”
The parents she’d been watching shouted out. A single word: “Max.” A small boy looked up from the schoolyard and ran to them.
“They’re in a heart-shaped box,” Bliss said.
The boy got to his parents and they lifted him into their arms, both of them how crying. Ordinarily, Susan would be all over a story like that. Parents and child reunited. Herald readers loved that. Good news. Happy family. Tragedy averted.
But Susan’s notebook had fallen from her hand and lay on the grass below.
She tried to speak, but a knotting sensation gripped her chest. She forced herself to take a breath and then tried again. “You didn’t eat any of the chocolates, Bliss, right?”
There was no response.
“Mom?” Susan said.
CHAPTER
25
Archie lifted his arms straight out and then bent them at the elbows and locked his fingers behind his head. Ben and Sara stepped away from him, trembling, eyes fixed behind him, terrified. A stream of urine darkened Sara’s red overalls. Her cheeks reddened.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she whispered, her eyes on the ground.
“It’s okay,” Archie said just before he was slammed facedown on the floor. He felt a large hand grind the side of his face into the carpet and a forearm press against his shoulder blades. He knew the move. It was a tactic they taught you at the academy to subdue a suspect.
Hillsboro SWAT.
“We’re cops,” Archie said.
“Yeah, fuckheads,” he heard Henry say. “Notice the Kevlar?”
A walkie-talkie crackled. Sirens wailed outside. Archie thought he could hear at least one helicopter. If Gretchen had been there, she was long gone by now.
“Shit,” he heard another voice say.
“Look around my neck,” Archie said. He felt the forearm on his back shift and then his neck burned as someone tugged the beaded chain that his badge hung from. Then the forearm and hand lifted and Archie sat up.