by Nora Roberts
“Wait and see.”
He cut off the line, and Phoebe dropped her head in her hands.
“Jesus, Lieutenant,” Vince managed. “You gave him permission to kill a hostage.”
“Which is why he won’t.” Please God, don’t let her be wrong. “If I’d asked him, begged him, not to do it, he’d have done it. And he’d strap the rig on one of the others.”
She pushed to her feet when Sergeant Meeks burst in. “You think I didn’t hear that? You think I didn’t hear you invite him to kill my boy?”
He lunged at her. It took Sykes, Vince and Duncan to put him down, hold him down while he cursed at her. “My boy’s in there because of you. If he dies it’s because of you.”
“He’s not in there because of me, but if he dies, yes, that’s mine. Get him out. Get him out of here.”
“When are you going to talk to him about the hostages?” Phin grabbed her arm. “Why don’t you give him something, give him something so he’ll let the women go.”
“I can’t—”
“My wife, my mother are in there. For God’s sake, for God’s sake, you need to get them the hell out.”
“I’m going to get them out.” She couldn’t allow herself to see them—Ma Bee’s dark, steady eyes, Loo’s slow, sultry smile. “I’m going to call him back, and we’re going to work at this until everyone’s out. Phin, you have to stay calm. If you can’t, I’ll have to have you removed. I’m sorry.” She looked from him to Duncan now. “I’m sorry.”
“You’ll get them out.” Duncan reached out so their fingertips touched. “You’ll get them out. Phin, your sister’s out there now, and the rest of your family’s coming. You should go out, be with them.”
“I have to know what’s happening.” Crumbling, Phin covered his face with his hands. “I have to know something.”
“I’ll come out and tell you,” Duncan assured him, then turned to Phoebe.
“Yes, that’s fine. Go out with your family, Phin, let them know your mother and Loo aren’t hurt. We’ll keep you informed.” She signaled to an officer. “Escort Mr. Hector to his family. If he needs to come back in, he should be escorted back in. All right?” She rubbed her hands up and down Phin’s arms, felt the muscles quivering. “You go, help your family. I’m going to help your mother and Loo.”
“I can’t lose them, Phoebe.”
“We won’t lose them. Go on now.”
“How am I supposed to feel?” Duncan said as Phin went out. “They were meeting me in there.”
“He’s responsible. And I’m responsible for getting them out.”
And that’s what he’d wanted all along, she knew. Everything else had been building to this.
Showdown.
“Can I get some coffee in here?” Phoebe called out as she rubbed at the tension at the back of her neck. “And more water? Duncan, I have to ask you not to tell Phin anything I don’t clear you to tell him.”
“I got that. What can I do to help?”
“Listen. You’re good at listening.” She looked up at the board Sykes had posted. “His emotions are all over the scale. That’s typical for this first stage. He wants the negotiation, that’s our advantage. He doesn’t want to come out of it, so that’s his. I’m not calling him back.” She turned toward Vince. “He knows how to reach me, he knows how it works. Action, right? He likes to take action, make the moves?”
“Yeah.”
“It gives him more of a sense of control, of authority, if he makes the next contact. Let’s give him that. Let’s wait.”
“Got the credit card report,” Liz strode up quickly. “Five-thousand-dollar charge, Mark D, two weeks before the bank robbery. He made the minimum payments on it until he went south.”
“Bought her a ring in there, that’s what he did.” Phoebe pushed through her notes. “Got the property list, the personal effects. She had diamond—yellow-gold band—ring on her person. White-gold diamond-crusted wedding band in her purse. Not on her finger. She was wearing Walken’s ring when she died. Bastard Brentine. He knew it. Maybe not before her death, but he damn well knew what had been going on when he got her effects. And he stonewalls us.”
She scribbled, highlighted, circled. How could she use it? Should she? Time would tell.
“He thinks he knows me, but he doesn’t. I know him. And you know him,” she said to Vince. “A lot of the men out there with guns pointed at that building know him. He wants to work me, but we’ll be working him. He won’t allow himself to relate to any of the hostages. They have to remain meaningless to him so he can do what he means to do.”
“What does he mean to do?” Duncan asked.
“Kill them all. Kill himself and all of them.”
“Oh Jesus God.”
“To strike at me, personally and professionally. How can I ever do this again if I fail to save those people? How can I live with it? That’s what he thinks.”
Pacing in front of the situation board, she stared at the phone, willing it to ring. “The press and public opinion will rip me to pieces. That’s what he knows. The connection between him and me will be made known, and the bank incident will be picked over again. I’ll be disgraced, and useless as a negotiator, and I’ll pay, finally pay, for causing his lover’s death. That’s what he thinks. And he’ll die, in a spectacular and symbolic way. I’ll have killed him, just like I killed her. That’s what he wants most of all.”
She turned to look at the clock. “We’re not going to give him what he wants.”
“Offer him a trade. He knows about us. Offer to trade me for two of the women. For Ma and Loo. I’m a bigger win for him, and then—”
“He wouldn’t take it. And neither I nor the commander could allow it, Duncan.”
But he would give it, she thought. He would risk himself for love.
“Duncan.” She spoke softly, so he could hear her heart under the words. “I know what they mean to you. I know what you’re feeling.” And it was killing her.
She turned as the phone rang. “All right. Here we go. Hello, Jerry.”
Inside the bank, Ma patted the hand of the woman beside her. “Stop crying now.”
“He’s going to kill us. He’s—”
“Crying doesn’t help.”
“We should pray.” A man across the circle rocked gently back and forth. “We should put our faith in the Lord.”
“Can’t hurt.” But Ma was putting a good chunk of her faith in the men outside with guns. “Hush now,” she repeated. “Patsy, isn’t it? Hush up now, Patsy. That woman he’s talking to? She’s smart.”
“How do you know?”
“I—”
Loo squeezed her mother-in-law’s hand fiercely, gave a quick shake of her head. “She sounds smart. She’ll find out what he wants, and everything’s going to be fine.”
They circled each other for more than an hour before he broke communications again. “He’s stalling. He wants to string this out, make it last. There’s something he wants to make me do, but he’s not ready yet. It’s under there, I can hear it under there.”
“He’s enjoying it,” Duncan told her. “He likes telling you no. No food, no water, no medical supplies. He’s cruising on it.”
“Agreed, for now.”
“He’s not going to let any of them out.” Sykes sat down beside Phoebe. “He doesn’t want anything in exchange, and if he did, he knows that releasing any of the hostages is our advantage. They can give us inside intel, make it simpler to shut this down.”
“They can’t get a shot.” Vince walked over to the situation board, gestured to the sketch of the interior of the store. “He’s in this corner, northeast corner, and there’s no shot. That’s why he’s there.”
“He’s been on the other side,” Phoebe concurred. “He’s familiarized himself with the layout, with the angles.”
“They need to go in. Back door’s the only way. A frontal assault gives him too much time. They need to deal with the explosives on the rear door.”
“You have to get him out of the corner,” Duncan said, and Phoebe turned to him.
“Yes, I do.”
“If they can’t get an angle on him, he doesn’t have one on them.”
“That’s right.” Phoebe closed her hand briefly over Duncan’s. “That’s exactly right. I need to talk to the commander. I need to know where to move him, if possible.” She signaled to Sykes to make the call. “They have to let me know when they’re going to take him. I know that’s not how it’s usually done, but they can trust me not to let him know it’s coming. I have to move him; they have to know that’s coming.”
“Got it.” Sykes turned with his radio to signal the command post.
Shoving her hair off her damp neck, Phoebe paced, tried to put herself inside the shop. “He’s going to have to let them use the bathroom at some point, unless he wants a big mess on his hands. And he doesn’t. One bathroom, employees’, right in the back room.” She narrowed her eyes at the sketch. “How does he plan to work this? He’d have thought it through already, have a system ready. That’s why he doesn’t have all the hostages in the circle. Holding one back to release another. He doesn’t have to move or interact with them to handle the basic function. But it’s going to be distracting, and he’ll have to be alert. He won’t want to talk to me while that’s going on.”
She nodded. “And we’re not giving him what he wants.”
Time, she thought, to start playing him. She picked up the phone, called.
“Better be you, bitch.”
“It’s always going to be me, Jerry. You know how this goes. No lying to a hostage-taker, it puts the hostages at risk. No saying no to a hostage-taker, it pisses them off, and puts the hostages at risk. I’m supposed to empathize with you, be supportive of your feelings, listen to your demands and complaints.”
“Yeah, you were damn sympathetic with the bastards who shot Angie.”
“Angela was a beautiful woman. She loved you.”
“Fuck you. You don’t care about her.”
“You’ve made me care, Jerry. I’m in love with someone, maybe you don’t feel I deserve to be, but I’m in love. So I understand how Angela felt about you. I understand something of what you’re feeling, because if anything happened to him, I don’t know what I’d do.”
“You don’t know what we had.”
“You had something special, something once in a lifetime. She was wearing your ring, Jerry. She was wearing it when she died.”
“What?”
“The ring you bought her in the store where you are now. She must’ve treasured it. She must have been thrilled to wear it. I wanted you to know that, Jerry. I called to tell you because it proves to everyone she was yours.”
“Everyone can go to hell.”
“If something like this had happened to me, I’d want everyone to know what we meant to each other. How much we loved each other. I think you want that, too, Jerry. I want to tell you that I do know it.” There was a long beat of silence where she could only hear him breathing. “Roy never loved me, did you know that? He never loved me or the child we made together. Can you imagine? Now that I have someone who does…”
She looked over at Duncan, met his eyes, so she’d feel it only stronger, so it would come into her voice. “Now that I do, everything in the world is different. It’s stronger and brighter and clearer. Was it like that for you?”
“She made it beautiful. And bright. Now it’s black.”
Grief,she wrote.Tears. Careful, careful, she thought. If she tipped him too deeply into grief, he could end it all now. “She wouldn’t want the black for you, Jerry. Someone who loved you the way Angela loved you wouldn’t want you in the black.”
“You put her there. I’m not leaving her there alone.”
“She—”
“You shutup ! You shut up about her.”
“Okay, Jerry. I hear that I’ve upset you. I’m sorry. You know it’s not my purpose here to upset you.”
“No, it’s your fucking purpose to talk to me like I’m an idiot until I come out crying with my hands in the air. You think you can play me? You think I’m going out that way after I’ve come this far?”
“I think you’re preparing to commit suicide, and take those people with you.”
“Is that what you think?” he said, and she noted the smug satisfaction in his tone.
“That’s a big statement, Jerry. And a big black mark on my record. But we could spin it, you know how it goes. It’s overkill. Seventeen’s our count. A lot of people for you to deal with, and a lot to take down. Now, if you were to let the women out—”
“Come on, Phoebe. That’s a lame pass.”
“It might seem like a lame pass to you, but I’ve got to do my job here. I guess we both know it’s time for me to ask how everyone’s doing in there.”
She rubbed the back of her neck as they took each other through the dance—requests and refusals for food, water, medical attention.
And the clock ticked off another hour.
31
Duncan stood outside with Phin, a few feet away from the rest of the family. “They’re okay. Nobody’s been hurt. She keeps him talking, keeps working him around. I swear to God, I don’t know how she does it.”
“It’s been nearly four hours now.”
“I know.” He could see the snipers from where he stood, see them on rooftops, in windows, doorways. What if they opened up? What if Ma or Loo got in the way of a bullet?
The idea of it had him lowering to a crouch on legs that had gone to water. “If it was money—God, why isn’t it about money? I’d—”
“I know.” Phin hunkered down beside him. “I know, Dunc.”
“Phoebe, she…She keeps bringing him back to the hostages. Asking how they’re doing, talking to him about letting some of them go. She asked if we could have their names, but he doesn’t know, doesn’t care. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I just don’t know.”
“It’s taking too long.”
“I don’t know that either.” He laid a hand over Phin’s, linked their fingers. “Take care of the family. You take care of the family, and I’ll go back in, see if there’s anything else I can find out, anything I can do.”
Despite the air-conditioning, the air in the boutique hung hot and thick. The door opened and closed countless times as cops pushed in and out, so the steamy heat crawled in and set up shop. Sweat gleamed on Phoebe’s skin as she studied the situation board, read over her own notes, made more. In a desperate attempt to keep some part of her cool, she’d snagged a tortoiseshell clip from a display to yank her hair up.
She chugged down water as she stared at the red X’s marked on the layout of the jewelry store. Kill marks, she thought. Move him to any of those locations, and Tactical had the green light.
“We’ve had experts move in at the rear door,” Harrison told her. “Examine the rig there. They think they can defuse it and circumvent the alarm.”
“But they don’t know.”
“They’re pretty damn sure.”
“Because they’re getting impatient. You know as well as I do everyone’s wanting to move, to act. That’s the danger of long negotiations. I need more time. He’s going to have to move those people soon. Bladders only hold so long, and that’s our best option.”
“Sergeant Meeks wants to know how his boy’s doing. You can’t blame him.”
“He won’t tell me.” Phoebe swiped one of the baby wipes Liz had passed her over her face to mop up the sweat. “Tell him I’ll try to find out next round.”
“If you don’t move him within the next hour, I’m going to let the bomb squad take that rig. He’s not coming out alive, you know that. Bringing him down’s the only way to minimize casualties.”
“I’ll move him, damn it. It may take a little longer, but I’ll move him.”
“It takes much longer, yo
u’ll make a mistake. That’s why you work in teams, Phoebe. As long as it’s only you and him, you’re going to tire out and make a mistake.”
“He wants me to make a mistake. And the theme of this party is he doesn’t get what he wants. He’s not ready to end it yet, because he wants something from me first. And until he is ready, those people are as safe as we can make them. I’ll know when he’s ready.”
Harrison walked out as Duncan walked in. Phoebe lifted her eyebrows as she spotted the bags of takeout.
“Figured food would come in handy.”
Even the thought of eating made her nauseous, but eating was necessary, and might keep her from making that mistake. “You’re my hero.”
He set the bags down, where they were attacked by cops, then moved to her. “Whose turn is it to call?”
“I’m letting him make the move.”
“Okay.” He rubbed her shoulders. “I talked to your mom. Everyone’s all right there, some worried about you. This, ah, siege is all over the news.”
“That’s one of the things he wants I couldn’t stop.” She let her head rest on his shoulder, rested her mind there. “I haven’t had anyone take care of me in a long time. I could get used to it.”
“You’d better.”
“How’s Phin—and the rest of them?”
“They’re terrified. I’m not.” They both knew it was a lie, but it was a comforting one. “I know you’ll get them out safe.”
“What do you hear when he talks?”
“He goes up and down, right and left, but…”
“But?”
“Under it all? I guess what I hear is satisfaction.”
“Yes, you listen well.”
Ma Bee’s back ached, her head throbbed. Pretty, blond Patsy had given up crying and was now curled up on the floor with her head in Ma’s soft lap. There were murmurs and whispers among the hostages—something the man in charge didn’t seem to mind, or maybe didn’t tune his ears to hear.
Some of them dozed, as if they might open their eyes again and find this had all been a strange, awful dream.
