Page 86 of The 24th Hour

“I’m with you,” I panted.

Jerry caught up then took the lead. We ran along the length of the chapel. He reached the side door, opened it, and went in and I followed him inside. We were standing on the dais at the far end of the chapel facing the enormous wall of stained glass. There were four people in the pews facing us, praying, meditating. I told them to please leave quickly by the side door to my left and that there was no time to answer questions.

The students jumped up from their seats, whispering and clutching at one another, and quickly filed out the side door.I saw Conklin at the far end of the chapel from me, but I didn’t see Brock.

And then I did.

One of the side doors was kicked in and Brock entered pushing and dragging a female student, a brunette with two braids, wearing a cardigan over a long blue skirt. She was one of the girls who’d been praying moments ago, and when she made her exit, Brock had scooped her up. His left arm had a vice grip around her neck. A gun was in his right hand. The girl struggled and cried out and begged him to let her go.

Conklin, having hidden behind a pew, now came up behind Brock, his gun drawn, yelling, “Release her, Picard! Let her go. Drop your weapon and no one will get hurt.”

Jerry and I had both pulled our guns and moved toward Brock and his hostage at the front of the chapel. Including Conklin, the three of us triangulated Brock Picard. He didn’t look frightened. Rather, he had a twenty-year-old boy’s bravado.

“Move back,” Brock said. “Move back and drop your guns or I will put a bullet in this girl and we won’t need to talk.”

At that moment and in these circumstances, there was only one thing to do.

We backed off. No guns were dropped.

CHAPTER 113

WE WERE IN a standoff with a killer who had blown his mother’s brains out. Now he had a hostage in a choke hold. If we didn’t pull a miracle out of our hats, more people were going to die.

I called out to Brock down the length of the chapel.

“Brock. I’m Sergeant Lindsay Boxer, SFPD.”

“Yeah. I know. What do you want?”

“I want you to release that young lady and let her walk out of here. She has nothing to do with any of this.”

Brock, haloed by stained glass, loosened his grip on his hostage, who was red-faced and gasping for air.

“Get out of here, okay?” he said to the girl. “Sorry I had to do that to you, Becky.”

Becky stumbled for the door closest to her and pushed it open without looking back. The door slammed behind her, and for a full ten seconds, no one moved or spoke.

Then, I said to Brock, “Thanks. Now, what do you want?”

“I want to know why you’re after me.”

I said, “Okay. Christophe recorded his video conversation with your mother this morning. You know what I mean? Bloody horrific in-real-life images of what you did to your mother.”

“Aw, Jeez. That’s not good. I guess that’s what you call direct evidence.”

I shot a glance toward Conklin. Had Brock really not known that we’d seen him fire a cannonball through Rae Bergen’s head?

Brock asked me, “Now what?”

“There’s no reason to keep Jerry here.”

Brock nodded, then said, “Go, Jerry. Hurry.”

“Are you sure?” the campus cop asked me.

“Go ahead. We’re good. Don’t let anybody in here. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said. He holstered his gun. “Brock. You know me. Take my advice. Don’t fire that gun.”