Her Deepest Fear: A Breakdown Series Short Read, page 1
Her Deepest Fear
A Breakdown Series Short Read
Vicki Hinze
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 Vicki Hinze
Cover Design by Vicki Hinze
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Magnolia Leaf Press, Niceville, Florida
First Edition October 2018
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
What is Breakdown?
Welcome to Shutter Lake
The BREAKDOWN Books
About the Author
Also by Vicki Hinze
Chapter 1
Seven Years Ago
The last day before school let out for the holiday.
Dana might just make it, though she was more than ready for a break. Teaching eighteen rambunctious Kindergarteners was a mixed blessing. Some years were amazing, others challenging. This year, with five summer birthday students making her class very young for grade level, was challenging. The break would give her time to catch up and rejuvenate.
As well as the holidays, this was the time of year she always planned her summer trip. Where would she go this year? Brazil? The Galapagos Islands? The Highlands in Scotland? Just thinking about a new adventure had excitement bubbling in her stomach.
She finger-combed her short red hair and then walked down the hallway of Brook Haven Elementary on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona, and made her way to the principal’s office, steeling herself for her annual review. Why her palms were damp, she had no idea. Mr. Walker had never been anything less than pleased with her teaching.
The receptionist, Mrs. Clark, was tied up, reprimanding two upper-grade students for being late to class. She nodded to Dana without breaking her stride. “Mr. Walker will be with you in just a second, Dr. Perkins.”
Dana sat down to wait.
Minutes later, the kids were sufficiently chastised and left to return to class.
Another minute or two and Mr. Walker, a man in his late fifties with graying hair at his temples and serious black-framed glasses, smiled and ushered Dana into his office. “Sit, Dr. Perkins. Sit.”
“Thank you.” She smoothed her peacock-blue skirt over her knees.
A solid twenty pounds overweight, he returned to his chair behind his desk and sat down with a hefty grunt. His chair springs groaned. “How are you?”
“Great.” She hated this small talk. Just give her the review and let her return to her classroom. “I promised the sub I’d be back before the kids go to lunch—in fifteen minutes. Sorry, but she has an appointment and can’t be late.” He should be well aware of that since the appointment was with him—an interview, actually.
His thick glasses distorted his eyes, but he smiled. “Well, I expect we should get to it then.” Reaching over, he tugged a file onto his blotter and opened it, letting his gaze slide down the page. “Exemplary, as always.” He removed his glasses, parked them atop the open file. “May I ask why you refuse to teach anything other than Kindergarten? With your dual Ph.D.s in education and psychology, Dr. Perkins, you would be an asset to any of our students, particularly to those soon to move on to middle school. You know this as well as I do, of course, yet you’ve consistently refused to even consider moving to another grade-level. Are you still of that mindset?”
“I am.”
He waited for her to continue and when she didn’t, he nudged. “I’m curious as to why.”
Dana could simply brush by the answer as she had in the previous four times he had asked. But if she did, he would just revisit it again in her review next year. She might as well put the matter to rest. “If I start them out right, they’ll love school their whole lives. I want that for the children.” The majority of her students were from low-income families. They, and their parents, had plenty of struggles already. If she could spare them this one, and gift their kids with a love for learning, then she needed to do it.
“Because you had a teacher who started you out right?” he asked, then shrugged. “I’m guessing that teacher inspired you and that motivated you to get advanced degrees at nineteen.”
“I’ve always had a love for learning.”
He parked his chin on his folded hand. “So your Kindergarten teacher did inspire you, then?”
There it was. She could refuse to answer or lie and spare that teacher, but she couldn’t do both.
“By your silence, I’m guessing she didn’t inspire you.”
“No,” Dana opted for the truth. “I’m sorry to say, she did not.“
“Ah, so you’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen to other children.”
Dana smiled, and held her tongue.
“Do you have any recommendations for us this year?”
“Only one, beyond the list I sent to the grade-level chair two weeks ago.” Mrs. Gray had managed to accept the recommendations without a moan or an eye-roll, at least where Dana could see her. She checked her watch. Seven minutes to get back to her class. The walk would take three of them. “Liz Talbot is hands-down the best teacher being interviewed to replace Meg Brennan.” She was going out on maternity leave starting today and wouldn’t be back for several months.
“Under consideration.” He tapped her file. “Everything looks good, then. As always, we’re thrilled with your methods and results and we’re glad you stay with us. I personally appreciate your dedication to Brook Haven, Dana.” He seated his glasses back at the bridge of his nose. “I know Titan Park Elementary has been trying to lure you to teach over there for a few years now.”
“I’ve consistently refused.”
He didn’t seem to understand why. Many would prefer teaching the upper-crust students at Titan Park. “It’s a much newer facility in the best neighborhood in the district,” he reminded her. “Their heating system always works.”
“I’m aware of that, Mr. Walker,” Dana said, then stood up. “Titan Park gets more money, has smaller class sizes, more parental involvement, and more of the incoming students have been enrolled in two years of early childhood education before coming to us. They have educational advantages.”
“Those advantages would make your job easier.”
Dana barely withheld a frown. “Are you trying to get me to leave?”
“Of course not.” He lost his smile. “You’re an enigma, Dr. Perkins. I can’t figure out why, when you could have an easier job with better conditions, you choose to work here, for me, where half the time to get heat or air-conditioning, we must bang on the pipes with a wrench.”
“I have sweaters.”
“You’re deliberately avoiding answering the question.”
She was, and he’d wearied of it. “It’s no great mystery, Mr. Walker. I’m not seeking easy. I’m hoping to make a difference.” She should stop there, but she didn’t. “Those kids don’t need me.” She hiked a shoulder. “These kids do.”
“That is a fact.” He noted her checking her watch again, but asked anyway, “Do you still have a perfect record?”
He teased her about this in each of the four reviews she’d had since starting at Brook Haven. The first year, when she told him her goal was that every student in her class would leave it reading, he’d laughed at her, and reminded her seven of her students couldn’t yet identify their letters. But at the end of the school year, when her students had achieved that goal, he hadn’t laughed, and he hadn’t failed since to ask her if she still had a perfect record. Her answer was always the same. “So far.” Her students worked very hard.
“Excellent.” He clapped his palms. “Inspiring. Truly inspiring.”
Her face heated. “Thank you.”
The wrinkled skin between his eyebrows bunched. “I also wanted to ask if you’d be interested in taking the grade-level chair position next year.”
“No.” Again, she glanced at her watch. “But thank you for the offer.”
“Very well. Maybe we’ll revisit that after winter break.” He waved a hand, making circles in the air. “Hurry on, then, or you’ll be late…and so will Miss Talbot.”
Dana smiled. “Thanks, Mr. Walker.” She rushed out of his office.
Chapter 2
Her favorite sub had Dana’s eighteen students lined up in single file just inside the classroom door.
“Thanks,” Dana told her. “Did I cut it too close?”
“We’re good. I added a ten minute buffer,” Liz Talbot whispered. “You never know if Mr. Walker is going to be more or less talkative until you get in there.”
Wasn’t that the truth? Dana smiled. “Good luck in the interview. You’ll do great.” It wasn’t empty praise. Liz Talbot was a gifted teacher, born to do it.
“Thanks.” Grinning, Liz grabbed her handbag from the desk drawer, said good-bye to the children, and then headed out the door with a big wave. “Have a wonderful holiday.”
“You, too.” As the door closed,
“I forgetted mine at home,” Misty said.
“Forgot.”
“I forgot mine at home,” she repeated.
That was the second time this week. Dana retrieved a sack lunch from the fridge in her office. She double-checked the list of allergies she’d taped to the front of it and saw “None” checked in the box by Misty’s name. “There you go.” She passed the child the sack.
Dana wasn’t supposed to provide lunch for the kids, but if the board wanted to fine her for not allowing a five-year-old girl to go hungry, so be it. She’d pay the price. For some of her students, the meal at school was the only decent meal they would get today. She couldn’t buy a student’s lunch—that was an offense that resulted in firing—but written policy didn’t state she couldn’t make them a lunch. Regardless, common sense trumped policy. You have a hungry student, you feed them. Who can focus and learn when they’re starving?
Dana moved to the front of the line, saw Cara’s shoelace had come untied. She dropped to a squat and whipped the lace into a fast bow, then pulled it tight. “Where’s my Lunch Leader?”
Joshua’s hand shot up over his head and he moved to the front of the line. “I’m right here, Dr. Perkins.”
“Oh, good.” She counted heads. Seventeen. One short. She searched faces, recognized who was missing. “Sara, where are you?”
“Here, Dr. Perkins.” She closed a book she had been reading and rushed over, fell into line up front between Cara and Misty. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” One of the brightest, Sara loved to read and, given a spare minute, she grabbed a book. That she did delighted Dana. “Okay, Joshua, let’s go then. Remember, everyone. Walk quietly in the hall so we don’t disturb the other classes, and stay in line.”
They walked down the hall and past the media center, then along the empty stretch of hallway between it and the lunchroom. The janitor pushed a mop in a bucket into a small closet, then closed the door. Bulletin boards lined the wall and were decorated with colored snowmen and cut-out snowflakes, courtesy of the second graders. Right on time, Meg Brennan and her class passed Dana’s, going in the opposite direction. Dana smiled. “Enjoy your leave, Meg.”
“Thank you.” She parked her arm over her extended belly. “It won’t be long now.”
Pops sounded in the distance.
Fireworks? Not at Christmas... Coming closer. Screams…
Fear pumped through Dana and she scanned the hall quickly, looking for someplace to take cover. The children were totally exposed.
Meg got her kids into the media center. It was too far away for Dana’s. The janitor’s closet. Doing all in her power to keep her voice steady, Dana ordered the kids, “Stop. Turn around and come with me. Hurry! Hurry!”
More shots fired. More screams. More kids crying.
Dana jerked open the closet door. “Get inside. All the way to the back. Hurry!” She grabbed two kids, dumped them inside and then grabbed two more, and then two more. They tripped, stumbled, and dove into the closet, all wailing and terrified.
The shooter appeared in Dana’s peripheral vision, dressed in all black, a mask over his face.
She had to hurry.
Dana grabbed two more children.
The shooter took aim.
Chapter 3
“Dr. Perkins?” A man called from outside the hot, dank closet. “It’s the police. I’m going to open the door now.”
Dana didn’t move. Couldn’t. She sat in the dark nearest the door, holding Misty in her arms. Images of those last moments before she had taken cover flashed through her mind. Joshua had fallen first. Then Cara. And then Misty. And then Sara. Expecting the next bullet to be hers, Dana secured the other children in the closet. Gunfire continued to ring out but the sound was different now.
The shooter had turned to fire in another direction.
Dana bent to check the fallen, her heart thundering.
Only Misty was still breathing. Dana scooped her up into her arms, squeezed into the crowded closet, shut the door and then locked it. She whispered to the children to be quiet. “Not a peep.”
Soft sobs continued, including Dana’s own. She prayed hard the shooter wouldn’t hear them. The shooting stopped but he could be right outside the door…waiting or about to try and wrench it open.
Someone tried to open the door. Her heart rocketed, threatening to burst through her ribcage. Then silence.
The children’s sobs rose once more. “Shh,” she whispered. “Shh…”
The firing started again. The media center, she guessed. “He doesn’t know we’re here,” she told the students. “No noise now. No noise.”
“Dr. Perkins,” Misty said.
Dana instinctively looked down. She couldn’t see Misty in the pitch black dark. “Yes?”
“I’m leaking on your pretty blue skirt.”
“That’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
“I got shotted.”
“Shot,” Dana automatically corrected her, twitching with every gunshot being fired somewhere in the building. “Shh, we have to be quiet right now, Misty.” There was no light, no first aid, no way to examine the wound. What she’d observed when lifting her was that the bullet had struck her in her side, not near any vital organs.
“My tummy hurts.”
Those were the last words she said…
“She won’t open the door,” the voice of a man who had identified himself as a policeman a few moments ago said to someone with him in the hallway. “I don’t want to breakdown the door and scare them anymore than they already are.”
Dana blinked. Was it over? Could she trust the voice?
“Let me try.” A familiar voice said. “Dr. Perkins? It’s Mr. Walker. Would you please open the door so we can get the children away from the chemicals in the closet? It’s safe now. The shooter is…gone.”
Gone. Dana blinked again. Dared to breathe. Gone as in dead? Gone as in arrested? Gone.
“I have the key, Dr. Perkins,” Mr. Walker said. “I’m going to open the door now.”
The key sounded in the lock. It turned, the door opened, and light flooded into the closet.
Dana looked down. Misty too was gone.
On seeing her, Dr. Walker’s face bleached. “I’ll take her now, Dana.” He lifted Misty from Dana’s arms.
“Her tummy hurt.” Dana swallowed hard. “She was breathing…but now she’s…not.”
“I know.” Mr. Walker cradled Misty in his arms against his chest. “I’ve got her now. You get your students out of here.”
Dana stood up, saw her hands and the front of her skirt were blood-soaked.
Mr. Walker’s eyes stretched wide. “Have you been shot?”
“I’m fine.” Hot tears rolled down her face. She didn’t wipe at them.
The policeman instructed the kids to come out.
They didn’t move.
Dana stepped out of the closet, looked both ways twice. Whispered to the policeman to please block their view of Sara, Cara and Joshua. He positioned himself, and another officer said, “You and the kids follow me. They won’t see anymore.”
Nodding, Dana cleared the clog of tears from her throat. She started to call for her Lunch Leader, but he was dead. A wave of shock ripped through her body. Not now. They need you now, Dana. She swallowed hard. “Single file, please. We’re going to come out of the closet and then turn left. Which way is left?”
They answered; most of them, correctly. “Very good,” Dana said.
“We need a leader—like the Lunch Leader.”
“We do indeed,” Dana agreed. “Thanks so much for reminding me, Marty. Will you be our leader?”
He nodded, his little face solemn.
“Excellent. Let’s go, then.”
The officer cast a worried glance at Mr. Walker, who had passed Misty to yet a third officer, who walked toward Joshua, Cara and Sara with Misty in his arms. “It’s fine.” Mr. Walker told the officer. ”Dr. Perkins is a psychologist and a teacher.”
