Governor (Governor Trilogy 1) Page 33

  By eleven o’clock, it’s obvious that come tomorrow morning, my polling numbers for this primary election will be shocking a lot of professional campaign wonks who weren’t paying close enough attention before. We also had heavier than normal turn-out for a primary. Provisional, absentee, military, and overseas ballots remain to be counted, but as it stands now, I drew in more votes than any single GOP candidate.

  Far more.

  In fact, discounting the voters who voted for the other Independent and third-party candidates, I could very well have won last night if it was a general election.

  The two GOP frontrunners will be locked in a recount, but their votes combined don’t equal what I pulled in. Since we’re a closed primary state, it’s impossible to know exactly how many people would have crossed party lines to vote for me in a general election. Looking back at my numbers when I ran for the state senate, we have reason to believe those numbers will be considerable.

  Carter nods as he stares at the screen while people all around us are congratulating me. He and I had a private deal—if my numbers were grossly disappointing, I would drop out and make a run for state rep, then revisit a gubernatorial run at a later time.

  Now…I can’t.

  We’re too damn close.

  Susa wears a beaming smile, full dimple, as she talks with her father.

  That seals my fate.

  We’re doing this.

  We’re really doing this.

  All I have to do is not fuck this up between now and November.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  As August bleeds into September and my two main opponents start taking aim at me as well as each other, my work load doubles. I’m trying to help ram a bill through committee to increase STEM program funding for our high schools, and my campaigning is two-fold—trying to put pressure on my fellow lawmakers via stoking support with parents and teachers, as well as trying to campaign for governor.

  Late on a Friday morning, Senator Taylor has a scheduled televised appearance at a high school in Brandon. Gubernatorial Candidate Taylor will be holding a town hall immediately after just three blocks away, where we’ve invited teachers and parents and students to attend. It’s a magnificent bit of schedule juggling on Carter’s part, because it means we’ll be home, in Tampa, for the entire weekend. Susa will be joining us later tonight, when she drives in from Tallahassee.

  We’ve just finished the first part of the school appearance, a Q&A session with students in the auditorium, and Carter and I duck into a bathroom on our way to the school’s office.

  I need a minute to breathe.

  It’s between classes and just before lunch, and the hallways are almost completely empty as we head to the office area where we’re supposed to meet up with the principal. The school is newer, and the office is situated across the large main entry hall from the lunchroom area. We’ve just stepped inside the glass-walled main office when I hear something I think is a firecracker go off nearby.

  Next thing I know, I’m on the floor with Carter on top of me. He’s screaming for everyone to get down and literally drags me around the end of the desk and behind it as I hear more of the sounds and belatedly realize it’s not firecrackers.

  It’s gunfire.

  The office workers are screaming, and the school resource officer, an armed deputy, comes running out of an office down the hall behind the desk.

  “What the hell’s going—”

  I am not too ashamed to admit I am one of the ones screaming when another shot rings out and takes the back of the deputy’s head off. He slumps to the floor with a sickening, wet thud.

  Carter climbs off me, checks the deputy’s carotid pulse, and then crawls to another woman writhing and moaning on the floor. He drags her completely behind the desk and rips her blouse open to expose a belly wound.

  Carter looks around and points me at the hallway. “Go! Stay down! Get in an office.”

  I go, following three other women, ducking into the first office to the left, which doesn’t have any windows. Then Carter, who’s carrying the injured woman. He sets her down, yanks off his blazer, and rips one sleeve off it. He tightly balls it up, presses it to her wound, and then grabs my hands and presses them to it.

  “Keep pressure on it,” he orders, then looks like he’s going to go back out there.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Stay here, Owen.” He disappears, but reappears seconds later, dragging the deputy’s body through the door with him.

  Carter unholsters the man’s sidearm, checks the safety, and sets it down next to him. I notice he keeps glancing out the door, down the hallway and toward the office lobby area.

  After searching, he finds spare ammo mags in the man’s utility belt and puts them in his own pockets. Then he rips the man’s shirt open to expose his bulletproof tactical vest, and starts removing it from him.

  “What are you doing?” I’m panicking and probably feel like I’m repeating myself, because I am.

  One of the women is on a cell phone. “The 911 operator says for us to stay here. We can’t put the school on lockdown. The controls are out in the office.” We all flinch as we hear two more shots, close together.

  “Where are they?” Carter asks. “The lockdown controls?”

  “On the wall on the far end, in the corner, with the PA system controls. It’s a button. It’s marked.”

  He’s got the tactical vest off the deputy and is putting it on himself now. “Tell them there’s an armed civilian wearing body armor who’s going to confront and engage the shooter. Describe me to them so they don’t shoot me. Tell them I think the shooter is using a handgun. It’s not automatic fire, and it doesn’t sound like a carbine.”

  More fear rolls through me. “Carter, you can’t do that!” I scream.

  “If I don’t,” he says, “no telling how many people will die.” He looks back at the office worker. “CCTV cameras?”

  “Same corner where the PA controls are.” She points.

  “Close and lock this door after me.” He glances my way, but before I can say anything else, he’s gone, with the deputy’s sidearm in his right hand and his own in his left, because the tactical vest covers the rear waistband holster he normally carries his in.

  I’m still trying to figure out how the hell he got the weapon into the school, then remembered that the resource officer met us outside earlier today, and Carter talked with him in private for a moment before the deputy personally ushered us inside the school.

  Shit.

  One of the other women close and lock the door, then prop a chair under the knob.

  Seconds later, an alarm sounds, and I hear muffled thuds of fire doors releasing and swinging shut nearby. Carter’s voice comes over the PA system.

  “Active shooter on campus. This is not a drill. Teachers, institute lockdown procedures immediately.”

  The woman with the belly wound is moaning, and I don’t feel like I’m helping much, but I decide I need to focus on her and not my debilitating fear. I realize that this is probably the closest I will ever come to knowing what Carter went through that day in the desert.

  I also wonder what kind of nightmares this will resurrect within him.

  Hell, I wonder what kind of nightmares this will trigger in me.

  My gaze falls on my tattoo on my right wrist, and I stare at it for a moment before I see the fallen deputy again, where he’s lying just feet away, and I realize this situation could get infinitely worse.

  Please, let us both live to have nightmares after this is over.

  * * * *

  We can hear gunfire.

  I know I’m crying, wiping my cheeks on my shoulders because I don’t dare let go of the makeshift dressing under my hands.

  At least I’m not the only one crying.

  When it goes silent, we all look up at each other, holding our breaths as we listen.

  I don’t know how many minutes pass, but then there’s a knock on the door.

  “I
t’s Carter. Open up.”

  I…okay, I fucking sob with relief while one of the women remove the barricade and unlock the door for him.

  He leans against the wall and points at the woman with the phone. “Are you still on with 911?”

  She nods, and he motions for the phone and starts speaking to the operator.

  We have deputies pointing weapons at us just minutes later, until they realize we’re the good guys. Carter is led out first so he can show them where the shooter’s body is in the nearby kitchen, and apparently where there are three other deceased victims that Carter knows about between the teacher’s lunchroom and the kitchen.

  It feels like forever before they get EMTs into the office. I don’t let go of the woman’s dressing until an EMT takes over from me. Then I scramble to my feet to try to find where they took Carter, even though I’m covered with the woman’s blood now. Officers want to get my statement, but I refuse to speak with them until I put eyes on Carter myself.

  One of the deputies leads me outside to a mobile command center, a repurposed RV with the sheriff’s office logo emblazoned across its side. Carter’s sitting on the step of the open side door, the tactical vest on the ground next to him, and an EMT checking him out. His sleeves are rolled up, top button of his shirt unfastened, and his tie is loosened.

  I run up, fully intending to pull Carter into my arms and kiss him, but Carter stays me with an upraised hand and a stern look. “Owen, I’m okay. Let them clean you up first.”

  We remain locked in a silent battle of wills for probably fifteen seconds before I let another EMT take me over to a nearby ambulance to rinse the blood off my hands. Then there’s statements to be given, frantic calls from Susa to answer—and I miss the fucking town hall, obviously. Carter calls Dray to go speak to them for us and explain what happened, although even more people apparently show up to the event after hearing the news reports.

  We have to stand in a press conference, where I watch while Carter gives an abbreviated and censored version of events, deferring to law enforcement for details he isn’t sure should be publicized or not.

  The man Carter killed was the estranged husband of a teacher. Somehow, he’d managed to sneak onto the campus, and then in through a side door, catching it as a student slipped out to go to their car and sneak a smoke.

  Having been on the property before, he knew his way around and knew his wife would be heading to the teacher’s lunchroom, which was located almost directly across from the office. He shot and killed his ex-wife and another teacher before emerging from the teacher’s lunchroom. That’s how he saw the resource officer and shot him. Then he ran for the kitchen area, but ended up cornered in there when the staff locked themselves in the office, which was the only way through to the outside door.

  That’s where Carter cornered, shot, and killed the guy, but not before the man killed another lunch worker, a woman who’d gone after him with a butcher’s knife. Fortunately, no students were injured.

  It’s close to six that night before we finally walk through our front door.

  When Susa flies through our front door and is screaming our names a little after seven, she finds us naked in the big soaking tub in the master bathroom, which is overflowing with bubbles. Both of us are drunk off our asses and already fucked each other silly on the bathroom floor after desperately ripping the ruined clothes off each other. And, according to her, there are over a dozen news trucks parked outside the front gate of our community.

  We hand our cell phones off to her for the rest of the evening. She gets to work with Draymond, who also shows up at the house, to put together a press release that she goes and delivers herself in time for it to make the eleven o’clock news shows. She also does a few short interviews, Dray accompanying her in case she needs help.

  Meanwhile, as Carter and I—still drunk, because we feel we earned it—sit in bed and eat leftovers while watching the newscasts, he nods.

  “She’s good,” he says, pride in his tone.

  “Are you okay, Sir?”

  After a moment, he slowly shakes his head.

  I open my arms to him, and when he tucks himself against me, I hold him tightly and don’t let go.

  * * * *

  Anyway, that’s how I found myself being interviewed live Sunday morning at our campaign headquarters by Kevin Markos of FNB—Full News Broadcasting—for their morning show. Carter refuses to do any interviews and releases a statement through our campaign office. We are going to attend all the funerals, though, including the full-honors funeral for the fallen deputy.

  The woman who was wounded, Cass Pressley, will pull through. We visited her in the hospital one evening, without any press around, so I could see for myself that she was okay.

  Carter assures me the phantom feeling of her slick, warm blood between my fingers will go away, one day.

  Today is not yet that day. I find myself washing my hands dozens of times a day in hopes that will help.

  I wanted to do Meet the Press, but Benchley, Carter, and Susa all agree that having the conservative FNB on our side is worth more than all our TV and print ads combined, because we’ll win over the “stand your ground” crowd despite our F-minus rating from the NRA. I personally despise FNB and everything they stand for—drumming up fake right-wing hand-wringing crises to generate outrage, and skirting the lucrative edge between ultra-conservatism and conspiracy-theory lunacy. It had once been a well-respected moderately conservative news source, but its sale and acquisition by a global media company quickly led it down a more lucrative and lurid tabloid path.

  When you can make Fox News look like PBS, you know you’re doing something wrong.

  Kevin Markos was once what I considered a respected journalist, but in the three years he’s been with FNB, I realize he’s just another shill trying to make a buck. He obviously has no personal ethics to be doing what he’s doing. Some people thought him joining the network meant it was shifting back to center, more mainstream, and his presence would help restore a modicum of dignity to their programming.

  Nope.

  Kevin Markos has blond hair just a little too perfect, and eyes so blue that I can’t help but wonder if the color is due more to contacts than DNA. He dances around a few bland pleasantries and introduces me to the public before he dives into the deep end.

  After recounting the basics of what happened at the school, and showing some B-roll footage from local stations of the aftermath, including a shot of Carter and I at the press conference, he pounces.

  “Some people might say this was a publicity stunt to help your gubernatorial campaign, Senator Taylor.”

  Remember, this is live.

  I glare at him, unable to disguise my disgust at his question. I don’t pull any punches or tone back my sharp anger. I want to deck the guy. He’s lucky I’m not putting hands on him, but I want people to understand how ludicrous this asshat is, and what a stupid fucking network he shills for.

  How dare they question Carter! I don’t give a shit what they say about me, but I will not stand for anyone disparaging Carter or his motives and actions.

  “Yes, orchestrating a violent domestic dispute in a school, by a man with a firearm, getting an armed school resource officer and three others killed, and then ordering my best friend to disobey law enforcement and run into a live-fire situation and risk dying, all for our campaign—that was a very cunning plan, wasn’t it?”

  He starts to stammer a reply but I cut him off, steamroll him in Carter fashion, my anger blowing hotter, into a full, rolling boil.

  “I don’t know where you get your ideas, but Carter Wilson isn’t just my campaign manager. He is my best friend. We consider each other brothers. I would never do something so stupid and selfish as ask him to risk his safety—much less his life—for a publicity stunt. I would never endanger anyone’s safety, or their lives. I seriously wonder about your lack of ethics if you are honestly asking me an outrageously and blatantly stupid question like that and mean it li
terally and not as some really lame attempt at sarcasm.”

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  I keep going. “In case you weren’t aware, Carter is former military, a decorated combat veteran, and was awarded a Purple Heart and medical discharge for injuries he received from a car bomb in the line of duty. He literally threw himself over three wounded men in an attempt to protect them from further injury and nearly died as a result. Tell me, are those the actions of a man interested in publicity?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “You did mean it, Kevin. Don’t lie and say otherwise. Attack my policy positions, my experience, my politics. Question my motives, my methods—hell, even make fun of me personally, if you want. But don’t you dare insinuate I would ever put someone, especially my best friend, in harm’s way over a publicity stunt. Maybe you might do that, because everyone knows what publicity whores you and your network are, but I have a conscience. You owe that man an apology for impugning his character. He served our country with honor and distinction and nearly died as a result. He risked his life in a situation he didn’t have to in an attempt to save lives. You also have insulted the other victims of this, by your ludicrous statement. What, they volunteered to die to help me get elected? Is that what you’re saying? What’s your military service record look like, huh?”

  It’s tempting to stand, rip off the mic and IFB I’m wearing, and storm off in a flounce that will lead broadcasts on all the other networks.

  But I don’t.

  Because I’m a professional, and because I know Carter’s standing right there, not twenty feet away, his stoic, stony mask in place, his arms crossed over his chest, and creating his own gravity, like a black hole.

  I also know Carter would rip me a new one if I storm off.

  Nothing else will happen, though, unless or until Kevin Markos apologizes. I’ll keep circling back to that point until he does. Carter might punish me for it later, and I’ll unapologetically accept every cane stroke he gives me.