Excerpt

A short way up the promenade she felt briefly vulnerable, a peculiar sensation unlike her reaction to the disgust she sometimes caused. She paused, pigeons taking flight around her, and took off her sunglasses to wipe a hand over her forehead. There were the pseudo-classical buildings, tree shaded statues, students passing about, the library’s elevated plaza, nothing but ordinariness.

Maybe it’s inspiration. Across the top of the main building’s façade was inscribed “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make ye free.” Maybe I needed to see that. You shall know your grade and it shall be what you expect. You shall know the Corvette thing…Maybe it’s from not following habit. Shading her eyes she looked up at the tower, standing in a forenoon sky that was like pearl colored fire.

Call Derrick. Lottie said she’d be back by today.

Someone a few yards ahead of her dropped with thumps of spilled books. Oh, God, he tripped. A man said something and pointed at the tower. Stellara didn’t recall hearing the clock chime and shaded her eyes to look again. A puff of smoke seemed to detach from the observation deck and drift languidly toward oblivion. Some persons were cautiously checking the fallen student.

Someone else said something she couldn’t make out. A female voice exclaimed, “He’s shooting!”

Stellara heard feet scuffling. A girl with a brunette beehive and a sheathe skirt ran across in front of her, mincing in high heels that clicked, one arm straight down at her side and swinging stiffly. A man shouted, “Get inside! Take cover!”

Her heart clenched. She clutched her satchel to her chest, turned, and ran in the same direction as the mincing girl, stumbling through a low hedge that scratched her shins and into the dun limestone face of a building. She fell in breathless pain and lay gasping, smelling dirt and minty leaves and what she saw was a cigarette butt. She held still, sweating, her heart running like a sewing machine along an endless seam.

I can get up and run. Shaking, Stellara got to hands and knees and found herself parallel to, almost against the hedge. Her clothes were damp, her hair hung just long enough to block her peripheral vision. She heard the pigeons. Can he see? Slowly she raised her head, sweat trickling down her face. Ahead were shrubs and a tree and the hedge was too high to see over. Probably not if I don’t stand up. Sounds of traffic reached her.

I’ll jump up and run inside. Her purse strap was still around her left arm, her satchel was in front of her, and her sunglasses were beyond reach to her left. I’ll gather them up and run. She lowered her head, trembling. I’ll have to calm down.

She heard voices nearby and turned her head. She brought up her right hand, hooking all but a few strands behind her ear. Through the sparsely leaved hedge stems she saw across the way a girl in a frilly blouse folded under a concrete bench. Similarly hidden persons were calling to a man walking unconcernedly toward the library.

Oh, my God…The man paused, looked toward a voice’s hidden source and toward the body, then staggered from an invisible impact. Stellara yelped. He seemed to make uncoordinated efforts to balance then fell with a thump that reminded her of a watermelon dropped in the dirt. Don’t move. Blood spread on the sidewalk.

She heard several pairs of shoes hitting the pavement and through the twigs saw three men dash into the summer sunshine, grab the just fallen student, and rush past the concrete bench back into the trees and bushes. They’re brave… There were distant sirens, a police whistle not far away.

They’ll end this. She looked down at the ring dangling over the dirt and wanted but couldn’t risk getting a cigarette. If I move, he’ll see. The sun burned her neck and arms, her legs where sweat stung the scratches, her straps cut into her back and shoulders. Sweat ran down her arms, trickled down the tops of her breasts and between them. Derrick’s safe at work if he doesn’t try to come help. They’ll know at home. Lottie won’t have any reason to be on campus. What about Brennan?

Pigeons cooed and flew with rattling wings, oblivious to human drama. More sirens. Can’t they do anything? She knew the sniper, like a hunter, was scanning with unaided vision and scope, his mind alertly blank to detect the slightest incongruity of shape and color, of autonomous motion. Don’t move, he’ll see.