Pia looked off toward the windows in the tops of the dock bay doors, the encroaching evening outside dusting her profile in shades of pink and making her already gorgeous face almost ethereal. “Now,” she took a deep breath and sighed contentedly, “we wait.”
Of course.
* * *
Sean and Dubs arrived to chaos, people everywhere; frightened workers huddled just outside the crime scene tape, detectives interviewing people off to the sides, random brass in their white shirts speaking tersely into their cells, the giant black mobile command and communications van rolling in from the south, the armored SWAT van rolling in from the north, and more cars in general pouring in like ants. Sean walked over to the first SWAT operator he saw, a guy who looked like he’d been lounging on a beach somewhere right before he’d been paged.
The shaggy haired blond officer was off to the side, two buildings away from the target, pulling things out of his trunk and trading his tight Abercrombie shirt and board shorts for a squad suit and gear. He glanced up just as Sean walked up, standing up straight and looking intimidating as hell, even half-dressed and unarmed. “Help you?”
Sean and Dubs both presented their badge wallets, and the man nodded and resumed gearing up, strapping his service Glock to the drop holster on his thigh and picking up his medical kit.
“My girlfriend’s inside,” Sean started, figuring that would be the best place to begin the tale.
“With the gun or without?” the other man asked as he pulled on his ballistic vest.
“Without.” Sean looked over his shoulder as the Downtown commander pulled up not far from their location and got out of his unmarked grey sedan, looking all official with his shining bald head, white shirt and prominent collar brass.
“Then I’ll look out for her.” The SWAT operator picked up his M4 carbine rifle and started off toward the command van.
“My ex-wife’s the one with the gun,” Sean called after him, bringing the imposing figure to a full stop.
The man turned on his heel and looked him over, and Sean could feel his pity from ten feet away. Then he turned back around and started toward the comm van. “Come with me.”
Sean looked to Dubs who was already walking off, mouthing something about calling their sergeant, and so he followed the other officer to the communications van just as he saw a familiar face emerge from a silver unmarked Nissan coupe parked nearby.
Dominic ‘Nico’ Verrazzano was the epitome of smooth. As tall as Sean, he had the dark good looks of several thousand years of Italian engineering. Dark hair, dark eyes, and a fondness for well-cut suits, Nico and Sean had been classmates in the academy and were now both detectives, though he was in missing persons instead of narcotics. He always introduced himself as ‘Verrazzano, like the bridge’, though that never mattered to anyone unless they’d crossed it. He was a NYC transplant from college, but had never managed to master the art of flat vowels and irregularly placed ‘r’s.
He stepped over to shake Sean’s hand, pushing his obviously expensive sunglasses up his head with the other hand with a notebook under his arm. “O’Leary, what the hell are you doing here? They’re holding the hostage over a meth lab or something?”
“Not quite, Nico,” Sean hedged, rubbing the back of his neck as he watched more and more black clad guys in body armor stream past him.
The officer who’d been with him to that point, appropriately-named Bull according to his nametag, huffed in impatience. “His girlfriend is the hostage and his ex-wife is the hostage taker.” Then he walked off to join his compadres who appeared to be meeting with their supervisor and developing a plan.
“Your ex-wife is the HT,” he repeated, looked to Sean for confirmation. When Sean only nodded, Nico’s black eyes were the size of tea saucers. “It seems we’ve got a lot to talk about.” He held the door of the command van and gestured that Sean should take the stairs inside. “After you.”
* * *
As the minutes dragged by like heavily sedated snails, Ellie found her desire to give a fuck had diminished precipitously. “That’s a lot of doors slamming outside. I know you like attention, but I’m thinking this is probably not what you had in mind.” If Pia had really wanted to kill her, she’d have done it in the car and left her in the parking lot of roll call. This was just another in a long line of cries for attention. Still, she didn’t want to push her luck too far.
Pia had moved a crate over to stand on as she watched the goings on outside. At Ellie’s voice, she dropped her head back with her eyes closed. “If you don’t fucking shut up…”
“What? You’ll tape my mouth shut?” Not that she wanted to give the other woman ideas, but her initial upset had been replaced with a keen sense of irritation. Every time Pia turned her back, she worked on her shackles, only to find that she was good and stuck to the arms of the chair and her feet were secured to the base above the wheels.
“God, it’s a wonder Sean can stand you with all the talking.” Pia’s cell phone began ringing from her purse with some pretentious soprano aria. She stalked over to it and dumped it out onto the table, odds and ends skittering onto the surface and bouncing onto the floor. It stopped ringing just as she picked it up. She shoved it into her pocket and went back to her perch with her view of the outside world.
The phone on the wall behind Ellie began to ring, a loud piercing jangle that made them both jump. Pia stared it down but didn’t move.
After a couple minutes of the maddening ringing, Ellie wiggled in the chair until it knocked into the table, bringing Pia’s eyes to hers. “You gonna get that? It could be important. I mean, I would but…” she looked down at her pink bound hands and wiggled her fingers to emphasize her point.
Pia stomped over the phone and picked it up, only to slam it down again. “You know, I gave you one thing to do, and you couldn’t manage. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that you can’t be quiet for five fucking minutes.” She groped across the table until she found the duct tape again and tore off a strip. She took her time sealing it over Ellie’s mouth, but Ellie wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of seeing her fear. Pia stood back and admired her handiwork. “Finally. A moment’s peace.” And she returned to her spot by the window.
Chapter 12
Sean sat in the comm van in the far back section, sealed off from the rest of the pandemonium by a door. While he told Nico everything he knew about his ex, another negotiator attempted to make contact with her, first via her cell, and then by the phone in the building. No dice. The whole time they’d been talking, Nico had been writing in his leather bound notebook in front of him.
Nico was looking over his pages of notes, twirling the expensive-looking black pen between his fingers as he read. “Just to make sure I have everything, mother died in childhood, and father is the owner of the building, but you don’t think I should speak to him.”
“No, I said that I don’t know that he’d be of much help. He’s given her everything she’s ever wanted since the day her mother died. Two decades of conditioned behavior is not going to be overcome by the main person contributing to it.”
“You might be right.” The half-hearted agreement did nothing to ease Sean’s nerves.
Sean drove both hands through his hair before resting his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. “Hell, maybe he can offer to buy her an island in exchange for an end to this.” He wasn’t trying to be flippant, he just had no frame of reference for this kind of situation and he was rapidly approaching his threshold for coping.
The man across the table from him snorted. “Maybe.” Slapping the pen down on the table, he pinned Sean down with an intense stare. “And you really don’t know what precipitated all this?”
Sean leaned back and dropped his hands to his lap. “Not at all. This is extreme, even for her.” He cracked the lid on a sweaty bottle of water they’d gotten for him from a cooler under the small table, trying to think of any and everything he could to get Pia to come out peacefully. “
Maybe if I call her from my phone,” he offered, sipping the water and staring at the door between them and the rest of the world.
Nico shook his head. “That’s not how this works, man. There are protocols to follow, and that is part of none of them.”
He set down the now half-empty bottle and leaned his head back, thumping his skull on the aluminum wall behind him. “But maybe if I speak to her—”
“You’ll agitate her enough to make her hurt Ellie? Quite possibly. Let us work on it, okay?” Nico had a look, a piercing look that made a person feel like all their innermost secrets were laid bare to him and he wasn’t afraid to use it.
Sean sighed deeply and stood. “I need some air.” He went to walk into the main operations center when a keening wail went up from outside.
Nico was at his back immediately. “The fuck was that?”
One look out the window told Sean his day was not going to improve, probably ever again. “Her father, Arturo. He owns the building, remember?”
“Great,” Nico groused, seeing the older man outside clinging to an officer while freaking out and carrying on. “This’ll be a blast.”
Sean couldn’t help the small grin that chased across his lips for a moment. Finally someone else could feel his pain. “Better you than me. Excuse me.” He wound his way past the technicians and specialists until he made it out the door and into the slowly gathering dusk. At least they had a lot of light to work with. He didn’t want to think of how hard this would be in the dark.
“Hey,” Nico called behind him.
Sean turned around before stepping off the van. “Yeah?”
“Stay outta sight, okay? I don’t want her seeing you’re here so that we can use it as leverage later if it comes to that.”
Sean nodded and waded into the fray. There were still people all over the place, only now instead of uniform cops at every point of exit, it was teams of SWAT operators. Snipers were on the roof across from the loading dock and the brass were huddled at the edge of proceedings talking amongst themselves.
“You.” Art spat the word out like Sean was a piece of rancid meat as he moved away from the officer who’d been holding him up. “This is your fault.”
“In more ways than you know, Art,” Sean muttered as he walked past the older man in the expensive suit who looked like this was the first good sweat he’d ever worked up.
Art grabbed his wrist. “If you had done what she wanted, none of this would be happening.”
Sean yanked his wrist free as another uniformed officer stepped up to intervene. He turned to the older man, making sure to tower over him with as much menace as wouldn’t get him suspended, and whispered coldly, “And if you’d told her ‘no’ on occasion while she’d been growing up, Art, none of this would have happened, either. It’s both our fault, though probably more yours in the long run. Don’t speak to me again. It will not go well for you.”
Arturo looked like he wanted to say something else, and Sean’s eyes dared him to. He was in the mood to hit something, and his former father-in-law was as good a target as any. Fortunately, Nico chose that moment to emerge from the van and herded Arturo away with an amused look at Sean over the old man’s head.
* * *
The phone on the wall rang three more times for several minutes at a time, but Pia refused to answer. Ellie didn’t know what she was waiting for, but she had a feeling it had to do with Sean. In her heart, Ellie knew that if nothing else, he would come for her, and that was the thought that sustained her, even as her body betrayed her by the urge to pee that she now actively had to ignore.
Ellie had to admit that since she’d stopped speaking, the atmosphere between her and Pia had relaxed considerably, since her captor was content to watch out the window. It also provided Ellie with a unique view of the other woman.
Pia was a beautiful woman. Breathtakingly beautiful, in a natural way that hadn’t seen a surgeon’s hand. Yet, Ellie’s mind amended, because as far as she could tell, Pia’s major skillset had more to do with her appearance than her intelligence, but then, maybe she was a bit biased.
What she couldn’t figure out was that this woman, this ridiculously pretty woman who could have anyone in the world, was fixated on Sean. Not that Ellie didn’t understand the appeal, but damn, surely there was someone else who could pique her interest. Pia was gone for over a year after being married for barely two, couldn’t she just leave again?
Of course, these were simply the musings of a captured woman with her mouth taped shut. Ellie looked around the room, finding it completely plain, with large pallets of vegetables stacked almost to the second floor landing where the administrative offices were. So far as she could tell, there were two stairways up to that floor from the room and maybe one more beyond a doorway in the middle. The lights in the office upstairs were off, though she couldn’t tell if they’d been off the whole time or if this was a recent development. God, they could come and rescue her any time now, or she might have to find a way to convey that she needed a bucket.
Pia straightened suddenly from her spot at the window, her face a mask of excitement. Like a 16-year-old before a first date excitement. “He’s here!” She began dialing her cell phone frantically, and Ellie could only sigh.
Sean’s arrival was both a blessing and a curse. As much as it meant this would all be over soon, she worried about what would happen to both of them at the hands of this guanopsychotic woman.
* * *
Sean took a moment to collect himself, hands in his back pockets and eyes on the prismatic sky. Getting hostile wasn’t going to fix this, and getting violent with the the first available victim was a very good way to get a suspension in addition to whatever was going to happen to him as a result of this. When he felt more centered, he took a step, only to plow straight into a man in black with a tactical helmet and an enormous machine gun.
The SWAT operator’s look was one of curiosity, but Sean shook his head in apology and walked off to where he saw Dubs and their sergeant standing. His partner handed him his mobile radio that he’d forgotten in the car, and he found it was already turned to the encrypted SWAT channel.
“You okay, man?” Dubs looked really concerned, and while Sean appreciated it, he really just wanted this all to be over so that he could apologize to Ellie and find a way to make it up to her.
Sean ran his hands through his hair and stared at the building, hoping he could somehow see Ellie and know she was okay. “I’m cool. I mean, my psychologically unhinged ex-wife is holding my girlfriend hostage in a building the size of a city block. The brass is having to deal with a domestic-related hostage situation that is really damn newsworthy, involving not one but two police department employees, so I’m pretty sure I can kiss my career goodbye, but other than that, yeah. Like I said, I’m cool.”
Dubs and the sergeant both snickered, and his partner chucked him on the shoulder in sympathy. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad today, but this, too, shall pass. Like a gallstone.”
Sean ran both hands through his hair and locked his fingers behind his neck as he gave his partner a hard look. “Please don’t be any more supportive. I don’t think I can stand it.” Sean took a deep breath and hoped this would be over soon. He didn’t think his nerves could hold out for too much longer.
He looked down to the edge of the crime scene where the news vans were clustered, their broadcast dishes hoisted high in the air, making sure they got every lurid image on their cameras. Just what his life needed. Thinking he would move farther from their view, he started walking over to the area where the SWAT operators were gathered and getting their assignments. He suddenly envied their tactical face shields.
“This is all your fault.”
Sean froze in place, biting back his immediate reply to the voice behind him, which he was sure was more violent than really necessary. Finally composed, he turned and faced Josh, who looked fit to be tied. “That does seem to be the song of the day.”
Josh advanced on him, his rage
clearly at full sails. “All those times she told you. You had to know this bitch was crazy, at least a little bit, and now she’s got El. I hope to fuck you’re happy.”
Happy wasn’t even in the same time zone as Sean. “Happy? Really?”
The younger man wouldn’t relent. “Oh yeah. Your psychobitch ex dangling on the leash on standby while you figure out what to do with Ellie’s love. She’s loved you forever, you know. Before you got married, during, even. And you couldn’t be bothered to give a fuck. I have no idea what the fuck she sees in you.”
Later, Sean wouldn’t be able to say if it was the statement of Ellie’s love for him on top of the rest of the stress or Josh’s snarl as he spit on the ground in front of him, but either way, he took a swing and it was on and popping. The blows exchanged were fierce and well-placed, with nothing held back. Somehow they ended up on the ground rolling around, though he no idea how. When they were separated, Josh picked up bodily by Dane in full turnout gear and Sean by Dubs, it was like they’d exhausted all their anger in their brawling. Sean’s lip was bleeding, and he knew that he was going to have an absolutely awesome shiner, not to mention some hellacious rib pain. But Josh looked like he’d taken a flight of stairs face first, so in that respect, they were even.
Sean’s sergeant, as well as a disturbingly large number of white shirts, stood outside the circle of men who’d gathered to either watch the fight or try to break it up with an expectant look on his face.
As much as he would have loved to keep fighting, Ellie’s best friend’s face showed enough damage that she would be extremely pissed when this was all over. He had made nothing but bad decisions today so far, but that was going to change. Starting now. He offered his hand to Josh in truce and the circle quieted while they waited for his opponent’s response.
After a quiet exchange between Josh and Dane, Josh took his hand and they shook on it. Sean’s sergeant nodded and walked away, while Dubs shook his head with a wry smile and nodded toward the SWAT medic off to the side who had gotten out a bandage and an ice pack. All of this, however, they would talk about later, after they got Ellie out safely.
The Ex File (Behind the Blue Line Series Book 1) Page 15
