The Healer

  “Trust me, honey,” Cole said gently.

  She let him lead her outside, her muscles still quivering just to walk straight. The sunlight made her blink.

  “I want you to sit in my vehicle until Stephen can check you out.”

  “I need to get to work.” She had to get past the incredible shock of what happened and work was something that would force that distance.

  “You’re walking wounded at the moment. Others can do your job for a short while.”

  “I need to see Marissa and Adam. Then I’ll sit down.” She tightened her grip around his arm. “Please.” She had to see for herself that they were safe.

  He studied her face, and then he nodded. “This way.”

  She spotted Jack amid a small group near one of the ambulances. “Marissa?”

  “They’re transporting her to the air ambulance.”

  Rachel headed that direction. She took a deep breath and forced herself to smile as the group parted to let her through. If ever she was going to help someone, it had to be here, now. She saw Jennifer first. Her sister looked much better than Rachel had expected. Jennifer was in pain, that was clear in the white tenseness in her face, but her sister was focused on the job at hand.

  “Hi, M. How are you doing?” Rachel knelt beside the stretcher.

  Marissa tried to smile. “You bought me a purse for the prom.”

  “A pretty one.” Rachel brushed back her hair. It was wet. Marissa was alert, but she was in a lot of pain.

  “Do you think Greg will mind if I spend it sitting down?”

  Rachel held back her tears. Marissa didn’t know about Greg’s death, and Rachel wasn’t about to tell her in these circumstances. “He won’t mind.” Her friend had already endured so much, and asking her to endure this as well was heartbreaking.

  “Jack helped me talk to Mom.”

  “I’m glad. Hearing your voice is the thing that matters the most in this situation.”

  “Can you come with me to the hospital?”

  Rachel sent a pleading look to Jennifer and then looked back to her friend. “It may be a while before I can come. I’ll send Jennifer with you until I can get there.”

  “It’s okay. The orthopedic doctor will have to get creative. I don’t know which leg will take longer to fix. My artificial foot broke off.”

  “You’ve been down this road successfully before. Remember to take it one hour at a time today.”

  “Our ride has arrived. Ready to go take your first helicopter ride?” Jack asked.

  Marissa nodded. Rachel moved back out of the way as Marissa was lifted into the ambulance. Jack lifted Jennifer into the ambulance to sit on the bench. “Page me?” Rachel asked Jennifer.

  “I will.”

  Jack closed the ambulance doors. Rachel watched it pull out.

  A crowd of kids stood on the other side of the yellow police tape. Weeping kids, some watching in silence, some standing defensively with arms crossed and trying not to show the emotion, but none of the kids were able to walk away. Rachel was overwhelmed at the numbers, knowing all of them needed someone to help them deal with this. She could see the Red Cross jackets of those on the response team already mingling with the crowd of students and parents. This school district was like others in the country; there was a folder with a plan for how to respond to an unthinkable event like this. It was being implemented.

  The sun was still shining, and outside the five-mile radius that comprised this school district the afternoon was proceeding as normal. It was hard to put normal and chaos together. What had just happened would have to be integrated into the fabric of this community and into the lives of those present. They were still alive, she was still alive, and there would be a week anniversary, a year and five-year anniversary.

  She wanted to sit down and cry. She’d been part of this tragedy, not just a witness to it. Who would be putting her name in a composition book to check back with her and ask how she was doing? Who would listen to her painful memories of what it had been like to sit by the chemistry lab and watch doors through which her sister had gone? To listen to multiple gunshots ring out from behind those doors? To hear Kate scream her name?

  Cole’s hand tightened on her shoulder. “Let’s go see Adam.”

  She wiped the back of her hand across her eyes.

  He left his hand on her shoulder in a firm grip until she nodded, and then he slid his hand down to grip her hand. “Come on, honey.”

  She tried not to look at the destruction in the parking lot as she walked, the damaged cars and the shattered windows. She tried hard not to look at the bloodstains on the pavement. She saw people in those reflections and kids’ faces as they ran.

  Cole led her across the blocked-off street to the middle school.

  Yellow police tape was up now around the building and across part of the parking lot. On the other side of the tape parents were clustered in groups, talking about what had happened, and holding tight to their children. Word had spread that a child was dead; she could tell by the way parents talked in hushed tones. They were feeling relief that it wasn’t their child and guilt for thinking that.

  Rachel saw her sister Lisa enter the middle school. “They’ve gone through the school? Was Tim the only victim?”

  “I was part of the two walk-throughs. The tragedy here was contained to the boys’ locker room and Tim,” Cole said.

  Rachel looked around for Ann, Adam and Nathan. How was she going to tell Adam about Tim? The two boys had a tight friendship with sleepovers and scavenger hunts and shared secrets. The news would be devastating.

  “Cole—” She stopped him when she spotted Ann. Rachel had seen a lot of distraught parents in her days. She released Cole’s hand and ran toward Ann.

  “Where’s Adam?” Ann was panicked. “Rae, I can’t find Adam.”

  Twenty-four

  Ann.” Rachel rested her hands on the sides of Ann’s face, knowing the contact would serve not only to reassure but also to block out much of the chaos around them. Her own terror dropped away in the face of a friend she had to help at all costs. “They’ve been through the school and they haven’t found him hurt. We’ll find Adam. He’s just lost in the crowd. You can help us by describing what he was wearing today at school.” Nathan was crying, holding on tight as Ann held him equally tight. Rachel didn’t offer to take him to help Ann, for the boy desperately needed the reassurance of his mom’s embrace. This had terrified the little boy. He would have been here when the students ran screaming from the school.

  “Adam had on his short sleeve blue-and-white baseball shirt, with…jeans. His black tennis shoes. He was carrying a dark green backpack and a blue lunch bag.”

  “Tell me the five best friends he has.”

  Ann’s eyes filled with tears. “Tim.”

  Rachel was fighting the tears too. “I know. Who else?”

  Ann struggled to think. “His soccer friends, Scott and Jay. Mike from his homeroom. Our neighbor, Mrs. Sands.”

  “Let’s talk with his homeroom teacher, his friends, find out where Adam was when the bell rang. He knew to get out of the building when the fire alarm rang. He must have gotten outside and wasn’t sure where to go. What did you teach him to do if he got lost?”

  Ann’s panic was fading. “To sit down. To wait for me to find him.”

  “That’s what he did then,” Rachel said.

  She looked around and spotted Nora from the local Red Cross office. Rachel waved her over. “Do you remember Nora? She was helping out at the flood scene.”

  Ann gave a shaky nod.

  “I want you to walk with Nora through the parking lot. Check every row, look around the cars. Ask every parent you know to be on the lookout for Adam. Cole and I will search the school building one more time. We’ll find him.”

  Ann nodded, looking relieved to have a plan.

  “Nora, do you have a radio? Add Adam’s description to the lost list. They’ll canvas four blocks around the school for us, Ann.” They we
re looking for a scared little boy whose best friend had died. They had to find him quickly before he heard rumors and misinformation about what had happened. The truth was awful enough. “Either Cole or I will check in with you every fifteen minutes.”

  Ann took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay.”

  Rachel waited until Ann and Nora had begun their walk before she looked at Cole. She took a painful breath. “I need to see what happened. I need to see Tim.”

  “It’s a crime scene, Rae.”

  “If I’m going to find Adam, I have to see the scene. The boys were coming to meet me at the bike rack after school. Both of them.”

  “We don’t know Adam was with Tim. They may not have met up yet.”

  “It’s best to assume the worst.”

  She was relieved he didn’t try further to dissuade her. “Come on.”

  They entered the school.

  The hallway bulletin boards were covered with pictures from art class. Children had dropped backpacks and fled when the fire alarm went off. The hallway leading to the gym and locker rooms had been limited to personnel from the state crime lab. Lisa came back to meet them. The boys’ locker room was at one end of the hall, the girls at the other, with the PE teacher’s office in the middle. Large boards on the hallway walls were posted with information and schedules for basketball, soccer, and baseball. Rachel spotted Wilson talking with the fire captain and was grateful he was one of the homicide officers working the case.

  The window in the PE teacher’s office was open, adding fresh air to what was otherwise a stale and sweaty hall. The office was cramped with a desk and a line of chairs, but it was well lit with sunlight and cheery in its colorful posters and neat desk. The line of chairs inside the office was disrupted, but it was hard to tell if the teacher had shifted them when the chaos started or if it was the result of the normal visits of children to her office during the day.

  There was no indication of how many children might have been back in this area when the shooting happened.

  Rachel followed Cole into the boys locker room.

  She flinched.

  Tim had yet to be moved.

  Cole tightened his grip on her arm. The boy lay between one of the benches and a row of lockers. He was slumped on his back, his face still showed his surprise even in death. He’d been shot in the center of the chest. Death must have been instantaneous. The way he lay suggested he had been standing by one of the lockers and had fallen backward when he was hit. There was an open gym bag with a towel half out the top resting on the bench near him.

  Remembering the boy as he had been with Adam and now seeing him still and lifeless was crushing. She scanned the locker room but saw no obvious evidence of a fight. Lockers were dented, but from this event or simply wear and tear from use could not be determined. The photographer was still documenting the scene. The technicians working with Lisa were using bright lights to search the room for any signs of another bullet.

  “Cole, if Adam saw this happen—his reactions are going to be intense. Even if he’s hurt, his instinct would be to hide. You’ll pass by calling his name and he won’t answer. We need to go through this area again searching for him—this locker room, the girls locker room, and the classrooms outside this hallway.”

  “Lisa?”

  “We’ll get a third search underway,” Lisa promised, “including the gym itself. A few minutes delay won’t matter for Tim.”

  “Where would Adam go if he ran?” Cole asked. “If he was here or he simply heard the shooting, where would he likely go?”

  “Outside. The parking lot. His mom’s car. A friend’s house. He’ll seek familiar things and familiar places that give him a sense of distance and safety.”

  “Let’s start outside. It’s the most likely place he would be. There are people who may have seen him that we can talk with, and they may not be here in an hour.”

  He wanted her out of here and she wanted to leave. His suggestion made sense. Rachel nodded.

  Cole walked with her out of the boys locker room, down the hall, and back into the school’s main corridor. He stopped her. “Give yourself a chance to absorb this before you add another layer.”

  She stepped into the hug he offered and squeezed him hard, knowing how hopeless this felt. He was fighting tears himself. “A little boy is dead. Across the street his brother is dead. What do you tell a mom in this situation? A dad?” she asked.

  “A heartfelt ‘I am so sorry for your loss.’”

  “And tonight, when the police go through Greg’s room looking for a motive? When the press starts hounding? How do parents get through it then?” She hurt just thinking about it, for she had been through many such media spectacles after tragedies. The grief would be aggravated by the search for someone to blame, the simplistic analysis of news reporters, and the extended focus on the most sensational images of the scene.

  She forced herself to focus on the task on hand and eased back from Cole. “We need to check the soccer field. It’s one of Adam’s favorite places to go.”

  “We’ll start there and work our way around the building.”

  He led her outside.

  Jesus, it didn’t occur to me to pray. It didn’t occur to me that Cole would be with one of the units responding. I didn’t even think to put out an emergency page to the O’Malleys to alert them to come. In the midst of a crisis when I think myself organized and ready to be there for people, I wasn’t even thinking about the obvious steps I could take. Her steps slowed and stopped.

  Cole’s hand warmed between her shoulders. “Worry the problem in a straight line, honey.”

  “I didn’t think of you. I didn’t pray. I didn’t even think to page family.”

  “You were focused on keeping yourself and Kate alive.”

  “I watched her go into a room where two shooters were exchanging gunfire.”

  Cole rubbed the back of her neck and, when her tension didn’t fade, settled his arms around her in a hug and kissed her forehead. “Let it go. I thought of you, I prayed, and God knew you were busy.”

  She wanted to absorb Cole’s steady assurance and wear it like a cloak around herself. “I saw Marissa fall. And they tried to shoot Kate.”

  “I know.” He turned her hand and brushed his fingers across her palm where the gravel had torn the skin. “It looks like you took a tumble too.”

  She looked at the injury and found it odd she hadn’t even realized it had happened. “Kate tackles hard.”

  “I’m giving her a hug when I see her next.”

  “Give her a long one. This has devastated her.” She took a deep breath and started walking again. The soccer field was beside the ball diamond and beyond it the groundskeeper’s equipment shed. They walked toward the ball diamond.

  Rachel stopped. “Over there.”

  Adam was beneath the bleachers by the ball field. She squeezed Cole’s hand. “Go get Ann,” she whispered. She crossed the field to the bleachers and looked for how he had gotten under there and crouched to crawl in after Adam. His face was streaked with tears, his clothes dirty.

  Adam’s eye still needed ice, and the nurse hadn’t been able to totally wash out the drops of blood on his shirt from the nosebleed. The bruise on his arm looked recent, like someone had grabbed his arm to hurry him along during the rush to get kids from the school building. She wasn’t worried about the things that would heal; she was worried about the pain she could see simply in how he sat, hunched over his knees.

  “Tim was supposed to see the PE teacher after school,” Adam said. “He got a detention for throwing the volleyball.” She sat down beside him, having to crouch not to hit her head on the bench. “I was coming to sit with him, but the teacher wouldn’t let me. Tim still thought I was mad at him because he hit me with the ball.” The boy’s heart was breaking. Rachel mopped his eyes with her shirtsleeve cuff and then solved the distance by swallowing him in a hug.

  Adam cried, his bony arms wrapped around her.

  “Wher
e were you when the shooting happened?” she asked as the tears slowed.

  “I was waiting for Tim.” Adam wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “Greg had heard about the detention. He stopped me in the hall to ask if my eye was okay. He wanted to see it and told me to get another ice bag when I got home.” Adam paused for a long time. “I waited. The fire alarm went off. The art teacher said I had to leave.” Adam turned his face into her shoulder and his small body shook. “I should have waited for him. I didn’t, and Tim is dead.”

  Twenty-five

  Marcus felt like he was looking over a war zone as he walked the path the shooters had taken, following the destruction with Quinn and Lisa.

  Lisa knelt by one of the white evidence markers and picked up a shell casing. “This one is a .45.”

  “Two guns and a lot of ammunition in the midst of hundreds of kids—it’s a wonder the number of injured and dead aren’t higher.” Overhead the sounds of helicopters signaled the arrival of more media.

  Lisa rose to her feet. “We were there when it started—” she pointed—“standing by our car. I heard the first shot. A pause. Then several more shots. That’s when I saw the first boy running toward the high school. Moments later, I saw another boy run into the school after him.”

  Marcus listened intently, seeing it, and dreading what they had lived through. He had to get over to the hospital to see Jennifer as soon as he could. Quinn looked angry and in his partner that visible emotion was rare. Quinn hadn’t handled that emergency page they’d received any better than he had.

  Marcus rubbed his sister’s shoulders, finding comfort in the contact. “Lisa, I need to know what happened here. It started in the middle school and spilled this way. Who shot Tim? Give me the fundamentals as soon as you can.” Rachel was going to need the information, and Detective Wilson was already on scene heading the investigation. Marcus knew he’d be open to a couple days of outside help. It wouldn’t be the first time Marcus had joined Wilson on a case that touched the O’Malleys.