Page 12 of Trapper Road

Usually that puts me at ease, but this morning it doesn’t. I know what it is: the press release from the Lost Angels. The knowledge that they haven’t given up — that the quiet we’ve enjoyed for the past few months was a short reprieve and not a full cessation.

With a sigh I retreat to my office and turn on my computer. The first thing I do is run a search on Leonard Varrus. There are plenty of hits. Unsurprising given his daughter was one of Melvin’s early victims. The articles I skim are as I expect: painful recollections of a vibrant young woman full of promise and dreams whose life was tragically and brutally cut short.

It’s hard to read these things, knowing that she was tortured and killed in my own garage, likely while the kids and I were only yards away. It’s even more difficult to read about this man’s pain at losing his only child. It’s a terror no parent wants to contemplate, and even reading someone else’s ordeal makes my chest burn with anxiety.

Just to reassure myself, I grab my phone and pull up the app that tracks my kids’ locations. Both are tucked safely at school. Knowing where they are brings me a measure of comfort and fortifies me to continue my search.

I run Leonard’s name through several of J.B.’s quasi-legal search programs. While those run, I switch over to a background report I’ve been typing up for J.B. I’m almost finished when my phone dings with an alert. I check it and feel a wave of cold cascade through me and freeze along my spine.

This is an urgent message from Crescent View High School. There have been reports of an active shooter on campus. Authorities have been called in and the school is in lockdown. We will share more information as it becomes available.

Horror overwhelms me. That’s Connor and Lanny’s school.

I grab my keys and run.

* * *

I can’t get near the school. There are already barriers blocking the roads leading to the entrance and police swarm — so many I can’t count the cars. There are ambulances too, sitting silent but with their lights flashing. Waiting for the injured to be brought out.

The thought makes me gag with dread. I need to know what’s going on. I need to know that my babies are okay.

A young police officer approaches the car, and I roll down my window.

“What’s happening?” My voice is higher pitched than normal, on the edge of panic. I swallow, trying to get myself under better control.

“Ma’am, do you have a student here?”

“My son and daughter.” I’m shaking all over. I’ve been this afraid before, when my children were missing, in danger, and it’s a horrible, helpless feeling. I clutch the wheel so tightly that my knuckles burn white. “I got the message about shots fired. What’s going on?”

“Yes ma’am. The school is in lockdown,” she says. She’s trying to be soothing and calm, but I’m full of live electricity and on the verge of screaming. I want to bolt from the car and rush to the school. I want to do something. Anything. There are sirens ripping the air — ambulances, the second wave. They’re parking on the periphery, and I remember that even if there’s an active shooter in the school, even if my kids are lying wounded and helpless, they won’t get help immediately. Not until the police find the threat.

“Is the shooter still at large?” I can’t believe I’m asking this question. That I’m saying these words about my kids’ school. How is it possible that these things can keep happening? Why haven’t we figured out a way to put a stop to them?

“We’re trying to determine the exact situation.” It’s all she can offer me. “Right now we’re asking parents to head to the community center to wait. As students are evacuated, that’s where they’ll be taken.” She pulls the barricade aside and gestures toward a large brick building down the block. The parking lot is already crowded with SUVs and news trucks.

I go where instructed and pull into an empty space. I look around at the other parents making their way toward the entrance. Everyone has the same expression: shock. Terror. Panic. Reporters swarm around the edges, respecting the parents’ space for now. It won’t last long. I’ve learned that from experience.

I grab my phone, pulling up the location app. My kids’ icons are in the same place as before: Crescent View High School. That doesn’t mean they’re necessarily still there, though. During lockdown drills they’re taught to silence their phones or jettison them if it could give away their location. My kids could have escaped and left their phones behind.

If I could charge the school and find a way to rescue them I would. If I thought I could get anywhere near the campus grounds before getting tackled by police, I’d already have tried it. Instead, all I can do is sit here and wait. I hate how helpless it makes me feel. I’m used to taking action. I’m used to confronting threats. And yet, right now, all I can do is close my eyes and whisper, “Please be okay,” to myself over and over again. “Please please please please.”

Just then, my phone buzzes with a text. Lanny. My heart tilts in my chest.

Locked down in my classroom. Someone with a gun. Am okay. I love you, Mom.

I stare at the words, feeling a terrible blend of relief and terror. She’s okay, thank God. But she’s still at risk. And still, there’s nothing I can do. I hate this helplessness.

I start to respond, but then I realize it may not be safe if she’s forgotten to turn her alerts off. I want to text Connor, to make sure he’s also okay, but I don’t for the same reason. I can’t afford to give his location away if he’s hiding.

The thought of my baby boy hiding from a gunman releases a fresh wave of nausea. I swallow it down and call Sam. I need him. I need his voice.

He answers, and I can hear from the relaxed way he says my name that he doesn’t know about the shooting. I realize I haven’t updated the school’s alert system to text him too.

“I’m at the community center across the street from the kids’ school,” I tell him, and I’m surprised how clear I am, how calm I sound. “There may be a shooter. The kids are locked down. I got a message from Lanny but not Connor.” Those are just words. Facts. Meaningless. I am a storm inside, and I want to cry but I can’t. Something stops me, keeps me sounding brisk and in control. I am not in control. At all.

There’s a brief, heavy pause, and then Sam says, “I’ll be there as fast as I can.” He doesn’t waste breath on platitudes; he says what I need to hear and then he’s gone.

Other parents are arriving now, pooling toward the community center. I get out of the car and join them. A young woman near the entrance asks me, tears in her eyes, what’s going on. I can’t tell her. I don’t know. I just, on impulse, hold her hand, and feel the same trembles of sheer terror jumping through her flesh. She squeezes and cries.

---