Once Upon a Marriage

He spoke to no one. Didn’t want to be the source of any false alarm or false hope, either. He knew as little as they did.

And kept his eye out for anyone suspicious. He was licensed to shoot if he was being threatened with a gun. He’d put himself in the perpetrator’s way, if need be, to be able to save innocent people from being hurt. He’d get the first shot off. And make certain that he hit his mark.

Voices were white noise around him. Clouds blocked blinding sun, making it easier for him to see. Uniformed officers had surrounded the perimeter of the building on foot—and in a larger ring farther out in vehicles, too. He’d heard a description of the alleged gunman. Male. Late teens or adult. In a hooded sweatshirt, a balaclava and baggy jeans. It was sixty-three degrees outside.

Even warmer in the building.

Nervous tension, worry, buzzed through the air—electrifying every breath taken. Elliott was aware and yet distant. In a world of his own. Standing tall above the crowd. A world where silence was preeminent, and crystal clear vision the only focus. A world he’d discovered young, having reached six feet in height by junior high.

A world that gave him the ability to be so good at his job.

Cars were lining up in the distance—back two blocks—behind the crime scene tape the police were hanging. Parents had been sent to a nearby church to wait for their children. Not all of them had followed orders. He didn’t blame them.

No one was leaving the building. No buses were transporting kids to safety. A couple of vans with station call letters emblazoned on their sides were inching their way forward. They wouldn’t be allowed through the tape. Only those first responders who’d arrived before the FBI were permitted access to the first block cordoned off area. The area where Elliott now stood.

Every once in a while he caught the sound of a police radio. From a car, or a belt, he didn’t know. The houses across the street from the school were silent and still. They’d already been evacuated—through their back doors.

Elliott didn’t think twice when he saw, over the heads of the reporters he was guarding, the blur of gray and denim, running away in the distance. He ran.

The blur of color had a good head start on him, but with his long legs, Elliott was able to cover twice the distance with half the stride and was closing in when officers exited cars en masse and cornered his suspect.

A kid. Maybe fifteen. With a loaded hunting pistol. On his knees on the ground, with his gun in front of him, the boy put his hands behind his back. And sobbed.

He didn’t hurt anyone. He hadn’t been able to hurt anyone. And he wanted his mom.

As much as Elliott abhorred the terror the boy had caused—as much as he knew that in spite of the fact that the teenager hadn’t been able to follow through on his plan, his intent to kill had to be punished to the fullest extent—Elliott felt sorry for the troubled kid, too.

And wondered when he’d started to get soft.

* * *

SHAKING, MARIE CALLED Liam and then Gabi. Neither of them had heard from Elliott since he dropped them off. Neither of them knew anything about the drama being played out at one of the city’s wealthier elementary schools.

Both said they’d see what they could find out. But it wasn’t as if anyone was going to call Elliott’s cell phone, distract him from whatever job he was doing and possibly put lives at risk.

They weren’t his only clients, after all.

Nor did they actually need him for anything at the moment.

Marie went back out front, made the wrong coffee and had to start

over. Her thoughts were entirely on the children who might be at risk. And Elliott. She rang up two orders and gave away three free coffees—all the while trying to keep an eye on the shop’s mounted flat-screen.

The news was on, but only with occasional updates to the breaking story across town.

They were out of cucumber sandwiches. She’d already added an additional five to the daily numbers from a month before. Would add another five starting tomorrow.

“You okay?” Eva asked during a brief lull.

“Fine.”

“Grace said to tell you she’s heading upstairs,” the other woman said. “She was trying to get your attention from the kitchen door...”

Marie nodded. Running a register report while she had the chance, she dropped a taped stack of twenties in the floor safe. Grace wouldn’t nap until she knew that Elliott was okay. She was upstairs watching television, Marie was sure of that.

And probably fielding questions from any of the other residents who might have seen the news. The old woman had somehow become the building’s unofficial superintendent long before Marie and Gabi moved in.

“It’s terrible, isn’t it?” The woman, a latte customer Marie had never seen before that day, stood on the other side of the counter. She, like Marie, was looking at the screen. She was also holding an empty cup.