CHAPTER TWELVE
Police cars from all across the city were flying to Bryce Academy like toy cars on a race track as the patrol car Grace was in arrived at the command center sat up at the Starbucks across the street.
She looked back at the school as the officers rushed her across the sidewalk to the command center entrance doors.
She could hardly believe that she, and that her son, would ever be caught up in something this wild.
There were police cars and state troopers and ambulances everywhere she looked, and every one of them had their sirens blaring.
She’d seen it on television a hundred times before.
brEAKING NEWS! ANOTHER SCHOOL SHOOTING! But she never would have ever imagined in a zillion years that her son would be the person they claim was shooting up that school. It was like a nightmare!
As soon as she got into the restaurant where cops had dismissed the staff and taken over, one of the men in charge hurried over to her. “Mrs. Gabrini?”
“Where’s my son?”
The deputy chief could see the devastation all over her anguished face. “I’m Deputy Chief Steve O’Malley, ma’am. Your son is still inside the school.”
“Doing what? What’s he doing inside the school? And don’t tell me he’s shooting people because he wouldn’t do that!”
O’Malley exhaled. If he had a penny for every parent that said not my child even in the face of insurmountable evidence, he’d be a millionaire.
“He’s barricaded himself, along with twenty-three student hostages, inside one of the classrooms. We can’t go in because he says he’ll kill every single one of them if he hears the first bang on that door. We’re at his mercy right now.”
Grace gripped O’Malley’s suitcoat lapel. “Let me go in,” she pleaded with him. “He’ll listen to me.”
“Not happening, ma’am. That’s not possible.”
“But I’m his mother. He’ll listen to me!”
O’Malley looked at Chief Ronald Browne, the head of the Seattle PD. But Browne, a tall, wiry black man who was on the phone with the governor, shook his head. Then he placed his hand over his phone’s receiver. “Let her talk to him over the phone. But coach her. See how that goes.”
Grace was thankful for at least that as she and O’Malley walked over to the group of phones they had already set up.
But before O’Malley would make the call, he looked at Grace. “Just so you know who you’re dealing with: Eighteen people that we know of have already been declared dead and scores more are fighting for their lives at area hospitals.”
Grace thought she couldn’t be more shocked, but that news did it.
“And those are the ones we were able to get out of there,” O’Malley continued. “We don’t know how many are injured or worse in that classroom, and we don’t know if there are others injured or worse in other classrooms.”
“But how do you know my son did it? How can you be so certain it’s him?”
“We have eyewitnesses that survived and got out of there. They all point to Thomas Gabrini as the shooter. And besides that,” he added, “we’ve spoken to him.”
Grace stared at the deputy chief. “And you’re telling me that my son said he did it?”
“He did it, ma’am. That’s not up for debate okay? He did it. Let’s move past that and see how we can stop the bloodshed and get your son and those hostages out of there alive. That’s where you come in. Your job is to get him to give up. But don’t go too hard on him. You don’t want to trigger him.”
Grace couldn’t believe it. TJ never got triggered, but they wouldn’t believe her if she said it. So she didn’t. “Okay,” she said.
And O’Malley nodded for one of the other plains clothes detectives to make the call.
“What?” It was TJ’s voice.
Grace grabbed the phone. “TJ, this is your mother.”
“Ma, go home. There’s nothing you can do now.”
“TJ, listen to me. Me and your father love you.”
“I know that, Ma.”
“Your sisters do too.”
“Ma don’t!”
“Just come on out and talk to me, okay? They’ll let you talk to me.”
She could hear him sniffling. He was crying. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Mommy.”
“What do you mean?”
When Chief Browne heard that, he ended the call with the governor and hurried over to Grace’s side.
“It was never supposed to be like this,” TJ continued.
Browne pressed the mute button on the phone. “Tell him to release those students.” Then he released the button.
“Baby,” said Grace, “why don’t you let those students come out? You can do that, can’t you, sweetheart?”
“No, I can’t! They see it and it’s over.”
“Who are they?”
Browne mouthed for Grace to ask see what.
“What will they see, TJ?” Grace asked him.
“Because it’ll happen.”
Grace was puzzled. So was everybody else. “What will happen, baby?” she asked him.
Browne pressed the mute button. “Keep telling him to release the hostages.” Then he released the button.
“Baby, release the hostages. Just release them please. Do it for me.”
“I can’t.” There was no doubt he was crying now.
“TJ, why can’t you release those students? What is it, baby? What will happen?”
“No,” TJ said. Then he screamed. “No! Stop! No!”
All of the police brass moved closer to Grace and that phone. “TJ, what’s happening?”
“Noooo!” he screamed again and then all they could hear was gunfire. Rapid, unrelenting gunfire.
“Go!” Chief Browne ordered and nearly every one of the rank-and-file officers in that crowded command center began pulling out their weapons and running out.
“Don’t hurt my child!” Grace yelled after them. Then she got back on the phone. “TJ, are you there? TJ?”
Chief Browne grabbed the phone from Grace. “Talk to us, young man. What’s happening? Young man? Young man? TJ?!!!”
But all they heard was gunfire.
Trina, who had been forbidden to go inside when she first arrived at the command center, ran in when all of those cops ran out. Because she was hearing the gunfire too.
When she saw Grace, she ran to her. “They’re shooting, Grace. They’re shooting!”
And both women hugged in tears.
“Young man, talk to me!” the chief was still saying.
Grace found the strength to grab the phone again. “TJ, say something. TJ? TJ? Please son say something!”
But all they heard was the unyielding sound of out-of-control gunfire.