More bullets exploded, pounding the floor and walls around him, ricocheting madly. Dust and flakes of concrete fell in a cloud over his face. He kept rolling until his body collided with a concrete pillar, and then he slid behind it and pushed himself up into a crouch. He peered around the beam, but he couldn't see or hear anything in a room filled with blackness and silence. The air around him was choked with smoke.
Twenty feet away, Kasey's flashlight flicked on again, but before he could aim and fire, the light switched off. He heard her footsteps in the aftermath, running, getting further away. The light went on and off again in a split second in a room beyond the far wall, as she used it to guide her.
'Mags,' Stride hissed.
'Over here.'
He followed the sound of her voice, leading the way with his hands. He kicked through a jumble of metal spikes and ducked as the noise clanged through the open space, but no one fired at him. He could still hear Kasey stumbling through another room, looking for a way out.
'Stride,' Maggie whispered. He felt along the chair to find where she was tied.
'Are you OK?' he asked.
'I'm alive.'
He clawed at the tape with his fingers but couldn't unwrap it. He felt on the floor and found a sharp piece of glass and used it to tear a cut in the tape that he peeled open, ripping it quickly off her skin. Maggie gave a strangled cry. He used the glass to free her other hand and then her feet.
'Don't stand up too fast,' he whispered, but she didn't listen. She bolted off the chair, then wobbled and fell backward. She toppled against him, and he caught her in his arms. The chair overturned. Her hands wrapped around his neck and got lost in the blood flowing from the open wound.
'Fuck, you're hurt,' she said.
'It seared me. It burns like hell, but I'm OK.'
A cone of light stabbed through the corridor opposite them, throwing shadows past the concrete towers. For the first time, Stride caught a glimpse of the bodies hidden in the school, and he swore. Maggie gestured at the nearest body on the floor — a large man with a bullet hole in the center of his forehead.
'That's our guy. The farmland killer. Kasey shot him.'
Stride nodded. In a distant corner of the school, at the source of the light, they heard Kasey hammering against the plywood boards nailed over the windows. Explosions rattled between the walls as she fired twice more. Wood splintered and broke. They saw smoke in the beam of light. After a pause, they heard the impact as Kasey threw her entire body against the wooden barrier.
The plywood tore away with a scream. They felt the air pressure change as a gap opened in the school wall. The light vanished.
'She's out,' Maggie said.
Stride put an arm around her waist to steady her. 'We have to get out of here,' he said. 'The first thing she'll do is go after Callie.'
Chapter Fifty-five
'Valerie's disappeared,' Denise told Serena.
'Disappeared? What happened?'
Serena didn't get an answer. Denise looked over her shoulder to where Callie slept in the back seat. The mask of the tough cop on Denise's face melted away. Serena heard Denise catch her breath and watched her cover her face with cupped hands as if she was praying. Denise opened the back door and gently undid the straps of the car seat. She lifted Callie like fragile china into her arms. The little girl didn't wake up.
'Oh, my God,' Denise murmured. 'Oh, baby, I never thought I'd see you again.'
She wrapped her niece in a bear hug and buried her face in the girl's mop of curly hair. For a moment, nothing else mattered. There was no infidelity. No anger. No complicated life. There was only jubilation.
'I didn't have any hope,' she said. 'We always tell the families not to give up, but I didn't believe it. I thought she was gone. God forgive me, I should have had faith.'
Serena got out of the car. 'Denise, what about Valerie?'
'She left a note,' Denise said. The relief on her face disappeared, and her eyes turned grim with worry. 'Marcus found it and called the police.'
'A note?'
Denise nodded. 'It's pretty clear what she was going to do.'
'Oh, damn it, no, not now!' Serena exclaimed. 'When was this?' 'The cop on the street saw her leave about two hours ago.'
'He didn't report it?'
'We were watching Marcus, not Valerie. We haven't been following her. When Marcus called, I scrambled units all over town to look for her car. Nobody's spotted her yet.' She added, 'Come on, let's get Callie out of the cold.'
Denise carried the girl up the driveway. A police officer at the front door let them inside. They followed the hallway to the kitchen at the rear of the house, where they found Marcus sitting at the island with a mug of coffee. He wore a chocolate-brown silk bathrobe and slippers and had half-glasses pushed down his nose. He was reading an online medical journal on a laptop in front of him.
Marcus saw Callie in Denise's arms. He'd known for an hour that she was coming home, but it was one thing to know it and another to see her alive. Serena watched him and tried to decipher the changing emotions on his face. He stripped off his glasses. His mouth tightened, and he blinked faster. A smile flickered on his lips, like a flame that couldn't quite catch.
Denise made no effort to hand Callie to Marcus or to hide her hostility. She stared at her brother-in-law, her eyes fierce.
'May I hold her?' he asked finally.
Denise clung to Callie and didn't move. 'She's not yours, is she?'
'Do you think that matters right now? Do you think I care about that?'
'I think the only person you care about is yourself.'
'You're wrong. You've always been wrong about me.'
Serena murmured under her breath, 'Come on, Denise.'
With her jaw clenched, Denise took a step closer and eased the girl away from her shoulder. Marcus put his coffee down and climbed out of his chair. He reached out his arms, and Denise passed Callie to him with obvious reluctance. The girl stirred and made a noise but didn't wake up.
Marcus held Callie against his chest. She looked small in his big hands. He sat down again.
'Well?' he said to Denise.
'Well what?'
'Don't you have something to say to me?'
'You don't want to hear what I have to say, Marcus.'
'I was expecting an apology,' he told her.
'Excuse me?'
'An apology,' he repeated, his voice hushed, but his tone harsh and bitter. 'For the last week, I've seen my name trampled through the mud and rumors flung around town about me. People calling me a murderer. Friends not returning my calls. Patients dropping my services. My marriage in ruins, my private life put on display for the world. I know where it all started, Denise. It started with you. Well, guess what, the truth is exactly what I said it was all along. I had nothing to do with any of this. And I think the least you can do is have the decency to tell me you're sorry.'
'Sorry?' Denise put her hands on her hips. 'Sorry? You caused this, Marcus. You let it happen. You and your little psycho bedmate, Regan Conrad. Yeah, I'm sorry. Sorry Valerie ever laid eyes on you. Sorry you're such an arrogant bastard. Maybe instead of feeling pity for yourself you could thank God for the people who brought this little girl back home safely. And maybe you could shed a tear and pretend to show an ounce of concern as we try to find your wife.'