“Cops?” Raz frowned at the cruisers. “Wonder what’s up.”
Susan drove forward, having a schedule to keep. She had to drop Raz off, go home, and pull Ryan out of bed because she was taking him to a therapist at eleven o’clock. Susan would be meeting with her own therapist at the very same time, so two-thirds of The Sematovs’ Shit Show would be on expensive couches.
“Mom, look, something’s the matter,” Raz said, alarmed, and Susan stopped the car. A group of uniformed police, teachers, and staff were leaving the school building, and some of the teachers were crying.
“Oh, my.” Susan took one look and knew that someone had died. She had lived that scene. She still lived it, in her mind.
“That’s Dr. McElroy, and Mr. Pannerman. And Madame Wheeler’s freaking out.”
“Who’s Madame Wheeler?” Susan didn’t know who Raz meant for a minute. Neil was the one who went to Parents’ Night.
“The French teacher. Ryan had her, remember? She’s the one in the front.”
“Poor woman,” Susan said, touched at the sight of the stricken teacher, holding a Kleenex to her nose. She left the building next to Dr. McElroy, whom Susan did recognize, with a bearded male teacher, also weepy. Three female students held each other as they cried, and a baseball player in a Musketeers T-shirt and gym shorts hurried from the entrance and started jogging toward the field.
“Hey, that’s Dylan. Maybe he knows what’s going on.” Raz slid down the window, waving to get the attention of the tall, wiry kid. “Dylan!”
“Raz!” Dylan hustled toward the car, his backpack bouncing. “Hi Raz, hi Mrs. Sematov.”
“Dude, what’s up with Madame Wheeler? Why are the cops here?”
“Oh man, it’s bad.” Dylan bent over to peer inside the car, pushing up his glasses. Wrinkles creased his forehead. “Mr. Y died last night. Dr. McElroy’s crying. They’re all crying.”
“What?” Raz gasped, shocked. “That can’t be! I just saw him! How did he die?”
“Mr. Y is dead?” Susan recoiled. It was horrible news. Mr. Y was Raz’s Language Arts teacher, and Ryan had him, too. They both loved him. That’s how she knew the name, they talked about him so much.
“He committed suicide,” Dylan answered, blinking behind his glasses.
Step Two
Chapter Twenty-four
Chris hurried up the sidewalk, his head down. The last thing he needed was another meet with Alek, especially one he had to drive to Philly for. Alek had set it for two o’clock, and Chris had barely had time to change after practice. It had been an awful morning, with the team distraught over Abe’s death.
Chris hustled toward the massive sandstone-and-brick tower, rising seventeen stories and occupying the entire block of Second and Chestnut Streets, in the colonial section of the city. The building was on the National Register of Historic Places, though its history was undoubtedly irrelevant to the people outside, enjoying the last few puffs of their cigarettes.
He reached the building and hustled up the steps, through the stainless-steel doors, and inside to the metal detector, while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. There were no windows in the entrance area, and the brass fixtures were vintage, shedding little light. He slid his wallet from his back pocket—not his Chris Brennan wallet with his fake driver’s license, but his real wallet with his true Curt Abbott ID, his true address in South Philly, and his heavy chrome badge, with a laminated card identifying him as a Special Agent in the Philadelphia Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives, or ATF.
Chris handed his open wallet to the guard, who scrutinized his ID and handed it back. He worked undercover, and he had to show his ID because he wasn’t at the office enough to be recognized by the security guards, especially on the weekends. He put his ID on the conveyor belt with his keys, walked through the metal detector, and collected his belongings; then entered the lobby. He experienced a sense of awe every time he crossed the dark marble floor, starting from twelve years ago, when he was first hired by ATF.
The massive space was flanked by two carved staircases and topped by an ornate plasterwork rotunda that soared three stories high. At its apex shone a circle of daylight rimmed by an upper deck with a stainless-steel railing. To Chris, the history of the building mirrored the history of ATF, and he was proud to be an ATF agent, even though he had to report to Alek Ivanov, who acted like a gangster even though he was a Washington bureaucrat transferred to the Philadelphia office.
Chris pressed the elevator button, uncomfortable to be in public as himself, as if he were wearing the wrong skin. He hated coming in while he was undercover. It wasn’t procedure, and he knew it wouldn’t have happened during any other operation, further evidence of the lack of support he was getting from Alek.
The elevator arrived, and he stepped inside and pressed the button, his thoughts churning. As a child, he hadn’t known what he wanted to be when he grew up, but he wanted to help the underdog—maybe because he was the underdog, raised in so many different foster homes. He’d been drawn to law enforcement and after college, had chosen ATF, an underdog of an agency that lived in the shadow of the FBI. Chris’s favorite movie was The Untouchables about the legendary ATF agent Eliot Ness, and after a string of successful operations, he’d felt honored when everyone started calling him The Untouchable. But lately, the nickname bothered him, reminding him that he was literally untouchable, disconnected from people.
He got off the elevator, took a right, and walked down a hallway that ended in a locked door, intentionally unmarked so that no member of the public would know it was ATF. For the same reason, ATF wasn’t listed on the directory downstairs and none of the security guards would confirm that ATF was even in this building, having been instructed not to do so. ATF’s Philadelphia Field Division employed two hundred people—Supervisors, Special Agents, Task Force Officers, Detectives, Certified Explosives Specialists, Fire Marshals, Intelligence Research Analysts, and many others, but none of their names was on the directory, either. Unsung didn’t begin to describe their status. Unknown was closer to the truth.
Chris unlocked the door and let himself into the office, which was as quiet as expected on a Saturday afternoon. He went down a gray-carpeted hallway past walls of institutional yellow, unadorned with any artwork. The hallway led to a large room of gray cubicles that looked like an insurance office except for the Glock G22 or subcompact Glock G27, agency-issued weapons, hanging in a shoulder holster on the cubicle’s corner, evidence that an agent was in.