The Chaos Kind (John Rain #11)(60)

She glanced at the clock on the screen. Not yet five. She was tired, but she didn’t want to go to one of the couches, or even to nod off. After the custodians had finished cleaning and left for the night, she had put her and Dash’s cellphones in her office as Marvin had instructed. But with a twist—she had turned on FaceTime on each phone, and was now monitoring the feeds from the checkout desk computer. If anyone entered her office, she would know.

Not that she was really expecting anything like that. But . . . it couldn’t hurt to be careful. Just in case.

Dash moaned in his sleep and she glanced over at him. Curled on the couch in the faint light from the parking lot, he looked smaller than he was. Like the little boy he’d been and not the teenager he’d become. She felt a wave of desperate love for him. And an underlying ripple of terror that somehow, she had put him in danger.

She rubbed her eyes. She wished it would get light. Everything would feel better then. More sane.

Through the computer speaker, she heard a soft electric buzz. It stopped, then started again.

She looked at the feed. She didn’t see anything. But whatever sleepiness she’d been feeling was instantly gone, replaced by an adrenalized alertness.

The buzz continued, then abruptly stopped. She heard the unmistakable sound of a lock clicking open.

Her heart started hammering and her mouth was instantly dry. She stared intently at FaceTime through the camera aimed at her office door.

The door opened. A man came through. Her heart was beating so hard she was afraid someone would hear it.

She had left a desk light on in the office. It wasn’t enough to make out the man’s features. But she could see the brown uniform. The UPS guy she had seen at the house.

He was holding something in his hand. It might have been an electric toothbrush, but she knew better. It was an electric lock-pick gun. That’s what she’d heard buzzing. The man slipped the pick gun into a pocket and began moving stealthily through her office.

She was convulsed by a wave of terror. 911, she thought. Call 911.

But the cellphones were in her office—

She realized that in her panic, she’d forgotten all about the landline. She grabbed the receiver, shocked at how badly her hands were shaking, and brought it to her ear.

No dial tone.

Wait, wait, you need an outside line. Hurry—

She managed to punch the 9 button. Dial tone. Thank God.

She punched in the three digits. A single ring. Then a man’s voice: “911. What is your emergency?”

“My name is Evelyn Gallagher,” she whispered. “I’m a teacher at the School for the Deaf. There’s a man in my office. I think he’s going to hurt us.”

“Where are you now, ma’am?”

“At the school.”

“In your office?”

“No. In the library. But I think—he’s looking for us.”

“All right. Stay where you are. We’re sending units right away. Do you want me to remain on the phone?”

“No. I have to wake my son. Just please, hurry.”

She placed the receiver back in the cradle, her hand still shaking badly. She got up to go to Dash, but heard a faint buzz through the FaceTime feed, different from the sound of the pick gun. She glanced, and saw the UPS man reach into his uniform and pull out a cellphone. He held it to his ear and listened. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “Maybe she heard me. Doesn’t matter. I’ll meet you there.”

She shook her head, confused. Meet who, where?

The library.

She felt a fresh wave of terror. They’d spoofed the phone line. Probably had a dirt box simulator set up outside to intercept cellphone transmissions, too.

She’d meant to call 911 . . . and had told them exactly where she and Dash were hiding.

That feeling of waking up in the van, nauseous, confused, Delgado telling her the horrible things he would do if she didn’t cooperate . . . It all came back in a dizzying rush.

Get it together, Evie, get it together—

A weapon. She needed a weapon. But what could she use? It was a library—was she going to throw books at them?

She pulled open one of the desk drawers. The computer screen’s glow was too dim to see inside the drawer, and she couldn’t very well turn on the lights. And of course she didn’t have her cellphone to use as a flashlight—

Come on, come on . . .

She squinted and reached into the drawer, groping for something, anything. A letter opener. Something heavy like a paperweight. Or—

Scissors. The kids in here were always making posters about books. They had to have scissors.

She yanked open another drawer and groped inside. Pencils. A ruler. Nothing useful.

A third drawer. A stapler. A hole punch. A container of glue.

God what kind of library doesn’t have a fucking pair of scissors—

It was taking too long. She ran from behind the desk and over to Dash. The main library entrance was on this floor. The second-floor entrance was always locked and wasn’t even marked. So they’d come in here, right? If she and Dash took the internal staircase to the second floor, maybe they could slip out before anyone saw them. They could find a different place to hide. She didn’t know where—all the doors were locked at night. She only had keys to the library, the faculty lounge, and her office. They might think of the lounge. Marvin had been concerned about that. There were stenciled metal signs alongside each door. Could she remove the one for the faculty lounge? But then that would be the only one missing . . .