“Oh.” Charlie felt like a giant light bulb turned on over her head. She had been so overwhelmed by the murders that she hadn’t processed the fact that there was a second investigation into the officer-involved shooting. If Rodgers had moved his gun an inch in the wrong direction, Huck could’ve been a third body lying in the front office hallway.
“It was like this.” Charlie picked up the Glock. The black metal felt cold against her skin. She hefted it into her left hand, but that was wrong. Huck had reached back with his right. She put the gun in her open right palm, turned sideways, muzzle facing backward, the same way Kelly had with the revolver.
Delia already had her cell phone in her hands. She took several pictures, saying, “You don’t mind?” when she knew full well it was too late if Charlie minded. “What happened to the revolver?”
Charlie placed the Glock on the table so that the muzzle pointed toward the back wall. “I don’t know. Huck didn’t really move. I mean, he flinched, I guess from the pain of a bullet shredding his arm, but he didn’t fall down or anything. He told Rodgers to take the revolver, but I don’t remember whether or not Rodgers took it, or if someone else did.”
Delia’s pen had stopped writing. “After Mr. Huckabee was shot, he told Rodgers to take the revolver?”
“Yes. He was very calm about it, but I mean, it was tense, because nobody knew whether or not Rodgers was going to shoot him again. He still had his Glock pointed at Huck. Carlson still had his shotgun.”
“But there wasn’t another shot fired?”
“No.”
“Could you see if anyone had their finger on a trigger?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t see Mr. Huckabee hand the revolver to anyone?”
“No.”
“Did you see him put it anywhere on his person? On the ground?”
“I don’t—” Charlie shook her head. “I was more concerned that he had been shot.”
“Okay.” She made a few more notes before looking up. “What do you remember next?”
Charlie didn’t know what she remembered next. Had she looked down at her hands the same way she was looking down at them now? She could remember the sound of heavy breathing from Carlson and Rodgers. Both men had looked as terrified as Charlie had felt, sweating profusely, their chests heaving up and down under the weight of their bulletproof vests.
My girl’s that age.
Pink coached me up.
Carlson hadn’t buckled his bulletproof vest. The sides had flapped open as he ran into the school with his shotgun. He’d had no idea what he would find when he turned that corner; bodies, carnage, a bullet to the head.
If you’ve never seen anything like that before, it could break you.
Delia asked, “Ms. Quinn, do you need a moment?”
Charlie thought about the terrified look on Carlson’s face when he slipped in the patch of blood. Had there been tears in his eyes? Was he wondering if the dead girl a few feet away from his face was his own child?
“I’d like to go now.” Charlie didn’t know that she was going to say the words until she heard them come out of her mouth. “I’m leaving.”
“You should finish your statement.” Delia smiled. “I’ll only need a few more minutes.”
“I’d like to finish it at a later date.” Charlie gripped the table so she could stand. “You said that I’m free to go.”
“Absolutely.” Delia Wofford again proved unflappable. She handed Charlie one of her business cards. “I look forward to speaking with you again soon.”
Charlie took the card. Her vision was still out of focus. Her stomach sloshed acid up into her throat.
Ben said, “I’ll take you out the back way. Are you okay to walk to your office?”
Charlie wasn’t sure about anything except that she had to get out of here. The walls were closing in. She couldn’t breathe through her nose. She was going to suffocate if she didn’t get out of this room.
Ben tucked her water bottle into his jacket pocket. He opened the door. Charlie practically fell into the hallway. She braced her hands against the wall opposite the door. Forty years of paint had turned the cinder blocks smooth. She pressed her cheek against the cold surface. She took a few deep breaths and waited for the nausea to pass.
“Charlie?” Ben said.
She turned back around. There was suddenly a river of people between them. The building was teeming with law enforcement. Muscle-bound men and women with big rifles strapped to their wide chests rushed back and forth. State troopers. Sheriff’s deputies. Highway patrol. Ben was right; they had all shown up. She saw letters on the backs of their shirts. GBI. FBI. ATF. SWAT. ICE. BOMB SQUAD.
When the hall finally cleared, Ben had his phone in his hands. He was silent as his thumbs moved across the screen.
She leaned against the wall and waited for him to finish texting whoever he was texting. Maybe the twenty-six-year-old from his office. Kaylee Collins. The girl was Ben’s type. Charlie knew this because, at that age, she had been her husband’s type, too.
“Shit.” Ben’s thumbs swiped across the screen. “Gimme another second.”
Charlie could’ve walked herself out of the police station. She could’ve walked the six blocks to her office.
But she didn’t.
She studied the top of Ben’s head, the way his hair grew from the crown like a spiral ham. She wanted to fold herself into his body. To lose herself in him.
Instead, Charlie silently repeated the phrases she had practiced in her car, in the kitchen, sometimes in front of the bathroom mirror:
I can’t live without you.
The last nine months have been the loneliest of my life.
Please come home because I can’t take it anymore.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
“Plea deal on another case went south.” Ben dropped the phone into his jacket pocket. It clinked against Charlie’s half-empty water bottle. “Ready?”
She had no choice but to walk. She kept her fingertips to the wall, turning sideways as more cops in black tactical gear passed by. Their expressions were cold, unreadable. They were either going somewhere or coming back from something, their collective jaws set against the world.
This was a school shooting.
Charlie had been so focused on the what that she had forgotten the where.
She wasn’t an expert, but she knew enough about these investigations to understand that every school shooting informed the next one. Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook. Law enforcement agencies studied these tragedies in an effort to prevent, or at the very least understand, the next one.
The ATF would comb the middle school for bombs because others had used bombs before. The GBI would look for accomplices because sometimes, rarely, there were accomplices. Canine officers would hunt for suspicious backpacks in the halls. They would check every locker, every teacher’s desk, every closet for explosives. Investigators would look for Kelly’s diary or a hit list, diagrams of the school, stashes of weaponry, a plan of assault. Tech people would look at computers, phones, Facebook pages, Snapchat accounts. Everyone would search for a motive, but what motive could they find? What answer could an eighteen-year-old