Page 47 of Single Malt

She answered immediately. “Freedom?”

“We’re okay, Mom.” I went for the important part first, knowing that she needed to hear that before anything else.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Dad’s voice told me that the phone was on speaker so that they could both listen and speak.

I closed my eyes and reminded myself that he was just worried. They both were. “I turned the ringer off before I left home,” I explained. “Just like I do every day I have class.”

“And you didn’t think to call us immediately? We had to see it on the news?” Mom sounded angry, but I knew her well enough to know that was how she reacted when she was scared. She needed information, not an emotional reaction from me.

“Aline and I were on our way to our first classes when we heard the shots. We hid, first next to a building and then inside. Since we didn’t know what was happening or if we needed to stay quiet, neither Aline nor I made any noise until we saw the police coming around, telling us that it was safe. After that, they needed our statements.”

“Do you know what happened?” Dad asked.

“No, they’re not saying anything,” I said as Aline came over to me. “I’m sure they’re trying to keep things under wraps before making an official statement. The last thing they’ll want is to start a panic because ‘someone in the police department’ said something they shouldn’t have.”

“Mom and Dad?” She mouthed the words.

I nodded.

“Is Aline okay?” Mom asked.

For a split second, I was tempted to make some sort of sarcastic reply, as if that wouldn’t have been the first thing out of my mouth if Aline had been hurt. As if she wouldn’t have been my main priority from moment one.

But I restrained myself, because I wasn’t the only person dealing with what had happened. I had to think about how I would’ve reacted if I’d been in their position. If it had been my children caught in an unknown situation. A sudden, sharp fear grabbed me. The fear that, one day, I would know what it was like to have my child or children in danger and that it would be only then that I could truly understand what they were going through.

Talk about an argument against having kids.

“She’s fine, Mom. In fact, she’s standing right beside me.” I could have just given the first bit of information, but I had a feeling our parents wouldn’t be satisfied until they saw or heard her themselves.

Aline held out her hand before Mom responded to my statement, and I gladly passed my phone off. While she talked to our parents, I scanned our surroundings. I hadn’t thought to ask Officer Feretti if Aline and I were free to go. She was okay, but I didn’t think it would be good for either of us to stick around here now that we’d done what we needed to do.

She and I needed to go back to our apartment and wait for the university and the police to make their announcements. I had little doubt that the remainder of today’s classes would be canceled, but if they weren’t, our professors would surely excuse our absences once we stated that we’d been close enough to what had happened to require us to provide the police with statements.

It only took me a minute to spot the closest officer who appeared the least occupied. A few quick steps and I was near enough to ask if Aline and I could leave. When I told him that we’d given our statements and informed the two officers how we could be reached, he said we could go.

The police might have declared the area to be safe enough for people to be out and about, but I wouldn’t truly feel safe until Aline and I were at home, behind a locked door, where no one could reach us.

Thirty

Brody

I’d spentthe entire flight pretending to focus on my research into Black Masque while trying to resist the urge to check numerous news sources about what was happening at Stanford University. I hadn’t succeeded as much as I would have liked. I’d learned a few things about the San Antonio BDSM club, but not as much as I would have if I hadn’t kept looking for breaking news.

But I reminded myself as the plane prepared to land, if I’d stuck with my business research, I wouldn’t have been arriving in Texas with answers about what had really happened back home.

Stupid freshmen doing stupid things.

The Palo Alto police had made the official announcement about thirty minutes ago.

Three freshmen guys had been wandering around the campus, drunk enough to believe that every thought that came into their heads was a good idea. No one had said whether the guys had still been drunk from the night before or if they’d had alcohol with their breakfast, but either way, they’d still all been well over the legal limit at the time of their arrests.

They hadn’t, however, decided to start shooting up their school. No, these three geniuses had decided to “shoot a movie.” While I thought it was reasonable to assume that the film – and I used that wordveryloosely – would all eventually make its way onto the internet, the part that had been released already had been enough to make me want to strangle those idiots with my bare hands for causing a panic.

For some reason, they’d come to the conclusion that a major shoot-out was exactly what their movie needed but had enough sense to know that none of them had the skills to do the special effects they wanted. Instead of putting the idea aside until they could talk to someone in either the theater or computer departments, they remembered that they’d overheard someone they knew bragging about some guns that he’d inherited from a family member.

The geniuses then ‘visited’ and ‘borrowed’ the guns, eventually making their way to a parking garage on the edge of campus. It had been scheduled for demolition, so at least they’d done one thing right. One single thing, because once they got to the garage, the stupidity had taken over again.

They’d shot at the garage.