Page 84 of Because of Logan

“What if I say it and he doesn’t say it back? I’d be crushed. I don’t think I could take it.”

“I don’t think he’d just leave you hanging and not say it back. I think he’s over-thinking this like you are.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Nope, not one hundred percent. Mom is the psychic in the family. We should call her.”

I pick my head up off the pillow just high enough to give her the evil eye. She laughs at me. We’ll have enough of Mom’s psychic abilities when we go home for Thanksgiving next week. No need to start now.

“But you’re a little psychic. You always have those gut feelings.”

River huffs an inaudible response, folding the last T-shirt. The laundry’s all organized in nice little piles, by type and color. She folds, and I put them away. That’s the deal. I get up and put the neatly folded piles into their places in her drawers and closet first before doing my own.

“I’ll think about it. I don’t just want to blurt it out. Or say it during sex. I love you should not be said for the first time during sex. Or right after either. Too much room to confuse lust with love.”

“You’re such a planner, Skye. Just let it happen. Let it happen when it feels right. If it's during or after sex, who cares? You know you love him and it's not some hormone-induced blabber. This is not one of your romance books. You can’t plot life. You’re so busy plotting, you’re forgetting to live.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The crackling soundcoming through the radio asking for all officers in the vicinity of Riggins University to report to campus freezes me for a fraction of a second before training takes over and I turn the lights and sirens on. The sounds of my cruiser are soon joined by the same sounds coming from several others in the neighborhood, getting louder and louder the closer we get to campus.

My heart races in tempo with the cacophony of sirens. Police, ambulances, EMTs. More information comes through the radio. The thundering of my heart is so loud in my ears, I only hear fragments of the words—Riggins University . . . Jane Austen building . . . code 105 . . . active shooter . . . hostages . . . lockdown . . . caution . . . armed and dangerous—and between each word, along with the sound of sirens and my heart, another word on repeat.

Skye, Skye, Skye, Skye, Skye . . .

The five minutes it takes me to get to campus and the two more to navigate the throngs of students and staff running away from it feels like an eternity in hell. My eyes dart everywhere, looking for Skye and trying not to run anyone over. I come to a stop twenty yards away from the Jane Austen building, where I know Skye has half of her classes. Half a dozen other patrol cars are stopped in a haphazard semi-circle around it.

I was only eight years old when the Columbine attack happened, but it left such an impression on me. I watched it on TV and read about it on the newspapers my father left behind every morning. I was just a naïve kid back then and kept thinking if it was my school and I had a gun, I could have stopped it. Back then, I thought only bad guys and police officers had guns. I decided to be a cop on that day. For years, I nurtured that dream of stopping the bad guys. It faded as I grew up and my father molded me more and more to take over his company. But some of it lingered hidden still, because when I went to college, my major was Criminal Justice, which would be a nice segue into law school. But it never happened. My father and Amanda happened, and it gave me the final push to step from under his control and find my own way. And once I was out from under his domain, and faced with choices for what I wanted to do with my life, the first thing that came to my mind was my long-ago childhood dream of being one of the good guys with a gun. I never imagined that seventeen years later, I’d be facing the same kind of situation that made me want to be a cop in the first place.

The university is on lockdown. I remember the lockdown procedures from when I attended Riggins—close and barricade all doors. Stay away from the door and any windows. Hunker down until the eminent threat is eliminated and either a school authority or an officer tells you so.

Together with the other officers, I approach one of the entrances to the building. This one has four, aptly named North, South, East, and West. Each of the first-line officers on the scene pairs up and takes one of the entrances. We go South, and I hope this is not an omen for what’s to come. We don’t have enough guys for a diamond formation just yet, but backup is on the way, I’m sure. It used to be that the standard procedure was to wait and call in resources and ask for assistance or for a SWAT team to show up. In Vermont, we have TSU—a Tactical Services Unit that works pretty much like a SWAT team does. After so many schools and public place attacks over the last few years, the way law enforcement responds to this kind of situation has changed. The first-line officers on the scene need to aggressively step in and neutralize the threat. The more time the suspect has to walk around free, the more harm he can do.

I tamper down the urge to call or text Skye to make sure she’s okay. If she’s hiding somewhere, the last thing I want is for the sound of her phone ringing or buzzing to alert the shooter, whoever he is.

The guy I paired up with, Mike, takes the lead and I’m close behind him. The long, empty hallway leads to dozens of doors, each closed. The only sounds are our breaths and soft footsteps. The silence is deafening. We follow the protocol for checking and opening doors, taking turns, staying behind the door, ducking under and catching the door with a foot, and entering the room with our weapons raised. Each room we check is empty. Papers and books lie abandoned on desks and the floor, water bottles and laptops left behind. We signal to the other officers and clear the first floor. This guy is either gone or upstairs. I know Skye’s classes are on the third floor of this building. Dread’s icy fingers run down my spine. We’re approaching the wide stairs at the center of the building now when I hearPop-pop-pop.

Three rapid-fire shots. Screams. No. Not screams. Shouts. The whole group takes the stairs now, stopping on the first landing to listen. More sounds come from upstairs. Three of us take the lead, and we’re running up the stairs now. Another six guys are behind us for cover and to protect our rear. We still don’t know if this is a lone shooter or if there’s more than one. When we get to the second floor, I can make out what he’s saying. He’s calling someone. And he’s a floor above us. The third floor. The floor where I hope Skye isn’t. My rapidly beating heart seems to stop with the realization that she could be in harm’s way before resuming an adrenaline-infused gallop.

“You think you can leave me and take everything?”

The shout echoes in the empty hallway.

“Answer me, goddammit! Where are you, Regina?”

The sound comes from our right, but when we spy around the top of the stairs, we can’t see him. He must be in one of the side corridors from the main one.

“If you don’t come out here, I’m going to kill all these kids you love so much.”

He follows the threat with another round of shots. The situation is escalating. We look at each other, and everyone is thinking the same thing. We have to take this guy down now. He’s losing his grip on reality fast.

Without saying a word, we fall into two diamond formations. I take the front—I’m the point man—and two other officers flank me, Mike on my right, Steven on my left. And a fourth takes the rear to cover the three of us ahead of him. This formation originated in the military. The idea is that officers will have overlapping fields of vision and shooting ranges. The most difficult thing in this scenario is what we call sympathetic shooting, a trigger reflex when we hear gunfire, which is emphasized in the chaos of confronting an active shooter. But that’s where training comes into play.

We don’t see any victims as we make our way closer to the shooter. That’s one of the hardest parts of confronting an active shooter. We can’t stop to help the victims until the danger is neutralized. Stopping the shooter from hurting anyone else is our first priority.

Our steps are careful and soft. We want to keep the element of surprise as long as possible, even though this guy, whoever he is, must know cops will be closing on him sooner or later. Situations like this never end well.

We close in on the corner, and now I can tell he’s in the corridor away from me.

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