The Competition Read online

  Harley had been in the library for the past hour, head down, desperately cramming factoids on the War of the Roses, when the fire alarm began to ring. He’d ignored it. Probably just a prank or an accident. But the shrill clanging persisted. Harley looked around, sniffed the air. No smoke. He got up and headed toward the windows that looked down on the front of the school to see if they were being evacuated. He’d gotten only halfway across the library when he heard screams, pounding footsteps—and then a voice bellowing from somewhere out in the hallway. “Hey, assholes, have a nice day!”

  A series of loud pops—they sounded like firecrackers, but…were they shots? Then laughter, ugly and brutal. Another shot. Then another. Closer this time. Just outside the library door. Harley frantically turned to Ms. Sara Beason, the teacher on duty. She stood at the front counter, staring wide-eyed at the doorway. He started to move toward her, when she suddenly screamed, “Hide!”

  Harley quickly scrambled behind a bookcase and ducked down. A blonde girl was standing near the storage cubbies at the front of the library, frozen, mouth hanging open.

  “Get down!” Harley whispered to her. “Down!” He gestured to her wildly.

  She stared at him, uncomprehending at first. Harley crawled over to her and yanked at her hand, pulling her to her knees. She dropped woodenly to all fours and curled up under a nearby desk. Harley scurried back to his hiding place.

  Seconds later a mocking voice came from the doorway. “Where’re all the good little kiddies? Helloooo?” Footsteps, then the same voice, closer now. “Hey, who’s got library duty? Guess what? It’s your lucky day!” Harley heard Sara Beason scream. Then, the boom of gunfire. It rattled the windows, shook the desks.

  Harley thought only a bomb could be that loud. More footsteps, Harley couldn’t tell exactly where, and more shots. How many? It was impossible to know. It all blended together in one continuous deafening roar. From the other side of the library he heard moaning, then a low swishing sound. What was that? Harley heard a weird, high-pitched laugh. Someone—one of the killers?—snickered and said, “Losers.” Again footsteps, this time moving his way.

  Harley swallowed hard, pressing his lips together to keep from screaming. He peeked through a gap in the books and saw someone—a killer? It had to be—walk over to the desk where the blonde girl had hidden. Shaking with terror, Harley tried not to breathe. He couldn’t think beyond the words Go away, go away, go away that ran through his brain on a continuous loop. The killer moved past the desk. Harley briefly closed his eyes in gratitude and dared to take a shallow breath. Then, without warning, the killer doubled back and rapped sharply on the desk.

  “Knock, knock, anybody home?” He laughed, leaned down, and looked at the girl cowering on the floor.

  The girl sobbed, “No! Please! Please don’t—”

  “Please don’t,” the killer mocked in a high falsetto. “Well, since you said please.” He took two steps away, then abruptly turned back. “Then again, that’s a stupid, bullshit word.” He swung the barrel of the gun under the desk. Fired point-blank into her face. Blood and brains splashed the wall behind the girl.

  Harley jammed a fist into his mouth and clutched his chest with the other hand to muffle the pounding of his heart. Ears ringing from the deafening sound, he squeezed himself into a ball and took shallow little breaths. He knew he was next. A warm, wet trickle made its way down his right leg.

  He heard footsteps, the brush of pant legs. It sounded like they were near the windows, but he couldn’t be sure. Could they see him from there? Harley didn’t dare turn his head to look. He thought of his mom, his dad, pictured them during one of their last happy dinners together, and squeezed his eyes shut to hold on to the memory. One of the killers was speaking. The voice seemed very close. Just feet away. Harley willed the ringing in his ears to stop as he strained to make out the words.

  One of the killers spoke again. “Ready?”

  An affirmation. “Yeah.”

  Then both voices. “Three…two…one.”

  A beat of silence.

  This is it, Harley thought. He curled up knees to chin, wrapped his arms over his head, and sobbed silently into his chest.

  2

  I glanced at the clock on the courtroom wall for the fiftieth time. It was seventeen minutes past eleven, which meant I’d been waiting exactly twenty-seven minutes for my case to be called. I hate waiting. Especially in a noisy courtroom where I can’t get anything else done. Usually I could stay in my office until the prosecutor assigned to the courtroom called me with a five-minute warning—it was all I needed, since my office was just upstairs—but this particular home-court deputy district attorney wasn’t exactly a fan of mine. We’d locked horns a couple of years ago when he screwed up the murder of a homeless man. Deputy DA Brandon Averill was just too big a hotshot to be bothered with low-rent, pedestrian crimes like that. I’d grabbed the case away from him in front of a packed courtroom and wound up proving he’d had the wrong guy in custody. My bestie, fellow Special Trials prosecutor Toni LaCollier, says Brandon’s a dangerous enemy. I say Brandon’s a tool. We’re probably both right.

  I could’ve asked the court clerk to give me the five-minute heads-up, but that’s a risky proposition. Even if they’re willing to help, clerks are busy people. And some might even “forget” to call just for the pleasure of seeing a judge ream you. But I knew Sophie wasn’t like that. And besides, I’d run out of patience. I headed for her desk, but at that moment Judge J. D. Morgan glared down at the packed courtroom and made an announcement. “Since I can’t seem to find a single case where both sides are up to speed, we’ll be in recess.” He banged his gavel. “Get it together, people. I expect a better showing when we reconvene at one thirty.”

  Damn. Now I’d have to come back for the afternoon session. I refused to get stuck down here for another hour. Better to take my chances with the clerk. I moved toward the line of attorneys queuing up at Sophie’s desk, but the judge gestured for me to approach. He leaned over the bench and covered his mic. “Rachel, where’s your worthy adversary?”

  “My worthy…you’re kidding, right?” I nodded toward the back of the courtroom, where defense counsel Sweeny was schmoozing the defendant’s family. He’d put the case on calendar so he could postpone the trial for another month. Said he needed more time “to prepare”—i.e., squeeze the family for more cash. I’d told the clerk I wanted a full hearing on Sweeny’s reasons for delaying the trial. Again.

  The judge sighed. “Look, I’m giving him the continuance this one last time. So agree on a drop-dead date for trial and stop busting my chops.”

  I gave him a sour look, but I nodded. He was right. The endless delays pissed me off, but another month wouldn’t matter. The case was basically all physical evidence, and my experts were local. My cell phone vibrated in my purse. I reached in and sneaked a look. The screen said “Bailey Keller.” My other bestie, who also happened to be a top-notch detective in the elite Robbery-Homicide Division of LAPD. Her call might mean she was free for lunch—a welcome distraction from the irritating morning I’d had so far. I turned back to the judge. “Okay if I have someone stand in for me if I get His Nibs to agree on a date?”

  “Sure.” The judge started to head off the bench, then turned back. “Hey, by the way, you and Graden still on for dinner Saturday?”

  Graden and I—Graden, the lieutenant of Robbery-Homicide—had been dating for over a year now. And Judge J. D. Morgan had been dating Toni for the past two years. It’s a cozy, some would say quasi-​incestuous, group. But we work seventy-hour weeks—at least. Where else are we going to meet someone? The parking lot?

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good. Now go make nice to Sweeny and pick a date.”

  J.D. trotted down off the bench and headed for his chambers. I did my lawyerly duty with Sweeny, then called Bailey back.

  “Hey, Rachel,” Bailey answered, her voice tense. “You get pulled in on that school shooting yet?”

&nbs
p; I had just pushed my way into a packed elevator. “What school sh—?” I managed to close my mouth before saying “school shooting” out loud.

  “Just happened.”

  “Oh my God. How bad?”

  “We still don’t have a body count. I’m putting a team together.”

  Body count. We used the term all the time, but about children? Never.

  “Rachel? You still there?”

  “Yeah, I just…give me a sec.” I had to push away from the horror of it all and make myself think. If the case was already big enough to justify bringing in the Robbery-Homicide Division, then District Attorney William Vanderhorn, affectionately known by me as the Dipshit, would insist that we have a presence in the investigation. It gave him a chance to show up at the scene and get free publicity. And if Bailey had anything to say about it, that presence would be Yours Truly. “You on your way out there now?” I asked.

  “Yeah. You may as well let me pick you up. Odds are you’ll wind up getting sent out anyway.”

  Bailey was right. Vanderhorn’s obnoxious press grab aside, it is SOP for the Special Trials Unit to show up at the crime scene, because we usually get our cases the day the body is found. That means we’re involved in the investigation. And that makes for a lot more work—normally prosecutors don’t even get the file until they start picking a jury—but it lets us put together a much tighter case. It’s an honor to be chosen for Special Trials, but it’s not a job for anyone who wants normal working hours. Free evenings? Free weekends? Fuggetaboutit.

  The elevator bounced to a stop at the eighteenth floor of the Criminal Courts Building, one of the two floors occupied by the district attorney’s office. It’s a long-standing, not-so-funny joke that the contract for the elevators went to the lowest bidder. They operate like one of those cheapo traveling carnival rides. “Okay.” My voice was as leaden as my heart. I didn’t even want to imagine what I was about to see.

  “We think we’ve already identified the shooters.”

  I punched in the security code on the door that led to my wing and headed for my office. “Then why…?” If they already had the shooters, there wouldn’t be much for me to do. I unlocked the door to my office and dropped the case file on my desk.

  Bailey sighed. “Yeah, now that I think about it, Rache, maybe you don’t need to come. This one’s gonna be…really bad.”

  I couldn’t remember ever wanting to take a pass on a crime scene before, but I did now. Though homicides are always grim, nothing compares to the tragedy of a child victim. Let alone a mass murder involving children. I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to know about it. I didn’t want it to be true. But it was. And I had to do something about it. Even if it was too late.

  3

  “What do we know?” I asked, as Bailey pulled away from the Criminal Courts Building.

  “Precious little. Everyone’s got cell phones, so between the kids and the teachers, we have about a thousand reports. And they’re all over the place. ‘There were two gunmen. There were four gunmen. They had AKs. They had handguns. They had grenades, they had Molotovs.’ The only thing we know for sure is that they yelled at the jocks. But when they fired they didn’t seem to be targeting anyone specific. A soccer coach, maybe. And she might’ve just been in their way.”

  “Any idea how many casualties?”

  “Not yet.”

  “But the building is cleared already?”

  Bailey nodded. “SWAT went in through the library window. Word is that’s where the last shots were fired.”

  “And that’s where they found the suspects?”

  “Yes.”

  I looked out the passenger window as we made our way down the 101 freeway. It was an incongruously glorious fall day, the kind I imagine L.A. used to have in abundance before we fouled the air with modern conveniences. Piercingly blue skies; brilliant yellow sunlight; and a clean, mild breeze that carried the burnt orange and ochre smells of autumn. The palm trees swayed gracefully in that breeze. At this moment I hated the sight. It felt like proof that the world didn’t care.

  Our destination was Woodland Hills, a suburb in the San Fernando Valley that lies north and west of Los Angeles proper. Bailey got off at Tampa Avenue, and I distracted myself by counting the number of storefronts advertising Asian “foot massage” for twenty dollars. When I reached six, Bailey turned south and headed us into the maelstrom that surrounded Fairmont High School.

  Fire engines, police cars, and ambulances—more than I’d ever seen in one place—packed the front entrance. Overhead, police helicopters competed for airspace with news copters. Their deafening whump-whump, the flashing blue and red lights, the piercing scream of ambulances, created a dark swirl that made the whole scene feel apocalyptic.

  More than two hundred stunned civilians crowded the grass quad in front of the school. I guessed that most were the families and friends of the students who hadn’t been accounted for. Many were hunched over, holding cell phones to their ears, or staring at them as if willing them to ring. The air was thick with anguish. Circling like vultures were the inevitable news crews. I watched in disgust as reporters held out microphones to catch every drop of misery from the anxious crowd.

  Bailey double-parked next to a squad car on the corner, and we headed to the police barricade at the side of the building, where things were quieter. The school was big—two stories high—and relatively new-looking, with a facade of light-colored stucco. The stairs leading to the main entrance were filled with local police officers.

  A sobbing couple hovered over a gurney that was being loaded into one of the ambulances. The woman called out in a quavering voice, “Don’t worry, baby, you’re going to be okay! We’ll be right behind you!” The paramedic slammed the rear door shut and jumped in, then the ambulance flew down the street, siren screaming.

  Bailey and I stopped just outside the tape that had been placed around the perimeter of the school and she flashed her badge at the nearest officer, a wiry guy who seemed almost young enough to have been a student himself.

  “I’ll have to check with the sergeant before I let you in,” he told Bailey. He glanced over at me. “But she’ll have to wait. I’ve got strict orders: no civilians allowed.”

  “I’m not a civilian,” I said, irritated. I pulled out my badge and held it up. “I’m a deputy district attorney—”

  The officer studied my badge, then shook his head. “I’m sorry ma’am, orders are not to let—”

  “She’s on the case,” Bailey interjected.

  He gave me a skeptical look. “I’ll get the sergeant.” The officer started to go, then turned back and pointed at me. “But wait here till I get back.”

  I watched him walk away. “What, did he think I was going to rush the line?”

  “It’s the glint of madness in your eyes, Knight. Screws you every time.”

  “You’re not funny, Keller.”

  “I wasn’t kidding.”

  We waited in silence as we watched the scene in front of the school. A line of police officers held back the surging crowd that was getting louder and more desperate by the minute. Keening cries mixed with voices grown hoarse from pain and frustration. A man shouted, “I just want some goddamn information!” That sparked a wave of cries from the others. “Please, we just need to know!” and “Can’t you tell us something?” and “It’s our kids for Christ’s sake!” I could see by the expressions on the officers’ faces that they felt the parents’ pain but there was nothing they could do. In this chaos, it would take time to get accurate information. And the truth was, nothing short of seeing their children alive and unharmed was going to reassure these parents.

  Finally, the kid—I mean officer—we’d spoken to came back. Without a word, he lifted the tape. As we ducked under, he said, “Sergeant said for you both to get on some booties and gloves before you go in.”

  We nodded and started toward the main entrance. Behind us, voices shouted out, “Rachel! Rachel Knight! Bailey Keller!” St
unned, I turned, and found myself staring into the black lens of a video camera. Behind the camera, reporters were leaning over the tape, holding out microphones. A female reporter in a red suit asked, “What can you tell us?” A heavyset male behind her called out, “Do you have a body count?”

  Nice thing to say in front of all those families. Assholes. Luckily for them, I’d left my gun in Bailey’s car. Bailey saw the look in my eye and grabbed me by the arm. “Zip it, Knight—you don’t need to star in tonight’s headlines.”

  I forced myself to turn back and move up the front steps. As Bailey and I went over to the boxes that held the booties and gloves, I heard shouts of recognition bounce through the crowd of reporters.

  “Hey, aren’t those the two that did the Ian Powers case last year?” Another called out, “Yeah, that’s the prosecutor!”

  Bailey and I had been in the center of the spotlight last year when I handled a high-profile trial involving the murders of Hayley Antonovich, daughter of world-famous director Russell Antonovich, and her boyfriend, Brian Maher. But that’d been almost a year ago. I’d thought—hoped—everyone would forget what Bailey and I looked like. So much for that.

  We pulled on gloves and booties and made our way inside. I’ve been to a lot of crime scenes. Never have I seen the kind of grim, bruised expressions I saw on the faces of the cops, techs, and paramedics in that school. Even before we reached the area where students had fallen, I could smell the sweat, the panic, the blood. We walked down the main hallway and got as far as the principal’s office before we hit more yellow crime scene tape. I looked past it and saw jackets, shoes, backpacks, and purses strewn up and down the hallway; garbage cans lay on their sides, spilling out wrappers, torn notebook pages, and empty soda cans. Farther down, I saw paramedics working urgently over a body. I started to move forward to get a closer look, but a steely grip circled my arm and pulled me back.