Snapped (4 page)

The girl looked down at her mother and started to cry. She took a step backward. Then another.

“No!” Sophie scrambled to her feet and lunged.

Crack
.

Jonah’s heart skipped a beat.

“Macon, heads up!”

Jonah glanced up from his phone as Ric stopped on the landing above him. His stern expression yanked Jonah back to the mission.

They’d hit a locked door marked
EMPLOYEES ONLY
. Jonah stuffed the phone in his pocket and raced up to enter the four-digit pass code that had been given to him by the security guard downstairs. The guard hadn’t offered to come up here without a vest, and no one had twisted his arm.

Jonah made eye contact with Ric and Brian before punching the code’s last digit. They nodded. A faint
snick
and Jonah turned the knob. Slowly, he pulled back the heavy metal door. One by one, they slipped inside and eased the door shut behind them.

In contrast to the clean, bright stairwell they’d come from, this one was dim and dirty. Jonah had expected a barricade, maybe a booby trap. But the stairs were clear and the three men climbed them swiftly and soundlessly, Jonah in the lead. His pulse was racing. He pictured Sophie hunched behind that statue, and it raced even faster. He pictured her gleaming yellow hair and wondered if the motherfucker on the roof had used it for a target. Jonah pushed the thought away. He focused on the mission. Two more half-flights, eight steps each, and then he’d round the corner. He counted off each step, knowing the next time he passed through here, he might be in a body bag.

He reached the landing. He signaled his teammates. He readied his shotgun and turned the corner.

The last half-flight was empty. The stairs were bathed in sunlight from a rectangular window that looked out
on the roof. Jonah reached the top step and signaled his team. He nodded at the brick that had been used to prop open the door a few inches. Jonah had the pass code for this door, too, but he didn’t need it because of that brick. It sat there like an invitation, beckoning him outside.

And in that moment, Jonah knew this guy’s plan was suicide by cop. Really, he’d known it all along. This guy wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. The only question was, how many people would he take with him?

The ringing was back in his ears, only louder now. The world seemed brighter, sharper than it ever had. His body tingled. His shotgun felt weightless in his hands.

You’re it, Macon
.

By their predetermined plan, Brian reached around and rested a palm on the door. They exchanged looks. Three, two, one—

The door swung open and Jonah burst into the white-hot sunlight.

The roof was empty.

Jonah swept left, right, then stepped away from the door to look up and behind him, at the top of the structure that housed the stairwell. He did a second scan of the low concrete wall that rimmed the main roof. Nothing. Meanwhile, Ric and Brian had eased toward the outside corners of the stairwell structure.

Voices, low and crackly.

Jonah searched for the source and spied the small black radio tucked up against the south wall. Beside it, a gray duffel and a box of ammo.

But no sniper.

Either he’d leapt off the roof or he was behind them on the north side of the building.

Pop!

A puff of dust kicked up on the south wall as someone fired from below.

Pop! Pop!

Different weapons, coming from different directions. Jonah didn’t have time to worry about friendly fire.
He signaled for Brian to round the west corner of the stairwell building, he and Ric would round the east. It was a plan they’d thrown together on the way up those lower flights of stairs, and Jonah could think of about twenty flaws in it, but it was the best they had.

Silently, Jonah led the way. In his peripheral vision he saw shell casings glinting in the midday sun. There were dozens, maybe hundreds.

He wiped sweat from his brow. His T-shirt and jeans were saturated with sweat, but he was glad for the Kevlar and his Nikes, which gave him stealth. He sensed Ric behind him, trading signals with Brian so they could time their assault. Their shooter or shooters could be waiting around the corner in ambush.

Ric’s hand appeared at Jonah’s side, signaling:
Three, two, one
.

Jonah swung around the corner. Nothing. On the west side, a faint scuff. If the shooter didn’t know they were up here, Brian’s boots had just given them away.

Now, now, now!
a voice in his head ordered. Jonah surged forward, turned the next corner.

A flash of movement at the top of a ladder.

“Roof!” Ric shouted the same instant Jonah lifted his shotgun. Footsteps pounded on the top of the stairwell building.

“One shooter!” Brian yelled as both Ric and Jonah doubled back to the south.

A smack against the pavement as the man jumped to the rooftop. They reached the corner at the same instant Jonah saw the gunman. Sun reflected off his pale bald head as he shoved a pistol in his mouth.

Bang
. He dropped.

And where he’d been standing was just bright blue sky.

Allison peered through the rifle scope and waited, heart galloping. Was that pistol fire? What was happening up there?

A flutter of movement near the ledge, and gunshots echoed around the quadrangle like popcorn.

“Hold your fire!” she yelled into her radio, on the off chance the shots were coming from police. But she suspected it was more vigilantes trying to pick off the gunman.

“Shooter down.” Jonah’s words came over the radio, and Allison’s shoulders slumped with relief. She rested her forehead on the borrowed rifle.

“We’re going to sweep the roof,” he continued in an edgy voice. Had he taken out the shooter? What had happened up there? “Looks like a lone perpetrator, but we need to confirm.”

“Do a floor-by-floor of the library.” The order was issued by a voice she didn’t recognize, probably the SWAT commander. “All officers, hold your fire. I repeat, hold your fire. And get those kids to stop shooting, too.”

Allison sat up straighter and blinked the sweat from her eyes. She gazed at the library, feeling a sense of numbness combined with caution.

No movement, which was good. Jonah’s team was keeping low and away from the edge. She just hoped they were right, that the gunman was by himself.

She glanced at the man beside her, who still had his rifle pointed at the roof. “You hear that?”

“Yep.”

Allison stood and peered over the balcony at the grassy quad. Half a dozen students—either dead or injured—lay sprawled in the sun, while others cowered behind trees and trash cans and even flowerpots. Everything was so still, it could have been a photograph. Her gaze drifted back to the motionless bodies.

“Is it over?”

She turned to look at Bo McCoy, who held the binoculars she’d given him in his slender young hands.

“We don’t know,” she said, even though in her heart, she did know. It
wasn’t
over—not yet. And for some families, it never would be.

“Stay here until you get the all-clear.” She handed back the rifle. “And don’t shoot anything,” she ordered. “We’ve got cops up there.”

She rushed back to the ground floor, using the stairwell because her shell-shocked brain forgot about the elevator until she was halfway down. As she entered the ultra-modern lobby of the architecture building, she heard the nasal sound of a bullhorn outside.

“I repeat, all is clear. The gunman is down.”

For a moment, there was no reaction. But as she stepped from the air-conditioned building into the sweltering heat, the freeze-frame shifted into motion once again. People emerged from behind bushes, statues, even lampposts. Someone dropped from a tree. They poured out of buildings and crowded onto the sidewalks. Everyone gazed up at the library while some pointed, and the swell of anxious voices competed with the ever-increasing wail of sirens.

Allison hurried through the crowd to a place where she’d seen a victim go down. The boy was on his side,
clutching a bleeding arm. His fingers were crimson and his face was white and slick with sweat.

“Help’s coming.” Allison grabbed something someone handed her—a wadded T-shirt—and pressed it against the wound. The boy moaned, but at least he was conscious. Another T-shirt appeared, and she added to the makeshift bandage.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

He mumbled something she didn’t catch.

“You hear the ambulance? That’s for you. Just sit tight, okay? Anything hurt besides this arm?”

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, and Allison glanced up. All around her was a forest of legs. Students, faculty, staff. But where were the medics?

“Help is coming,” she promised, then jumped to her feet as she spotted an EMT.

“Hey! Over here!” She waved him over and then backed away as he and a partner knelt down and went to work.

Allison rejoined the crowd and searched for more injured. But it was now impossible to see the wounded through the thick soup of people. Some were shouting, some were weeping. Some staggered around, wide-eyed and dazed. An alarming number of men, young and old, held deer rifles pointed at the sky, and Allison hoped like hell this really was the act of a lone gunman. Any accomplice would have no trouble disappearing into the mob.

Jonah pushed his way through the throng of bodies.

“Allison!”

She couldn’t hear him. Not surprising given the noise.
Between the sirens and the helicopters, Jonah could hardly hear himself think. He squeezed past a barricade blocking off the inner part of campus. Someone grabbed his arm, then noticed his Kevlar vest and let go.

He caught up to her near the command center. Behind her, the entire quadrangle had been cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape.

“Allison, wait up.” He snagged her arm and turned her around.

“I thought you were on the roof.” She glanced up at it. Choppers hovered above the library like hornets, and a white tent had been erected over the corpse to keep news cams from filming as the crime-scene techs did their jobs.

Allison gave him a worried look. “I hear it was pretty intense up there. You okay?”

“That woman behind the statue. Have you seen her?” Jonah held his breath.

“The statue?”

“She called 911. She was pinned down behind the bronze horse sculpture, right over there.”

Recognition flickered. “You mean the blonde? Tall?”

“Where is she?”

“They took her away in an ambulance.”

His chest squeezed. “She was wounded?”

“She looked okay to me. She was on her feet. Her kid was bleeding, though.”

Jonah stared at her.

“Doyle! I need you on crowd control!” Reynolds motioned her over to a parking area behind the psych building, where some campus health workers were dealing with minor injuries. Jonah’s boss saw him and
frowned. “What are you still doing here? I thought you had a debriefing.”

“I’m on my way.”

But his boss was already stomping over. Reynolds was big, barrel-chested, and the silver bristles of his flattop contrasted with his ruddy skin.

He motioned Jonah away from the crowd. “Get to that briefing, give your statement, and go home. Keep it short and to the point.” He aimed a meaty finger at him. “And take off that vest. I don’t want reporters picking you out. We got every news channel in the country headed down here.”

Jonah gritted his teeth. A mass murderer had just shot up the college and his lieutenant was worried about reporters.

“I’m on my way.” Jonah turned to leave.

“Keep it tight,” Reynolds called after him. “Less is more, Macon. Don’t forget that.”

The emergency room at County Hospital could have been in a war zone. Rows of gurneys filled with injured students lined the wall. People sat on the floor and slouched in corners, holding makeshift bandages and awaiting attention from harried nurses and med students. Sophie hadn’t seen a doctor yet, and she assumed they were all in back tending to critical patients. Waiting-room chairs had been stacked and shoved against a wall in order to make room for the steady stream of gurneys coming in from ambulances. Load after load came off with bleeding arms, shattered wrists, injured feet. Several people had facial cuts from flying glass. Sophie
reached up and touched her eyebrow, wondering how bad her injury was. She’d taken a hefty chunk of bark to the temple when the tree she’d been running for got hit with a bullet.

The child in her lap squirmed, and Sophie gazed down at her. Every attempt to elicit a name had been met with silence, and Sophie didn’t know what to do, so for now she was going to wait here, holding an ice pack against the girl’s forehead and hoping she didn’t have a concussion. The girl had a big blue goose egg from when Sophie had tackled her to the ground and she’d hit a tree root. She also had a split lip. The blood there had dried, and Sophie had managed to clean it with some wet tissues, but it looked as though it needed stitches.

“Would you like to play a game?” Sophie shifted her on her lap so she could look down at her face. “It’s called the name game. I’ll start. My name is Sophie. Kind of like sofa. What’s
your
name?”