Chapter 11:

It happened all of a sudden and without any warning – nobody had expected it, nobody had even imagined this to happen. There had been a thousand probable ways of outcomes to this case, to the disappearance of Miranda Thomas, but nobody had believed in this to even be possible.

Miranda Thomas had vanished and all of their investigation had lead them to the result, the one conclusion – she rather had been killed or committed suicide. Nobody of the team – after three days of search without any progress to find the girl – still had much faith to find her, at least not alive. Right now they were simply going on, to hopefully find her corpse to give her parents a chance to properly bury their child and start to grieve.

Jack had sent Sam and Danny back to Miranda's school, to talk to the school's psychologist. Her class-teacher had informed them earlier Miranda had been forced to go there several times, but they hadn't been able to talk to the psychologist until now. She had been out of the state for holidays till that morning. Jack hadn't had a chance to convince the principal to give Miranda's file to him, without the charge and presence of the psychologist. But this was their last chance to get some more useful information and therefor they had to wait for the woman to return – which cost them time, a lot of precious time, but the principal hadn't seemed to care about it very much. In the final analysis the missing teenager was one pupil less, that he had to worry about...

They were just about to cross the school-yard, getting nervous and suspicious looks from a group of teenage girls, sitting nearby, whispering to each other and giggling from time to time – as one of the girls' headw – a blonde kid about 14 years of age and probably pretty proud about her fashionable clothes and make-up, that made her look like "Barbie" had become alive for which she probably was heavily admired by her three friends -

seemed to explode in a fountain of blood, parts of flesh and splattering bones. The sound was awful, it couldn't even be described – it sounded unnatural, unreal and it left a sickening feeling of nausea.

The two federal agents – completely overwhelmed by the sudden appearance of that hostile situation, were barely able to react. What the hell had happened? The girl had a goddamn hole in her face – a shot, it must've been a shot – somebody shot her. Before there came any reaction – nore from the two agents, neither the girls sitting close to the dead teenager, now having stains of blood on their clothes and faces were able to react, to even get what had just happened – a second shot rang through the campus of the school.

This time a boy standing near the entrance doors– dark-haired, tall, muscular kind of type and probably a member of the high school's football team – screamed out in pain as he was hit to the stomach. He took a few steps, fell to his knees and pressed his hands on the bleeding wound, before he lost his balance and fell to the ground, pulling his knees to his upper body to protect the bleeding wound from any further damage and desperately trying to stop the pain.

All this happened like in slow motion, like time stood almost still and everything went down to a speed that was close to zero. But the moment was gone as realization and with that reaction came to the three surviving friends of the shot blonde teenager as they hysterically started to scream in complete horror and panic, but unable to do anything else. Unable to get out of the dangerous area they were in right now and find the way to a safer place.

For the moment they were fearfully hiding behind the low wall they had been sitting on, where their dead friends blood still was soaking the whole area in a deep red color, hoping to be out of the shooter's range.

Danny and Sam on the other hand – unfortunately – had a longer way to safety and the responsibility to take care of the injured and threatened civilians. The school ground had an oblong floor-plan. The main building – containing all the class-rooms lay on the right hand to the main entrance of the school ground and filled the whole length of it. To the left side there was the cafeteria in the back and the gym in the front. Between these to buildings there was a roof that shielded the area from rain. The middle part of the ground, between the two complexes on both sides was open space with a few places to sit at – like the area the three threatened girls now sat huddled together.

As the girl had been hit from the front – the shooter probably was somewhere on top or inside the main building, but they couldn't be sure of that – they couldn't see him. But as the main building had something like a little tower in the middle – kind of a private observatory for the astrology course – there was not much doubt about the shooter's position. That also meant, that the backside of the roof-covered surrounding between the gym and the cafeteria, was the safest place to go - the shooter couldn't look beneath it. For the moment – to piece together what to do about the situation and how to get it cleared the easiest and fastest way possible – that's where Sam and Danny were hiding, close to the exterior wall of gym.

"We need to get to the main entrance! We need to help that boy and for heaven's sake we need to warn the people in there!"

"I know – what time is it?"

"About 9.30 am – why?"

"First break is in about 15 minutes... I don't think anyone heard the shots – I mean I didn't hear the first one, the one killing the poor little girl, after all. In about 15 minutes there will be some hundred kids rushing out of that building – walking, talking, innocent targets!"

"And they probably don't even have the slightest idea and we can't cross the school-yard – I mean, we could try, but..."

"We would be dead before we were even close to the entrance... What the hell happened? Where did the shots come from? And who – the hell – fired?"

"I have no idea – goddamn it!"

"You got the principal's office number, don't you? We should call there, tell them what is happening outside, warn them about it. I guess we should call Jack – we need the cavalry at this place!"

They moved a bit closer to the edge of the roof, when Sam got out her cell to call the principal and Jack to inform them about the shooting – she couldn't get a connection underneath that goddamn steel roof. Sam winced as a third shot rang through the open space of the school yard. She looked past her co-worker, who was standing right in front of her, frantically trying to detect where the shots had been fired at, who had been injured this time.

"Sam..."

Danny addressed her, probably interested to know what she was seeing, if she could detect anything. She didn't really drew her attention towards him right now, but was focused on the scene in front of her. But there was nothing to be seen, nobody had crossed the goddamn school yard. But she had no idea what kind of a weapon the shooter was using, had no idea how far the bullets were going. Maybe the shooter even was able to reach that far to injure the arriving students at the parking space right behind them, behind the school grounds left side.

"I can't see anything."

She was surprised by the sudden pressure as she felt his hands on her shoulders and his full weight on her. Anger rushed over her as she was disturbed in her concentration for the second time in not even a minute. What the hell was wrong with him? She shot him a warning, annoyed look and was about to fix her eyes back on the school-yard in front of her, when she detected the look in his eyes and the expression on his face – confusion and disbelief. She rested her eyes on his face, trying to read what was wrong with him.

"Sam..."

He repeated and before she even had the chance to answer or ask that desperate question being stuck in her throat, ask him, what was wrong with him, he lost his balance, falling against the exterior wall of the gym with his back and slowly sliding down into a sitting position. Sam was unable to react, her difficulties already began with understanding what was just happening, believing that the scene in front of her eyes was reality.

Her eyes – still fixed on her co-worker – looked up the wall. A sensation of fear and helplessness rushed through her as she saw stains of blood on it. She knew now why she hadn't seen anything out there on the school-ground, she knew why Danny had been disturbing her, she knew who had been injured – the bullet had hit him.