Torn

What Noah knew from his previous experience, and what Mrs. Delancey obviously knew, as well—there were a couple of fairly large duct openings under the stands. Part of the circulation system for the sock-smelling gym. He hadn’t attempted to access the ducts at the time—it was too much fun tugging on dangling feet—but once he climbs down to the floor beneath the stands—there’s pee dripping down from the benches, ick!—he makes a beeline for the wall, locates one of the ducts.

The duct is, like all the others, covered by a metal grate. The problem is, he no longer carries the adjustable screwdriver. Because of his previous ‘behavioral problems,’ the screwdriver set has been forbidden. Too much like a weapon, they said. He might poke out somebody’s eye. To which his mom had said all he needs for that is a pencil. Wrong answer. For a whole week they didn’t let him have pencils and he had to fill in the answers with a crayon, like a baby! And his mom was so mad she cried.

Noah has some change in his pockets, but none of the coins fits the special slots on the screws that hold the metal grate in place. He’s hurrying because the crazy bad man is shouting again. Scary shouting that doesn’t make sense.

“Don’t mess with success! Heed the prophet! I bite the heads off bats! Leave the earth to Satan and his slaves! Into the void, boys and girls! Into the void!”

A moment later there are gunshots, and children screaming. Teachers, too. Is that Mrs. Delancey? Has something happened to Mrs. Delancey? Has she been punished for helping him escape?

Fighting his fear, Noah creeps to the front edge of the gymnasium seating on his hands and knees and looks out through a slot between the benches.

The crazy man is running around in circles, firing his gun straight up in the air. He looks as frightened as the screaming children. Smoke is pouring out of his little janitor cart. Huge amounts of thick black smoke, billowing over the floor and into the stands.

The crazy man kicks at the cart as if he wants the smoke to stop, as if he doesn’t understand what’s going on. That’s the really weird thing. He looks genuinely puzzled. He looks scared.

When the smoke begins to filter under the stands, enough to make him cough and make his eyes sting, Noah retreats back to the air duct.

Stupid people taking away his screwdriver! He hooks his fingers into the metal grate and yanks with all his might.

To his surprise the grate swings open on its hinges. He climbs inside just as the whole building begins to shake and the air goes black with smoke.

12. Out Of The Smoke

When Jed proposed, he sealed the deal with his grandmother’s wedding ring. A thin band of gold set with a diamond about as big as a grain of sand. But if I’d ever had any doubts—and who doesn’t have a few?—that little old ring blew them away. A man you love more than anything, more than you can possibly describe, he drops to one knee with tears of joy in his gorgeous eyes, and he offers you not only a place in his heart, but a place in his most precious memories.

A girl just has to say yes. Actually I didn’t stop saying yes for about half an hour, and by then we were in bed, and, come to think of it, I was still saying yes. But that’s private. You don’t need to know.

What really matters was that Jed trusted me without reservation, holding nothing back. The proposal of marriage came with an escape clause. He was going to tell me a secret, a terrible secret, and if I wanted to back out, forget the whole thing, he’d understand.

And that’s the thing about Jedediah; he really would have understood. Because it wasn’t just the secret, it was what it meant about our future together. Marriage would mean leaving everything behind—friends, family—and making a new life.

First thing I asked him, joking: you mean like the witness protection program?

He’d nodded gravely and said yes, a little bit like that, except we’ll be totally on our own. No U.S. Marshals to protect us. Nobody to give us new identities or settle us into a new life. It will all be up to us alone.

So who did you kill? I asked.

He’d rolled his eyes at that—he got a kick out of what he called my ‘smart-mouth jokes’—and said, it’s nothing I did, it’s who I am. Who my father is.

So who’s your daddy? Tony Soprano?

And that’s when he told me who his father was, and what that meant, and after he was done, as he waited gravely for my answer, I kissed his eyes and said, didn’t you hear me the first ten thousand times? The answer is yes.

Saint Francis of Hoboken, patron saint of New Jersey, he said, regrets, I’ve had a few. Not me. Even after all we went through, I have no regrets. Not about saying yes. Not about loving Jed. Not about the life we lived, the baby we made, the time we had together. What would I be if I’d never met Jedediah? Another person, surely. Not Noah’s mother, that’s for sure.

And if I’d known Jed would be gone in twelve years, snatched away in one terrible instant? If instead of an unforeseeable fatal accident he’d had, say, a disease that would shorten his lifespan. Something we knew about from the start. Would I have said no and saved myself the loss, the pain? No, no, no. No matter how you make the calculation—and all of this has raced through my mind a million times, in every possible variation—I would never choose to erase those years. Would never, ever wish I had taken another path. You can’t truly love someone and make a choice based on how long he might live. Love isn’t something that can be rated by Consumer Reports—go with the Maytag or whatever, because it will last the longest with fewest repairs. That’s not how it works. We like to think we’re rational creatures but we’re not. And besides, when you’re twenty, twelve years seems like an eternity. It seems, indeed, like a lifetime well worth having.

And it was, it was. I swear on my wedding ring. So forgive me if I admit that when the smoke starts pouring from the building, my first reaction is that I’d rather die than endure this again. I simply can’t do it. If Noah doesn’t come out of that gym alive, I want my heart to stop beating. I want to go wherever he’s gone.

It starts amid the swarm of uniforms. The county SWAT team, the state police tactical units. Deputies, firefighters, all positioned around the gym like bees desperate to return to a hive. I’m on my feet by then, with my friend Helen providing moral support, gathered with the other parents just beyond the bounds of the police barricade.

Until that moment I thought ‘gnawing on your knuckles’ was just an expression. It’s Helen who gently draws my fist away before I draw blood.

“That’s Tommy crouching by the exit doors,” Helen says with obvious pride. “He’s the unit expert on surveillance devices. He’s threading a fiber-optic device through the door frame, so they can see what’s going on inside.”

“You can tell all that from here?” I ask, my eyes still blurry and swollen.

She squeezes my hand. “Just my assumption, dear. That’s what Tommy does, so I assume he’s doing it now. Plus I saw him with an electric drill in his hand.”

I’m not reassured. “Remember what happened at Columbine? They waited and waited and waited. Kids bled to death while they waited.”

“They’ve learned a lot since then,” she says soothingly. “Tommy’s unit studies Columbine. They won’t make the same mistake.”

“Or they’ll break in too soon and he’ll set off his bomb.”

“Your little boy will be okay.” She gives me a quick hug. “You’ll see.”

I can’t blame her for believing that her nephew can work miracles, and I’ve no doubt he’ll try, like all of the others swarming the building. They have one thing in mind, to save the lives of our precious children. But I can’t help fearing the worst.

God help me, what I fear most is that Noah will make himself the center of attention. Which is what he tends to do when he’s unhappy or under stress. He tries to relieve the tension by doing something silly. Which would be exactly the wrong thing to do around a violent, insane individual.

Please, Noah, don’t make a joke. Don’t hang erasers on your ears, or scratch under your arms like a monkey. For once in your life blend into the background. Be invisible. Your mother is begging you.

That’s just about when the smoke starts coming out from under the doors. At first just a whiff, barely there. But smoke, definitely. Was anybody else seeing it? Are my exhausted eyes playing tricks?

Beside me, Helen mutters, “Oh, no,” and then covers her mouth with her hand, her eyes bright with fear.

“Oh my god, there’s a fire!” someone shrieks. “He’s lit the school on fire!”

The crowd begins to keen. Even Helen, my rock, is crying. And me, I’m running through the barricade, spinning away from outstretched hands, with a single purpose in mind. I’m going to smash open an exit door with my own body and get inside.

As it happens, Helen’s nephew Tommy and his fellow state troopers are way ahead of me. They know what smoke means, too. Before I get anywhere near an exit door a couple of big guys smash through with a battering ram and a moment later about a dozen tactical officers run into the smoke wearing headgear and full-face masks.

Then I’m down, tackled and held by the ankles; all I can do is watch as great billows of black smoke pour from the opening. Behind me the whole crowd is screaming and shouting, but it sounds like background noise because all of my attention is focused on the exit door. On wanting Noah to come racing out of the smoke.

There are a few popping noises. Gunshots. Just a few. Maybe they got the guy and it’s over. Or maybe it wasn’t a gunshot. Maybe something exploded in the fire.

They breach another pair of doors and firefighters race into the smoke dragging hoses. Shouting orders, directing the rescue efforts—Over here! Pressure up! Full mask SCBAs! Bring in the air caddys!

The smoking doorways are thick with emergency responders. All of them diving into the dark, no hesitation. Doing all that can be done, that’s obvious even to a desperate, overwrought mom like me.

Please, God, please. Let Noah be safe. Let all of them be safe.

An eternity passes and then suddenly, miraculously, children begin to pour out of the building. They come through the smoke like little football players ripping apart a dark, billowing banner, eager for a game. Or eager to find their mothers, their fathers.

Child after child emerges from the smoke.

Whoever has me by the ankles finally relents and I’m up, staggering to the gym with all the other parents—there’s no holding us back now—and child after child is swept up into loving arms. Most of the kids are crying and some of them are coughing, but the smoke, for all its ropy thickness, doesn’t seem to be all that bad. Worse on the eyes than the throat. And it doesn’t smell of fire, which is strange.

I’m calling out for Noah. At the top of my lungs, I don’t doubt. But I might as well be shouting into a raging hurricane because my voice can’t rise above the din. Noah! Noah! Noah!

Watching as the kids, by some amazing instinct, seem to gravitate like little iron filings to the magnet of their mothers’ arms. Like all the others, I have my arms out, waiting for them to be filled with my little boy.

I wait and wait and wait and still he does not come. The only people still coming out of the gym are firefighters and cops. Have I somehow missed him? Is he back there in the parking lot, absorbed into the joyous crowd?

“My son!” I scream at a startled firefighter. “Where is my son?”

He rips off his mask, tells me the gym is clear. “We got them all,” he assures me. “There isn’t any fire, just a smoke device of some kind. Not even toxic,” he adds. “So he’s got to be out here somewhere. Come on, let’s find him, you and me. It’ll be okay. I promise.”

A young, earnest fireman with a farm-boy face, anxious to help and pumped because the rescue went off like clockwork. All that training paid off. He seems so assured, so certain that all the children were rescued, that I let him steer me away from the exit doors, heading back to the crowd.

We’re thirty yards or so from the gym when it explodes in a ball of fire, blasting me into darkness.

Part II

Mad Mom

1. Six Weeks Later

The bank teller thinks I’m nuts. It’s there in her eyes. Which means she’s heard about me. The crazy mom from Humble, the one whose son got blown up in the school. The one who won’t accept reality, who keeps handing out pictures to strangers. The one folks will cross the street to avoid, if at all possible.

“How would you like this, Mrs. Corbin?”

“A bank check would be fine,” I tell her.

She doesn’t want to make eye contact. As if looking me in the eye might somehow be dangerous. As if crazy is catching. “Who should I make it out to?” she asks warily.

“Make it out to ‘cash.’”

“Cash? That, uh, that means anyone can endorse it.”

“I know what it means.”

She’s troubled by the transaction and goes off to confer with her supervisor. Who glances over at me and shrugs. I’m no lip reader, but it’s pretty obvious what she says to the nervous teller: It’s her money.

Two minutes later I’m out of there, check in my purse. Which leaves me plenty of time for the twenty-three-mile drive back home. Plenty of time for me to think about what I’m going to say to the man after giving him the check.

Wondering how much time ten thousand dollars will buy me.

He’s expected, having called not ten minutes ago, looking for directions. But still the doorbell makes me jump. Everything makes me jump these days—cars backfiring, thunderclaps, loud whistles, whatever.

A glance in the peephole confirms my visitor’s identity. Randall Shane, retired Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, now working as a civilian consultant, if you can get him. Type missing child hopeless case into Google and up pops Mr. Shane. Legendary in law enforcement circles, supposedly. Gets results when no one else can. A blurry head shot on a Web site gave me a vague idea of what he looks like, but nothing has prepared me for the man on my front porch pressing the bell.

He’s huge. Lean but large.

When I crack open the door he introduces himself and then says, “You must be Haley Corbin. If I’ve got the right place.”

“You’ve got the right place…. Come in.”

He ducks his head as he comes through the doorway. The farmhouse ceilings are low and he doesn’t clear the old fir beams by all that much.

“Good thing you’ve got a crew cut,” I tell him. “Another inch you’d be bumping your head.”

Startled, he looks up and touches a big hand to a beam. “Nah,” he says gently, “plenty of room. You’ve got seven feet at least. That leaves me five or six inches. All the room in the world.”

“It might be better if you sit down,” I suggest, indicating a pumpkin-pine leaf table in the kitchen. “Coffee?”

“Coffee would be great.”

I get busy with the coffeemaker. “Was it a long drive?”

“Not so bad,” he says, carefully settling onto a spindle-back chair as if he’s afraid it might collapse under him.

“Must have been six hours, if you came up through Binghamton.”

“Seven,” he says, touching a hand to a neatly trimmed Vandyke that’s delicately streaked with gray. “I stopped for lunch. More like a late breakfast, actually. They have a nice diner there, in Binghamton. Danny’s Diner, on Main Street. It’s an old Sterling.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry. A Sterling diner,” he explains. “Manufactured by the J. B. Judkins Company. I’m kind of a diner fan. They evolved from lunch wagons. I like lunch wagons, too, but there’s not many left.”

“Here you are. Cream or milk?”

“Just black,” he says. “That way I know what I’m getting.”

We smile at each other as he sips the coffee. He’s trying to smile as though it’s every day he drives all the way across the state of New York to chat with a crazy mom. I’m trying to smile as though I’m not actually deranged and therefore he won’t be wasting his time.

“Very good,” he says, tipping the cup.

“I’ve got the check I promised you,” I tell him, fumbling in my purse.

He sets the cup down. “This is a courtesy call,” he says firmly. “No retainer necessary. I thought I made that clear.”

“Take it,” I insist, more or less blurting it out. “Ten thousand dollars if you’ll listen to my story. Really listen.”

I place the envelope on the table between us. He leans forward, ignoring the envelope. “No charge for listening, Mrs. Corbin.”

I take a deep breath. “Just so you know, money isn’t a problem. My husband had a million-dollar rider on his life insurance. Plus what the airline paid after the crash. All of it’s available, if that’s what it takes.”

“We’re not there yet,” he says.

There’s a distinct vibe coming off the big man. I get the impression that money is never Shane’s prime concern.

“You read the media reports?” I ask anxiously. “Clicked on the links I sent you?”

He nods. His eyes are an unusual shade of pale blue. Clear and cool and liquid, the color of melting icicles. According to the brief bio I found on the Web, he’s in his late forties. But broad of shoulder, long of limb, he looks remarkably fit for any age, and I’m pretty sure my first impression was correct: he’s a little shy, physically, maybe overly conscious of his size. A big guy who would by nature prefer to blend in, but can’t. A gentle giant type.

Let’s hope not too gentle. I need a warrior, someone who will stand up and fight against overwhelming odds.

“So,” I ask, “what do you think?”

Now he’s the one to take a deep breath. “It all seems pretty straightforward. Your son was killed in an explosion. His remains have been identified. A DNA analysis from a reputable lab confirms the finding.”

I nod carefully, concentrate on keeping my cool. Knowing that a meltdown will send him packing, taking with him all hope of ever seeing my little boy again. “That’s what it says in the reports. That there’s no doubt.”

“But you have doubts.”

“More than doubts,” I say, adamantly. “Certainties.”

“Sudden death is always difficult for the survivors,” he points out.

“When my husband died, I accepted.”

“The death of a child is different. It goes against all the rules.”

“They never found his body. Did you read the coroner’s report? All they found were a few bits of tissue, a few drops of blood.”

“Bombs are the worst, Mrs. Corbin. Sometimes there’s almost nothing left.”

I know all about nothing left.

“When my husband’s plane crashed it hit the ground at three hundred miles an hour,” I tell him. “That’s what they estimated. Collision with a small plane sheared off one whole wing of an Embraer 190. Spinning down at three hundred miles an hour, can you imagine? The fuel tanks exploded on impact. The wreckage was strewn for half a mile. They had to identify his body through dental records.”

He nods, grim-faced. “That’s pretty standard.”

“Dental records,” I repeat. “So even after a plane falls two miles and explodes into the earth there were still teeth to identify. An intact lower jaw. That’s why they went with the dental records.”

“What a terrible thing,” he says softly, as if he has some idea what it must have been like, making that ID. “I’m so sorry.”

“Teeth, a jaw,” I say, listing the gruesome details. “Enough to identify, enough to convince me. But there was nothing left of Noah. Nothing. Not a hand, not a finger, not a tooth. Not a fingernail, for that matter. The coroner said he must have been right on top of the C-4 when it detonated. He’d never seen anything like it, not in thirty years as a coroner and medical examiner. They found enough of Roland Penny for positive identification. Same for Chief Gannett. But not one identifiable body part that would be linked to Noah. Until the DNA results came back.”

He sighs, grimacing behind his short, salt-and-pepper beard. “DNA analysis is definitive, Mrs. Corbin. The odds are a million to one.”

“More like a billion. Unless they’ve been faked.”

He gives me a searching look. Not dismissively, but as if he really wants to know. “Why would the results be faked?”

“To make it look like my son has been killed, when in fact he’s been abducted.”

To give him credit, Mr. Shane does not break eye contact. He’s not obviously repulsed by what most have judged magical thinking. The grieving mom can’t cope with losing her little boy and so her poor addled brain creates scenarios wherein her child somehow remains alive, against all odds, against all reason.

“Go on,” he says, not needing to add convince me. That’s a given. That’s why he has traveled all those miles. To hear me out. To be convinced he isn’t wasting his time.

“It has to do with my husband,” I begin. “Who he was and what he told me a year or so before he died.”

Shane sits up a little straighter. I already had his attention but now he’s focused. “Go on.”

“Jed lived under an alias since before we married. His real name was Arthur Jedediah Conklin. ‘Corbin’ wasn’t much of a change but it was enough to hide his real identity.”

“And why did your husband feel the need to change his identity?”

“Because his father is Arthur D. Conklin.”

It takes a moment for the name to register, but when it does his eyebrows twitch. “The Arthur D. Conklin?”

I nod.

“Well, that changes everything.”

2. The Promise

Randall Shane stands up, rubs the back of his neck.

“I need to make a call and then I need to stretch my legs and think,” he announces, his manner formal and coolly polite. “I’ll take it outside.”

Arms crossed, I hunker down in my chair, a blacker mood descending. All this hope centered on one person, a person I’ve never even met until minutes ago, and already he’s about to walk out the door. What did I expect? That he’d instantly take my side? That he’d believe me when everyone else thinks I’ve been demented by grief?

Did I really think this man, supposedly a legend in law enforcement, would take up my cause like some knight in shining armor—or in his case khaki slacks and Topsiders? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but come to think of it, laughter is not in the cards for me lately. I can’t recall what it actually feels like. As for crying, sorry but I’ve dried myself up. Tears are now a luxury I can’t afford.

Perhaps sensing my frustration, the big man pauses at the door and says, “I don’t mean to sound like the Terminator, but I’ll be back. Promise.”

“After you make your call,” I retort through gritted teeth.

He shrugs. “I need to consult with someone I trust.”

“Because you’re afraid of Arthur Conklin and the Rulers.”

Shane doesn’t exactly deny it. Instead he carefully explains, “More wary than afraid. All I know about Arthur Conklin and the Rulers and the Conklin Institute is whatever makes it into the media—that whole reclusive billionaire thing—like it’s public knowledge that his followers treat him like some sort of god or prophet. I’m aware he employs a huge team of attorneys and is famous for suing just about anybody at the drop of a hat. Anyone who isn’t wary of a litigious, wealthy cult leader isn’t thinking clearly. I need to think clearly or I can’t be of help. Also, I really need to stretch my legs—I get cramps from sitting too long in the car. Give me ten minutes, Mrs. Corbin.”

“Fine,” I say. “But take this with you.”