The Memorist

Chapter 104

Thursday, May 1^st-8:42 p.m.

Tom Paxton sat alone in the makeshift office, barely aware of his surroundings. He looked at the melee on the monitors but was seeing images the music had induced in him…malignant scenes of a man raping a woman while a little boy looked on… He could smell the fire and filth and hear the screams of the woman underneath him…no, not him…a vicious man in another time. The screams were so horrifying…

And then he realized the screams were real. They were happening now. In the theater. The cries and shrieks of an audience that had come to hear a symphony and celebrate only to be terrorized by an act no one could have anticipated.

“Boss?” It was Kerri.

Paxton looked over, so relieved to see her. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.”

“Did anything happen to you?”

“No.”

“You’re lucky,” he whispered.

“Was it awful?”

Paxton nodded, then looked away, back at the bank of monitors.

She walked over to his side and put her hand on his shoulder, surprised to feel his back trembling and even more so to see the tears in his eyes.

“Tom? What happened?”

Paxton heard her, felt her hand, wanted to lean into her and let her comfort him but his attention was drawn to one of the monitors aimed on the theater’s front door. There, a swell of people poured out, a wave powered by its own momentum with David Yalom in its midst. The journalist looked how Tom felt. As if he’d been to hell and back. Except in Yalom’s eyes there was something else. Even via the mediocre-quality screen, he looked as if he’d found some resolution while he’d been there.

“That’s a relief, at least,” Kerri said, nodding toward Yalom. “I was worried about him. He’s been through enough.”

Paxton nodded.

“Tom, I came in to tell you the police want to talk to you,” Kerri said.

“Yeah, I’m sure they do.”

“They don’t know for certain, but there don’t seem to be any fatalities.”

“What about our team? Has everyone reported in?”

“Everyone is fine.”

“Tucker?”

She nodded.

“There was an attack on my watch, Kerri,” he said as his voice broke.