Chapter 34
A wave of agitation ripples through the crowd like a gust of icy wind at Andy’s words. Someone screams. Jessica can’t tell if it’s a child or an adult. Most of the faces she can see look uncertain, expectant. Like they’re waiting to get the joke. Jessica can’t see Andy from where she’s standing, but there’s motion in the black curtain at stage left and that has to be him. She feels like she’s wading through water as she walks toward the stage, her eyes locked on Rainbow Dave. Why is it always a crazy young man who wants to take everyone with him? She almost feels sympathy for him, this man little more than a boy himself. So defective that even his attainment of the most far-fetched American Dream isn’t enough to make the world right for him, isn’t enough to heal whatever is broken in him.
His mind is broken.
She can see it in his eyes now that she’s close.
And then her empathy is scattered, like a whiff of fragrance from a flower blown away on the wind of fear swirling around the room as the parents and guardians awaken from their sluggish reluctance to believe that this isn’t all part of the show.
Jessica’s hand in her purse closes on the grip of her handgun.
This monster spoke her son’s name.
Groomed him in private video chats.
Made him an unwitting accomplice.
She turns her head and fixes Gavin with her blazing stare. “Close your eyes,” she says. “Keep them closed.”
He doesn’t see the gun; it’s still in the bag. But does he know what she’s about to do? What Dave’s about to do? Does he understand?
Gavin squeezes his eyes shut, his mouth an ugly, trembling grimace.
Jessica whips her head around and draws the weapon, bringing the sight up on Dave’s chest as his hand moves for the keyboard.
On the way to the shot, she sees something that fits like a puzzle piece into the mayhem unfolding too fast for contemplation. A box beneath the sweeping steel computer desk with blinking lights and two stubby black antennae jutting out of the top like horns. In a split second, without thinking, she aims at the black box and fires.