The Knowing Box Set EXTENDED EDITION: Exclusive New Material Read online

  The trophy cases.

  Go on ahead, shoot them trophies, kill every last one of them and give us a few more seconds to lock these children in here safe.

  * * * * * * *

  Daniel Burke didn’t even know how to think about the words he saw on the screen in front of him. He stared at his wife’s iPad and the letters in the open email blurred, went in and out of focus like he needed glasses.

  He hadn’t meant to…it wasn’t like he’d been spying on Emily. He just didn’t know how to operate this dang thing! Dinka tribesmen in the rain forests of Sudan probably knew more about computers and iPhones, iPads, iPods and iWhatever-Else’s than he did.

  When he’d finally come around to the belief that standing in the pulpit with an iPad in his hand made a statement the young Pastor Daniel Burke definitely wanted to make, he’d done what any other technically-challenged adult would have done. He’d gone to his ten-year-old daughter for help. Andi was teaching him the rudiments of operating his wife’s iPad and he practiced with it whenever Emily was out of the house.

  He stared at the words swimming around in—what? Tears? Was he crying?—and thought semi-hysterically: Where’s a 10-year-old when you need one? He had no idea how he’d gotten to this screen, what buttons he’d pushed to transport him here.

  I’ll wear the black lacy one you got me. I want you to see me in it for a few seconds at least before you rip it off.

  Daniel’s knees gave way under him and he sat heavily on the deck chair, the morning sun flashing on the iPad screen. He’d brought his coffee out on the deck to work on her iPad while Emily was at her dentist appointment.

  But Emily wasn’t at her dentist’s office. She was…somewhere…with— He scrolled down—he knew how to do that much—to the email below it, the one Emily had responded to.

  We’ll have the whole morning. If Daniel doesn’t expect you back until noon, I plan to see how many different ways I can make you groan in ecstasy in three hours.

  Daniel felt the coffee rise up in the back of his throat and was barely able to turn aside before acid vomit spewed out his mouth and nose onto the redwood decking at his feet. When he stopped reflexively gagging, he looked at the screen again, scanning down, searching for a name.

  Jeff. He scratched around in his head, thumbing through the list of all the possible Jeffs who—

  Jeff Kendrick. The dashing big-shot lawyer who was the chairman of the board of the Cincinnati Center for the Arts. Emily’d been asked to serve on the board last summer. Daniel had met the guy at the center’s Christmas party. Kendrick had danced with Emily that night. Held her too close.

  Daniel had never in his life felt an emotion like the one that swelled up in his chest then, as suddenly as inflating a Navy dinghy. It had no name, he was sure, or he’d have heard it sometime in his years of counseling married couples.

  The emotion that shall not be named, he thought and barked a laugh, only it came out as a strangled sob.

  He should pray.

  He sat numb, waiting for words. None came.

  Then he reached into his pocket and took out his cell phone. His hands were shaking so violently he almost dropped it. It took him two tries to punch “Favorites,” and then “Emily.”

  He listened to it ring. Over and over again. Daniel thought that was the loneliest sound he had ever heard. Emily didn’t answer.

  * * * * * * *

  The tall blond boy stood staring at Theresa for a moment. “Sure, I can remember that. Code Red,” he said, then took a tentative step out into the street.

  “I said run, son. Drop them books and run like the devil hisself is after you.”

  The boy let the books slide out of his hand and took out at a gangly lope toward the house.

  “Run!” Theresa cried after him.

  He broke into a full-out sprint then, side-stepping the bushes and mailboxes in his way like a receiver dodging tackles as he heads for the end zone.

  Theresa watched him. That was it. She’d done all she could do. Now it was her job to take care of her own, mind the little ones that was in her care.

  “You all run, too,” she said to the children standing stunned on the curb. “That way!” She gestured back up the sidewalk leading away from the school. “Go on now, git!”

  She shuffled along as fast as she could behind the retreating children.

  Lord, you see what we up against and ain’t nobody but you can protect them little ones from it. Please…

  And Bishop! He was in there, too. He’d understand instantly. Like Theresa—even more profoundly than Theresa—Bishop knew.

  The blond kid was half way to the house, running dead out. Theresa watched him, knowing in her heart she’d sent him on a fool’s errand. He wouldn’t make it in time. It was too late, had been too late the moment she spotted the fat man in the ball cap in the school yard.

  She’d taken only two more steps when an ugly rat-tat-tat-tat-tat ripped open the early summer morning with a sound like fireworks. The children in front of her knew it wasn’t fireworks, though! With shocked terror on their faces, they ran screaming up the street.

  She paused, turned back to the school, saw a sinister black fog billowing around it, a fog couldn’t nobody see but those who knew.

  CHAPTER 2

  Police Sergeant Jack Carpenter was running long before he had time to will his legs to pick him up out of the chair behind his desk. So were all the other officers. The squad room of the Harrelton, Ohio, Metro Police Station emptied in less than thirty seconds. Every officer rolled on pure instinct when the hot call came over the radio, the six words every police officer prays he will never hear: “Active Shooter at Carlisle Elementary School.”

  The chief, the captain, the major, all the patrol officers responded—so would officers from other agencies, other nearby jurisdictions, but when they got to the scene, rank wouldn’t matter, Jack would be in charge. He was the point man on the department’s SWAT team and the tactical training officer for the whole state of Ohio. He was also the only man in the department other than the major who’d ever been shot at.

  Jack squalled out of the police department parking lot in front of the others—Code Three, lights and siren. The wail of sirens rose in a symphony that curdled the crisp, jasmine-scented air. The school was only a couple of miles away. Half a block out from it, Jack careened his cruiser around the final corner and flipped the catch on his seat belt. As he pulled into the school parking lot, he hit the trunk release. It wouldn’t open until the car was in park, but flipping the catch now was a second saved. Seconds mattered. He whipped the car so that it slid sideways toward the curb like a slalom skier stopping at the bottom of a hill—passenger side toward the building. He slammed the car into park with one hand and unclipped his M4 patrol rifle from the ceiling rack with the other and was out of the car in a crouch, scrambling toward the trunk in less than three seconds. It opened as he got there, and he snatched out his tactical vest. That had been a judgment call. He could have shaved off another couple of seconds by leaving it, but roll into the building without it and he had twenty-eight rounds of ammo. There were a hundred and fifty rounds in the vest.

  Other officers were arriving now. He pointed to two from his department, “Paco” Ramirez and Sam Peterson, and a gray-uniformed Ohio State Police Trooper.

  “You, you, you—with me, contact team.”

  They didn’t have to be told what that meant. Cross-training of officers from all jurisdictions ensured that everybody was playing from the same sheet of music. First four officers on the scene—no matter who they were—formed the contact team. Their job was to follow the sound of gunfire and make contact with the shooter. If that meant they had to step over the bodies of bleeding and dying children in that single-minded pursuit, they had to be prepared to do just that. The next four officers would be dispatched as a search and rescue team—unless shots were still being fired, in which case they’d form a second contact team. Contact teams would continue to form until the g
unfire ceased.

  The role of every contact team was the same. Jack Carpenter had only one job: find the shooter; take him out.

  * * * * * * *

  Emily was careful not to speed, drove five miles per hour under the limit, came to a full stop at every sign, signaled before she turned. Oh, not because it would be difficult to explain to Dan why she’d gotten a traffic ticket on Donner Road when her dentist appointment was on the other side of Cincinnati in Mason. Though that would take some creative lying on her part, it wasn’t her chief concern. What mattered most to Emily was time and not wasting a single second of it. A traffic ticket would steal precious minutes she could be spending with Jeff.

  She reached up and hit the button on the sunroof and felt the warm summer breeze wash over her, setting her honey-colored curls dancing. Stylishly highlighted both dark and light, it resembled autumn leaves blowing across the ground.

  Jeff wouldn’t care that her hair was tousled. And even if it were perfectly styled, it would become a passion-tangled mess as soon as she saw him. When she turned off Freeman Avenue onto the Sixth Street Expressway, she glanced up into the mirror, a spot check of her makeup, which she had applied with special care this morning while Dan gave out Andi’s spelling words.

  As if summoned by the mention of his name in her mind, the phone rang and “Dan” appeared on the screen. She shook off the unease the call caused. He already had called three times, but left no messages. That wasn’t like him. He should be at the church by now getting ready for the afternoon’s deacons meeting. With the phone crying out on the seat beside her, it was hard to calm her jaded nerves. He wanted her to pick up his shirts at the cleaners, that was all, or stop by the store for— Finally, she couldn’t stand the ringing any longer and reached over and punched the mute button. Of course, now she wouldn’t hear the chime of a Jeff message either, but she was close. Whatever he had to say, he could say to her in person in a few minutes.

  That thought caused a visceral reaction that flooded her body with warmth all the way to her toes. She’d be with Jeff soon, hold him, touch him, smell the delicious maleness of him. She inhaled the flower-scented breeze that wafted the aroma of honeysuckle and daisies into the car and thought that she’d never wanted anything in her life as much as she wanted Jeff Kendrick.

  The secluded inn where they always met was an oasis in the middle of a collection of apartment houses between two strip malls upstream on the Ohio River from Harrelton. Though it wasn’t the smallest of Cincinnati’s suburbs—Harrelton boasted a population of about 100,000—it was still small enough that running into someone you knew in the grocery store or the movie theatre wasn’t all that uncommon. Jeff had taken great care to secure their privacy by selecting The River’s Bend, which was nestled at the base of a hill in a thick grove of trees, so even the driveway was secluded. Discreet, yet convenient, private, yet close enough that neither of them had to waste precious time getting there. It was so like Jeff to think of everything.

  She turned off the street onto the winding driveway and around to the back—where her car would be safe from prying eyes. She pulled into the space in front of Room No. 7, switched off the ignition and sat for a moment, listening to her heart thunder wildly in her chest. Another quick makeup check in the mirror, then she paused briefly to study the face beneath the makeup. She was a beautiful woman and she knew it, knew how to make the most of her perfect china-doll features and light blue eyes to produce an effect that was even better than beautiful. Emily Burke was striking.

  She stepped out of the car into the warm summer sunshine. Slender and petite, barely five feet two, she stood snug in tight jeans.

  The only women who look good in skinny jeans are women who have skinny genes.

  Dan. Why did Dan keep popping into her mind?

  She didn’t want an answer to the question, and crossed the sidewalk to the No. 7 door quickly. It swung open before she had a chance to knock. The sight of Jeff took her breath away and she stood, staring.

  In the distance she heard a sound, the wailing of sirens. Lots of sirens. Must be a wreck on Interstate 71. Then she stepped into Jeff’s arms.

  * * * * * * *

  Bishop was proud of Erika Lund. The fragile little blonde girl—woman, she was a woman—musta had a stainless steel rod ’tatched to her backbone. She leapt to the door, rotated the knob that slid the deadbolt into place and grabbed the piece of green construction paper conveniently stabbed to the cork board beside the door. The paper was pinned next to a piece of red paper and both already had pieces of tape stuck to them, sticky-side out. She whirled and taped the green paper over the small window in the door.

  The piece of construction paper wasn’t there by accident. Neither was the one on the window sill that Mrs. Waznuski hurriedly leaned against the glass. Every classroom was required to have both colors accessible near doors and windows at all times. Green paper would later tell police clearing the building that there were no casualties in the room. Red indicated injuries.

  Lord, please keep that paper green.

  The paper in place, Miss Lund turned to the children who had gone completely postal at the sound of the gunfire.

  “Did I give any of you permission to scream?” she roared, like that sergeant who’d had to whip a bunch of Kentucky farm boys into soldiers before they shipped out to Vietnam. “Stop it right now!”

  There was such an unaccustomed edge of menace in her voice, the children were shocked into momentary silence. While she had their attention, she continued, not comforting or soothing, merely matter-of-fact.

  “We’re safe. The door’s locked and I…” she stepped to the desk, reached behind it and picked up her purse off the floor. The children held their breaths as she rummaged around in it until she found what she was looking for. “…I have the only key.” Which technically wasn’t true, of course, but it would do for now.

  She held up a big gold door key on her key ring like it was a light saber from one of them Star Wars movies. Bishop could see that her hands were shaking, but the kids didn’t seem to notice.

  “Is he gonna shoot us?” cried a chubby girl whose cheeks were slathered with tears. “I seen on TV where a man went into a school and shot the children. I don’t wanna die.”

  Hysteria threatened to wash over the classroom again.

  “Ain’t none of you kids gone do no dying in this here room today,” Bishop said. He had a deep, rumbling voice to match his huge stature but he always spoke quietly to children, as gentle as a fairytale teddy bear. He let the kids hear the steel in his voice now, though. His skin was as black as a crow’s feather, but the hair that encircled his head, leaving a perfectly bare spot on top, wasn’t cottony white. It had somehow got a touch of yellow in it. Theresa said it looked like popcorn.

  There was another volley of gunfire outside in the hallway, and the sound of more glass breaking, and more crazy laughter. The children squeaked and whimpered in fear, but nobody screamed this time.

  The crazy fool was taking out the trophy cases and the pictures of former principals and teachers that lined the walls. Then there was a pause between volleys, and Bishop heard it.

  “You all hear that?” he asked. The warbling wail of a whole herd of sirens grew louder by the second. “In a couple of minutes, this place gone be plum broke out with policemen.”

  They just had to stay alive until help arrived.

  “Here’s what we gone do,” he said, and glanced at Miss Lund to be sure she approved. She was holding it together real well but she didn’t appear to be in any condition to execute any safety strategies. Mrs. Waznuski, a small woman with hair the color of snow-laden clouds, only worked half days, three days a week. Bishop hardly knew her, but it was clear she was as frightened as the children. “We’re all gonna huddle together in that corner over there.” It was against the wall, as far as possible from the door. “And we’re gone turn over these desks and stack ‘em up in front of us, make a fort like.”

  Bishop had no i
dea if that was the right thing to do or not. Maybe they should try to get the children out a window instead. But this was an old building with windows that opened wide at the top and about a foot or so at the bottom. To get the children out them, he’d have to break the glass—if he could locate something to break it out with—and then there’d be jagged glass everywhere. More important, Bishop figured it was safest not to call attention to themselves, which breaking out windows certainly would.

  Besides, Bishop had seen only the one man, but that didn’t mean there weren’t others—outside maybe. Bishop’s money was on staying in this hidey hole until the police showed up to blast what was out there in the hallway all the way back to hell. The safest place was right here where they had a locked door between them and the crazy man in the hall.

  The children instinctively understood the need to be as quiet as possible as they hauled desks to the back of the room, picked them up—two kids to a desk—instead of dragging them. The sound of gunfire outside covered the sounds they did make as they piled the desks in a heap on top of each other. Then the children crawled in among the desks, burrowing themselves to safety.

  It grew silent. The rat-tat-tat of automatic gunfire outside had ceased. Maybe the guy had left. Maybe—

  In the hallway outside the classroom next door—the one that was locked up because they’d done touch-up painting in there before school this morning—he heard a cannon roar. That boom wasn’t no automatic rifle. That was a shotgun.

  Then another boom roared.

  On one knee in front of the pile of desks, Bishop felt the pit of his stomach drop into his shoes, and turned as if in slow motion to look at the heavy wooden door. At the lock on the door. He held his breath. Time froze. Then there was another boom right outside in the hall and the wood around the lock on the door shattered and splintered. The children huddled together in the tangle of desks in the corner began to shriek and there was no calming them this time. One more boom and a hole showed in the door where the lock had been, leaving shards of wood and sawdust floating in the air. A hand reached in through the splintered hole, grasped the door, shoved it inward and the man in a sweatshirt and baseball cap picked his way almost daintily over the rubble of shattered wood in the doorway and stepped into the room.