Empty Promises

dangerous.
    “Where’s Leigh?” he asked. “She’s not in her room.”
    “I haven’t seen her all evening,” Janet answered. “You really shouldn’t be here now. It’s after lockup time.”
    For the first time, John showed irritation. He said he had no intention of leaving until he saw Leigh. Janet McKay managed to call the campus police, and they persuaded him to leave. He was not combative and he left quietly. The police kept an eye on him, but all he did was drive aimlessly around the campus during the early morning hours. He made no attempt to get back into Perham Hall.
    It was Tuesday afternoon before John finally got Leigh on the phone. He said he needed to talk to her face-to-face, and he insisted that he would not go back to Mercer Island until she agreed to talk to him. That was all he was asking. It was finally arranged that the ex-sweethearts would meet on neutral ground—in Adviser McKay’s room.
    The meeting lasted only ten minutes. Exactly what Leigh told John was never made public, but it was clear that she was adamant this time. Finally and forever it was all over between them. There would be no more pleading, no more promises, nothing would change her mind.
    John Stickney left. The romance seemed to be over, and everyone heaved a sigh of relief.
    Less than fifteen minutes later, however, Head Adviser Mary Beth Johnson entered an elevator on the ground floor and was startled to find John Stickney inside. She recognized him and introduced herself. She told him that she was aware of his problem, and he replied that he had to see Leigh just one more time. There was an odd urgency about him that alarmed Mary Beth Johnson.
    John Stickney had taken nothing to the meeting in Janet McKay’s office, but Ms. Johnson didn’t know that. Now she noted that he had a book bag over his arm and that it appeared to be quite heavy.
    “I understand that you want to see Leigh,” she said carefully, “but I’d like to talk with her for a few minutes first. Would you agree to that?”
    Stickney nodded. But when the elevator arrived on the fifth floor he got off right behind her and she could hear his footsteps keeping pace with hers down the long hallway. Thinking fast, she reached Leigh’s room, stepped inside, and quickly locked the door behind her. Now Leigh Hayden, her roommate, Janet McKay, and Mary Beth Johnson were inside a small dorm room with nothing but a thin door between them and John Stickney.
    Before Ms. Johnson had a chance to say anything, there was a crashing, splintering sound at the door. John was trying to kick it in. Again and again, he slammed his boot into the door. It shuddered and held. The women huddled together, frightened. There was nowhere to hide, and they were five floors up, so they couldn’t escape out the window. John’s voice was very calm, but he gave orders in a forceful way. “Open the door,” he said stubbornly. “I want you to open the door.” While they huddled against the opposite wall, he kicked it again, and bric-a-brac fell off a shelf and shattered.
    Mary Beth Johnson grabbed the phone and alerted the campus police that John Stickney was back, that there was trouble, and that they needed help.
    Suddenly the crashing against the door stopped. There was dead silence for a moment or so. And then John began speaking again in a flat voice with no emotion. Leigh had never heard him speak in this matter-of-fact way and it was far more frightening than when he raised his voice.
    “I have a bomb,” he said in that same awful voice. “Someone’s going to get hurt if you don’t let me in.”
    He wasn’t shouting; he didn’t even sound angry, but Leigh knew that he meant what he said. She knew that he was an expert in explosive devices. He could have walked away from his job with everything he needed to make a bomb. He worked with dynamite, and he knew how to set a charge and detonate a device with enough power to blow away half of a rocky hill. It had been his craft for several years, and he was good at it. She knew he was capable of blowing the whole dorm to kingdom come. “He probably does have a bomb,” she said. “He means it. He knows how to make one.”
    The women looked at one another and silently agreed to make a run for it. They had nothing to lose, and if they didn’t try, they might all die—and so would the other residents in rooms along the fifth-floor hall. Mary Beth Johnson flung open the door, and the four women took John Stickney by