Andy would turn up soon.
In the meantime, Jake busied himself with the post-evacuation chaos, doing his part to pitch in and help. He fetched enough bottles of water to fill a swimming pool and was instrumental in organizing food distribution.
As Jake spoke informally with a representative from the Red Cross about contingency plans for longer-term shelter, Lance Dent ran by. Lance was clearly alarmed and frightened. Something horrible must have happened. Jake thought of Andy. He excused himself and went chasing after Lance, apologizing as he pushed through the crowd. He caught up to Lance at the gymnasium exit and seized his shoulder from behind.
“What’s going on, brother?” Jake asked.
It looked to Jake as though leeches had drained the blood from Lance’s pale face.
“There’s been a murder on Route 111, near the school,” Lance said.
“Holy hell. A murder?”
The murder rate in Winston hovered just north of zilch. Jake couldn’t think of one such crime in the recent past.
“It’s worse.” Lance leaned in close and whispered, “Somebody may have taken hostages at The Pep. Maybe kids.”
Jake’s eyes went wide as a surge of adrenaline coursed through his body. Several thoughts came to him in staccato bursts.
You’re never safe. The bad things can happen at any time, anywhere, even little towns like Winston. It’s good to be prepared. Andy.
Jake blocked out all other thoughts the way he could on the pitcher’s mound. The task was to get more information from Lance. He had his reason. His son still hadn’t been seen.
“What do you know?”
“If people find out, we’ll have a mass panic on our hands.”
“They’re going to find out.” Jake reached for his phone even though he had tried Andy fifteen minutes ago.
“Are you calling Andy?”
“Have you seen him?”
Lance shook his head.
“What about his friends? You know them. Hilary. A kid named Troy, goes by Pixie. David Townsend? Have you seen them around?”
Again it was a no from Lance.
Jake had been so determined to be the parent here, the guy who understood how kids behaved because he actually raised one, that he had dismissed Laura’s concern. Maybe his pride had gotten in the way and had blinded him to an actual crisis.
Lance headed for the exit.
“Where are you going?” Jake asked.
“I’m going to meet with the police chief and lieutenant. What about you?”
“I’m going home,” Jake said.
Jake was scrounging through Andy’s bedroom, looking for the phone numbers of his friends. Just maybe, he had something written down. It was old school, of course. He also figured Andy’s contacts were synced between his smartphone and tablet, but Jake couldn’t find the device in his room. He called Laura to see if she’d found Andy, but his call went right to voice mail, the way it did when a phone was shut off.
While searching Andy’s room, Jake listened to the police scanner. It would not be long before the news traveled throughout the community. In a town like Winston, with everyone connected to Facebook, word of a murder and a hostage situation at the elite prep school would spread faster than a cold in a day care.
Andy’s pals boarded at the school, so Jake saw no reason to try and track their parents down. Soon enough, those parents would be calling, trying to reach somebody in charge if they couldn’t reach their kids.
Jake checked under the bed. To his delight, he saw the flat rectangular shape of Andy’s iPad hidden within a crumpled pile of dirty laundry. As a house rule, Andy had to give Jake the pass code for all his electronic devices. Jake never checked the devices for inappropriate content, but the threat alone was enough of a deterrent. He entered 0121, which was Laura’s birth month and day, and all of Andy’s downloaded apps soon appeared on-screen.
Quickly Jake checked the contacts and found three names he recognized: Hilary, Troy, and Solomon. He called all three numbers. No response. He sent each a text message, waited five minutes, and then sent another. No answer.
The bottom line was that Jake didn’t know where his son was, and he couldn’t reach any of Andy’s friends. Laura’s worries no longer seemed overblown.
Jake ran into a massive police barricade miles from the school. He parked his car on the side of the road and joined a growing crowd that also had come as far as the police would allow. There were several fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, and men in chemical suits, as well as others in official-looking uniforms, swarming the area. A sea of flashing lights and strobes turned the landscape into an undulating dance floor.
A misty rain peppered Jake’s cotton T-shirt. He scanned the faces of the police and fire teams, searching for Ellie or somebody familiar. He kept calm. No reason to do otherwise. A good pitcher was well disciplined. Running around creating a spectacle wasn’t going to help anybody or anything. Finding someone to give him some information would.
Jake saw a cluster of cops, some of whom he recognized by face but not name. He wanted to get one of them alone. Jake was about to approach when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and met Ellie’s sympathetic gaze. Something about the way she looked at him made Jake uneasy.
“Come with me,” Ellie said.
Taking Jake by the arm, Ellie escorted them to a more private location. Jake reached for Ellie’s hand, but she pulled away. Dressed in her blues, Ellie was on the clock and it was not permissible to be affectionate with a civilian. But Jake sensed Ellie’s distress. She wanted to embrace him, to comfort him. But why? One thought flashed through his mind.
Andy!
“What’s going on here, Ellie? Talk to me.”
Ellie got close to Jake so she could speak without being overheard. “Something has gone down at Pepperell Academy,” Ellie said.
Jake’s insides went cold. The scene behind Ellie-a sea of bodies, lights, and trucks-blended together into a singular blur of motion.
“What is it? Is Andy all right?”
“Have you heard from him?” Ellie asked.
Jake picked up on the vibration in Ellie’s voice-genuine concern.
“No. And I haven’t been able to get in touch with Andy’s friends, either.”
Ellie grimaced as if the information physically hurt to hear. Jake seized Ellie’s shoulders. At that moment, she wasn’t his girlfriend or the police. She had the answers. She was holding back on him, and Jake needed to know everything.
“Listen, Jake,” Ellie said. She didn’t pull away, even though a civilian had no business touching a cop. “A woman has been killed. Shot.” Ellie broke from Jake’s gaze and looked around to make sure nobody was listening. This information could not be shared freely. “She said one word before she died. ‘Hostages.’ That was it. She came from the direction of the school. We have SWAT teams being mobilized right now. The state police is already on the scene, and the FBI may be called in.”
Jake’s heart sank. He closed his eyes and felt Ellie’s hands on his arms to comfort him. Laura had been right all along.
“Is Andy one of them?”
“We don’t know anything at this time. Trust me, Jake, if I knew something, I would tell you.”
Jake’s head spun with horrible thoughts of the physical and mental abuse his son might be enduring at the hands of his possible captors. But he also had it in his head that a hostage situation meant a protracted negotiation. Time was adversary of a different sort. “If Andy’s blood sugar gets too low, he could die,” Jake said.
“Right now, we don’t know if he’s a hostage or not. We don’t even have confirmation that the woman was right.”
“Who was it?” Jake asked. “The woman who was killed. Do I know her?” Winston was a small town, and there was a good chance he knew the victim at least by name.