I grabbed the surveillance tapes, had a quick chat with the inconsolable wife, took the notes I would need for the report, and then drove across town to the elementary school where another patrol unit had found the gun hidden inside one of the tube slides in the elementary school playground; that was just a block over from the middle school the kid had attended. The weapon was still loaded, with the safety off, and we were all silently thanking whatever god was watching that day that no other little hands had run across it and caused even more of a tragedy. I was thinking about what a mess it all was and how deeply sad it made me. I felt the waste of that young life all the way to my bones, and yet I knew there was nothing I could do about it. It was the impotence of not being able to fix that poor kid’s life, of not being able to help him before he got so desperate, that killed me. No living being should be driven to those lengths, yet it happened every day here.
I was packing up the scene when one of the patrol officer’s radios squawked. A callout for a bomb threat at a charter high school a few miles away. Kids called in bogus threats all the time, but ever since Nassir’s club had been blown up and burned to the ground, we tended to take them more seriously. The officer responded and we all climbed in our respective vehicles and headed over to the school. It looked like most of the teachers and kids had already been evacuated. There were a lot of bodies milling about in front of the building and on the street. As I climbed out of the car I frowned hard because all the kids were dressed in a very familiar-looking navy-blue-and-khaki uniform. I saw that same color combo every time I passed Karsen Carter when she was coming and going from school.
The hair on my arms danced upward and tension had my spine snapping straight. I let my eyes scan the crowd looking for a familiar white-blond head and didn’t see one. I didn’t see Race or Brysen either, which made me breathe a sigh of relief. The school would’ve had to call Brysen to pick her sister up once the kids got released.
“What’s the status?” I looked over at another detective as he came up beside me asking the question.
“I don’t know. It’s not my scene. I was working the armed robbery downtown and was just a few miles away, so I drove over. I think they’re just waiting for the bomb squad to go in and make sure that it isn’t a real threat.”
He grunted in response and I took a few steps toward where I saw the kids gathering to wait for their parents to pick them up. I was hoping to find someone that had seen Karsen when a harried-looking woman clutching a cell phone rushed up to me. Her eyes took up most of her face and she was panting like she had run a mile. She thrust the phone at me and bent over to put her hand on her knees as she struggled to catch her breath.
“Are . . . you . . . Detective . . . King?” I looked at the phone in my hand then at her. A chill of apprehension slid down my spine as she panted and shook in front of me.
“I am. Who are you?”
“Debbie Granger. I’m the principal. The man on the phone said to find you. Told me to give you the phone.”
I scowled at her and put the phone up to my ear. I wasn’t surprised at all when the voice that greeted me had a lilt to it.
“Hello, Detective.”
My teeth gnashed and my heart rate kicked into overdrive. “Roark.”
“I thought it was about time I let you know that I very much remember the hand you played the night my father was murdered. I saw you there, Detective.”
My spine snapped straight and my hand curled painfully around the phone. “What are you babbling about, Roark?”
“The night my father was killed . . . you were there. I saw you when we raided the club. Beaten and useless. You did nothing to stop my brother from killing our father. He still had the smoking gun in his hand when we made entry into the building. I’ve been slowly corrupting the one thing you care about most, Detective, and you haven’t even seen me doing it. And if you think you can just swoop in and take my girl, you are sadly mistaken. I will not let any of your actions or her betrayal stand.”
I forked my fingers through my hair and swore. “What do you mean you’ve been corrupting what I care about most? Are you talking about Race and Bax? Are you talking about hurting my family?” My head was spinning and the more time that went by without me seeing Karsen the more certain I became that she was inside the building, possibly with him, possibly sitting on a powder keg getting ready to blow.
The accented voice cackled and it made the hair on the back of my neck rise. “You’ll figure it out. In fact you’ll figure it out as you stand there in front of that school and do nothing while you wait on pins and needles to see if I harmed the pretty little blonde.” He clicked his tongue at me and his voice got hard. “You step foot inside the building and the girl dies. If I see a single cop head toward the front of that building, I’ll take her out and she won’t be the only casualty. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Detective King?”
I gritted my teeth and bit out, “The apple didn’t fall far from the crazy tree with you, did it, Roark?” He had me over a barrel and it was killing me that he was close enough to watch his handiwork unfold, but not close enough for me to get my hands on.