Takeover

He stood as quickly as if he had discovered a scorpion at his toes, checked his watch, and said, “Mama’s time is up.”

“You’re not going to shoot this little boy.”

“And who’s going to stop me, Theresa? You?”

“What will it gain you, except a quick trip to a lethal injection?”

“That’s assuming I get caught.”

“You know you’re going to be caught eventually. You’re not stupid.”

They certainly didn’t seem to be bonding-in fact, she seemed to annoy him more with every word. Yet he kept talking to her. Why?

“I’m not going to get caught.” He did not say this as if he believed it, however. The tone of his voice sounded neither boastful nor wistful; it sounded resigned, as if he knew he would do exactly that.

“Let’s say you do. If you leave here without hurting anyone, the cops will pursue you, yes. But if you hurt a child, they will chase you to the very ends of the earth.”

Bobby shifted in the background, but Lucas did not turn. “You seem to forget I’ve already killed someone.”

She didn’t want to mention Mark Ludlow again; it might make things worse. But he had freely discussed the bank teller. “You mean Cherise? What happened to her anyway?”

Without raising his voice he asked, “You think I didn’t shoot her? You think maybe I’m faking all this?”

“No.” But her voice lacked certainty.

“Anybody else here think I’m faking this?”

The other hostages, who had been present to hear the gunshot and Cherise’s voice, abruptly cut off, shook their heads. Missy even cast Theresa a murderous look.

What am I doing? What she’d said to Cavanaugh was true. Forensic work burdened her with only a limited amount of personal responsibility. Sure, she cared about solving an innocent victim’s murder, but if she could not, she didn’t take it personally. Sometimes the evidence just wasn’t there. But now she had to be proactive, and other people could die as a result. The idea made her heart pound even more than Lucas’s threats.

“Set the boy down,” Lucas said to Theresa, referring to Ethan. “Just leave him there.”

“He’ll run away.”

“Missy, you hang on to the kid. I need to show Theresa something. Just hold the back of his shirt so he don’t run around.”

Missy moved to the other side of Brad and slid the boy from Theresa’s lap, gently easing him into her own. Ethan seemed sufficiently interested in Lucas’s movements and did not protest.

“Get up.”

Theresa stood, her knees reluctant to move but not half as reluctant as her mind. Why had she antagonized him? Why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut?

On the other hand, Lucas seemed to have forgotten Jessica Lud-low’s tardiness.

The phone began to ring.

He ignored it. “Come here.”

She complied. It didn’t seem that she had another option. But Lucas merely grabbed her right elbow with his left hand, leaving his gun ready in his right. He prodded the muzzle of it into her rib cage, and she flinched.

“We’re going to take a stroll. Just walk with me, nice and easy, and I won’t have to pull this trigger, understand?”

“Yes.”

He gripped her elbow tightly enough to stop the circulation, and they made a careful excursion past the other hostages. The pool of Paul’s blood had developed a yellow halo as the serum separated out from the red blood cells. She looked at the security guards with a wincing glance; their barely contained fury hurt her eyes. The dog growled. The phone kept ringing.

The teller cages continued in the marble and gilt tradition of the rest of the lobby. Behind the fancy ironwork grates sat counters filled with the accoutrements of work: tape dispensers, staplers, rubber stamps of all sizes and shapes, framed photos of adorable children. The third drawer down at each station had been pried open, the locks mangled, except for one. Cherise’s work area, complete with a nameplate and a photo of herself and a boyfriend with a beach in the background. The entire drawer, undamaged, lay on the floor.

Theresa took this in as they passed. Lucas did not pause but continued past the tellers’ cages, around to the narrow, walled-off section behind them. Theresa could already smell it. The burnt gunpowder and the tinny odor of blood.

On a worn section of carpet, directly below a stack of computer printouts and a half-empty coffeepot, the young woman had bled out onto the springy carpet. This, then, was the missing Cherise.

1: 00 P.M.

Patrick had never felt more helpless. Returning to the library’s video monitor only to find Theresa missing from the hostage’s lineup had been deja vu in the worst way. Cherise had gone off in the same direction and hadn’t come back. Paul had been shot before their eyes, or before the cold black-and-white eyes of the video monitor. Now Theresa, and he couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. He should have stayed over there. No, he should have stayed here, made Cavanaugh distract Lucas. “Why didn’t you do something?”

“I called. He ignored the phone. But she’s all right. We’re catching snatches of her voice.”

“Maybe it’s time to use the snipers. Or the assault time. Or the 101st Airborne.”

“The snipers are ready,” Cavanaugh said. “They’ve had a hundred opportunities to pick off Lucas, but Bobby stays out of range. He could shoot a few hostages or set off their RDX, wherever they’ve got it. For amateurs they’ve been pretty careful so far.”

“Do we know they’re amateurs?” Assistant Chief Viancourt asked.

“We don’t know much of anything at the moment.”

Jason hung up his cell phone. He had spent enough time on it to leave a red slash across his face. “Lucas Winston Parrish was injured five years ago in an explosion during a training mission in Germany. He was stationed at the base there. He still carries a few pieces of shrapnel against his ribs.”

Patrick sighed. “Theresa called it.” “Maybe,” Cavanaugh said. “What else?” “He told the military that both his parents were dead, and the prison said he had one visitor during the five years he spent at At-lanta-his sister. She lives in North Carolina and isn’t answering her phone.”

Cavanaugh massaged beads of sweat into his face. “What did he do in the military?” “Armory clerk.” “So he knows guns. And at least the basics of explosives.” “I’d like to know where he got those two.” Patrick nodded at the monitor. “That’s a lot of firepower for a bum just out of jail.” Cavanaugh asked Jason, “Did Atlanta say he and Bobby were friends?” “No one there knows. Of the regular guards on their cell block, one is off on a fishing trip and the other one is in the hospital.” “Prison riot?” “Heart attack.” “And Bobby had no visitors.” “There’s one more thing. Parrish had one other person on his visitor’s list-a Jack Cornell in Tennessee. The guy never visited, but he had him listed. There was a Jack Cornell in his unit in the army.”

“That’s his gun connection, I’ll bet,” Patrick said. “Lucas came here from Atlanta by way of Tennessee.” Cavanaugh opened the cooler next to Irene and pulled out a dripping bottle of water for Jason. “Here, you deserve it. Get us Cornell on the phone. We definitely need to talk to him.”

“Talk to him.” Patrick perched on the window seat and lit a cigarette. “We need him picked up by the Tennessee cops. He’s the best suspect for providing not only the guns but the plastic explosive as well.”

Cavanaugh swiped at the sweat on his temples with one hand. “If they show up at his door, they could be walking into a literal powder keg. On top of which, he might wind up too preoccupied with his own problems to talk to us about ours. We’ve got two dead people here and a bunch of hostages, and he’s not going to be willing to own up to his part in that. Jason, you silver-tongued devil, get the right cops in Tennessee on the line and tell them everything we’ve got. They’ll have to handle it as they see fit. They might even know the guy.”

Patrick took one more deep puff before tamping the butt on the bottom of his shoe. “I’d send someone to the sister as well. At least she’s got more incentive to help, if she wants her brother to live through the day.”