Page 100 of Blood Money

The principal pointed to the door. “She’s waiting for you in the adjacent office.”

“I noticed you have cameras outside.” Detective Shanahan waved his pen to the ceiling. “Are they working?”

“Yes.” The principal nodded. “I have someone pulling up the footage as we speak. We’ll have to go to the AV room to review it.”

“Let’s go.” Detective Shanahan stood, as did his partner.

Alex put her hand over her heart. The pain in her chest was palpable. Am I having a heart attack?

No. But she couldn’t move. Her brain was clouded with panic to the point where she couldn’t think straight. She’d heard the back and forth conversation around her but couldn’t really process anything except the only points that mattered.

Nicky is missing.

“Ms. Romano?” someone said.

People were talking to her. She could hear them but couldn’t make out the words.

“Alex?” Daisy’s voice. A hand on her shoulder. “C’mon, lets look at the footage.”

She nodded, then stood and followed the detectives and Principal McNally into the hallway.

“Alex.” A familiar voice called to her from the end of the hallway.

Numb as she was, she would recognize that deep voice anywhere.

Gray.

What is he doing here?

With Dom one step behind, Gray strode down the hallway. “I heard what happened.” He glanced at Daisy.

“I don’t understand any of this,” Alex sobbed. “Why is this happening?”

The next thing she knew, Gray’s arms were around her, holding her. “We’ll find him. You have to believe that.”

He held her tight against his chest. His heart thumped steadily beneath her cheek. For an absurd moment, having Gray here made her believe that anything was possible.

Detective Shanahan cleared his throat. “Gray, we were about to review the feed from the outside cameras.”

He released her, but held her hand and squeezed it. “Honey, let’s go look at the video. Time is critical.” They followed Principal McNally down the hallway. “The sooner we can get a lead on where he is, the sooner we can get him home.”

Alex wanted to believe him, but it was all too surreal. This was really happening, but it was like she was going through the motions, watching the horror of the situation unfold before her in a fog.

Their heels clicked and echoed on the hallway floors. Alex was there, but her mind was somewhere else, imagining the worst. That she would never see Nicky again. Or that they would find his mutilated body in a field somewhere. It happened to children all the time. Nicky might be one of a multitude of children that went missing every year, never to be seen again, except on the side of a milk carton.

Vaguely, she realized they were now in a small room, one wall of which was covered by metal shelving crammed with audio-visual equipment and monitors. In front of the shelving was a skinny young man seated at a small desk. Without looking up, he typed rapidly at a keyboard and clicked a mouse until both monitors displayed frozen images of the outside of the school.

“This is Dan Thomas, our AV expert.” Principal McNally indicated to the man who reluctantly pulled his gaze from one of the monitors.

“I’ve already cued up footage for the timeframe you requested.” Dan paused in mid-keystroke. “One camera faces the playground, the other faces the nearest stairs leading back inside the school.”

“Start with the playground.” Detective Shanahan pointed to one of the screens.

Dan clicked the mouse, and the video of the playground began rolling. “This is just before the kids went outside to play.”

Alex watched as about a dozen children ran onto the playground. Her heart clutched as she watched Nicky trudge over to a seesaw and sit on one end. It was clear to her that he wasn’t feeling well. Gone was his usual exuberance at playing with his friends, and he swiped his hand across his forehead more than once. A sure sign of a fever.

As if on cue with Alex’s thoughts, one of the teachers walked over and placed her hand on Nicky’s forehead. She spoke to him, then Nicky got off the seesaw and headed out of the camera’s range, back toward the school.