Indelible

"Lena," Frank said, waving her over. Blood streaked down his shirt, but from what Lena could tell, it wasn't his. He looked sick as hell, and Lena didn't know how he was standing up on his own, let alone trying to run this thing with Nick.

On the table in front of them was a rough map of what had to be the station. Red and black X's riddled the areas by the coffee machine and the fire door, each of them with a set of initials to identify a person. She guessed the oblong rectangles and lopsided squares were desks and filing cabinets. If the map was accurate, the room had been pretty much torn apart.

"Jesus," she said, wondering how the prisoners had managed to take the squad room.

Nick motioned her closer as he finished drawing a long rectangle for the filing cabinets under the window to Jeffrey's office. "We were just about to start." He indicated the map, asking Pat, "This look right, buddy?"

Pat nodded.

"All right." Nick dropped the marker on the table and indicated Frank should begin.

"The gunman was waiting here with his accomplice here." Frank pointed to two spots in the front lobby. "Around nine A.M., Matt came in. He was shot in the head at point-blank range."

Lena put her hand on the table to steady herself. She looked across the street at the station. The front door was propped open a few inches, but she did not know with what.

Frank pointed to a desk by the fire door. "Sara Linton was here."

"Sara?" she asked, unable to follow. How had this happened? Who would want to shoot Matt Hogan? She had assumed the prisoners had rioted, not that someone from the outside had come in to kill in cold blood.

Frank continued, "We got two kids out." He pointed to other red X's near the door. "Burrows, Robinson, and Morgan were taken down in the first minute." He nodded at Pat. "Morris managed to break the window in Jeffrey's office and drag out three more of the kids. Keith Anderson jumped over me through the fire door. He was shot in the back. He's in surgery right now."

When she could speak, Lena asked, "There were kids?"

Nick provided, "Brad was giving them a tour of the station."

Lena swallowed, trying to get enough spit in her mouth to talk. "How many are left?"

"Three," Nick said, indicating the three small black X's by a larger one. "This is Brad Stephens." He pointed to the others. "Sara Linton, Marla Simms, Barry Fordham." His finger rested on a black X by a filing cabinet that indicated Fordham. There was a question mark beside it. Lena knew Barry was a beat cop, eight years on the job, with a wife and kid at home.

Nick said, "Barry was injured, we don't know how bad. There was another shot fired about fifteen minutes ago; we think it was from an assault rifle. Two more officers are unaccounted for. We don't think anyone else is in there." He amended, "Anyone else alive."

Frank coughed into his handkerchief, his chest rattling like a chain. He wiped his mouth before he continued. "Two cruisers came in right at the begi

Frank continued, "Old man Burgess came out with his shotgun." He meant the old guy who owned the cleaners. Burgess had a difficult enough time hefting her laundry. She could not picture him with a shotgun. "His granddaughter was over there," Frank said. "She was the first one Sara got out." He paused, and Lena could see the pain it caused him to remember what happened. "Burgess tried to shoot through the glass, but -"

"It's bulletproof," Lena remembered.

"It held," Frank told her. "But a ricochet hit Steve Ma

Nick said, "Between Burgess and the patrols, they pretty much boxed the shooters inside." He pointed behind the front counter, where Marla always sat. "From what we can tell, the second shooter is standing here behind the counter guarding the front door while the other one keeps the hostages in line."

Lena looked back into the street. The windows to the station were tinted, but not as dark as the cleaners'. There were white blast marks and spiderwebs where the buckshot hadn't been able to break the glass. She guessed the splotches from the inside were Matt's blood. There was a darker, solid mass at the bottom; a headless image from the back. The door was being held partially open by the weight of Matt's body.

She made herself turn away, asking, "Have you found their car?"

"We're checking right now," Nick told her. "They probably parked on campus and walked to the station."

"Which would mean they've been here before," Lena surmised. She asked Frank and Pat, "Did y'all recognize either one of them?"

They both shook their heads.

She looked at the map again. "Jesus."

"The first guy has at least three weapons. He used the sawed-off on Matt, probably a Wingmaster." Nick paused respectfully. "The second shooter has the assault rifle."

"It'll pierce the glass with the right cartridges," Lena said, thinking the gunmen had done more than a casual reco

"Right," Nick confirmed. "He hasn't used it on anyone in the street."

Frank added, "Yet."

"We're trying to establish contact, but they won't pick up the phone." Nick indicated one of his guys standing with the phone to his ear. "Meanwhile, we've got the negotiator on the way from Atlanta. Helicopter should have a team here in under an hour."

Lena studied the street, wondering how the hell all of this had started. Heartsdale was supposed to be a small, sleepy town. People came here to get away from this kind of violence. Jeffrey had told her a long time ago that the reason he had moved here from Birmingham was because he couldn't take the big-city horrors anymore. From what Lena could see, it had followed him.

She felt a shudder, like somebody had walked over her grave. There was a red X in the center of the map with two initials beside it. Lena's eyes blurred and she could not read it. When she looked back up, everyone was staring at her. She shook her head, smiling like this was all a really bad joke. "No," she said, seeing the initials stamped on her retinas, reading them clearly now even though she was no longer looking at the map. "No."

Frank turned his back to her, coughing into his handkerchief.

Lena grabbed the black marker. "You made a mistake," she said, yanking off the top. "He should be in black." She started to draw over the red, but her hand was shaking too much.

Nick took the marker from her hand. "He's dead, Lena." He put his hand on her shoulder. "Jeffrey's dead."