“What?” I shook my head in disbelief. “Why now? I had him talking.”
“You did great,” she replied. “No one is saying you didn’t, Rowan. However, where the rules of hostage negotiation are concerned, they had already blurred the lines a hell of a lot more than I’ve ever seen them do before. The only reason they let him talk to you for so long was so they could gather information and get SWAT into position.”
“Dammit!” I yelped. “If they try to go in there again, he’s going to kill her!”
“They know, Rowan, they know.” She held up her hands and motioned me to settle. “Believe me, that is the last thing they want.”
“Well, he told me what he wants,” I returned. “Me for her. Why don’t we…”
“Not happenin’, Row,” Ben announced in a stern voice, verbally inserting a period into my sentence well before I had planned to be finished with it. “Just forget that crap right now.”
“That’s one of the reasons the line was terminated when it was,” Constance told me, adding a shake of her head. “He started to negotiate a deal with you, and that is something the HNT is not going to let happen.”
“It’s one of the commandments in the hostage negotiation bible, white man,” Ben told me. “Thou shalt not trade one hostage for another. No ifs, ands, or buts.”
“So where does this leave us?” I demanded. “He’s just going to escalate if they cut him off from me.”
“You don’t know that, Row,” Ben replied.
“The hell I don’t!” I said. “I’ve talked to this sonofabitch more than any of you. I’d really appreciate it if everyone would just stop telling me what I do and don’t know!”
“Rowan.” Felicity’s voice hit me at the same time she slipped around Ben and came into my view. Her eyes were damp with the tears she was fighting hard to contain. “Let them handle it. Please?”
I leaned back and closed my eyes. My headache was back, and it was hammering away with a vengeance, all the while making sneak attacks on parts of my brain I didn’t know I had. Something-or someone-was still knocking around at my ethereal perimeter, relentlessly looking for a way in. My best friend was willing to handcuff me to something stationary in order to keep me out of a mess that, whether he liked it or not, I was already at the center of. I couldn’t remember everything I had shouted at Constance, but I was betting I owed her an apology. Finally, and worst of all, my wife had every reason to believe that left unchecked, I would make her a widow.
Actually, I take that back. The worst part was that she was probably correct.
I don’t know if I had left anything out, but the laundry list was already several items too long for me to be comfortable with, so I was in no hurry to add to it. I knew for a fact that I had definitely been on the receiving end of better days than this, and I was longing for one of them right now.
I heaved out a sigh and reached up to massage my temples. “Look, all of you, I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re not exactly getting to see me at my best.”
“S’alright, Kemosabe,” Ben replied. “We know you’re under a lotta pressure. That’s pretty much why I haven’t decked your ass yet.”
“How fortunate for me,” I quipped.
“I’m thinkin’ maybe, yeah, it is,” he said with a grin.
“So what do we do now?” I asked.
“We relax and wait for this to all be over,” Constance advised. “Then you try your best to forget this day ever happened.”
“You know I can’t do that,” I replied.
“We can try,” Felicity pleaded.
“Honey…” I reached for her, and she slipped past Ben to melt into me. Her own energy was a chaotic turmoil, and it blended easily with mine, leaving us both unbalanced and preternaturally askew.
“It’s all but over, Rowan,” Ben offered. “They’re gonna take this asshole down. No two ways about it. He’ll go out in cuffs or a body bag. His choice.”
“I understand that,” I told him. “But what about Star? What if SHE is the one who ends up in a body bag?”
“That’s why HNT has the ball now,” Constance answered. “It is their job to keep that from happening.”
“But, they have to understand that I am who he wants,” I returned in a matter-of-fact tone. “There’s no other bargaining for them to do.”
“Believe me, Rowan, they know that,” she assured me. “But that is simply not how things are done.”
Her phone chirped again. I had lost count of the number of phone calls coming in and out of this apartment throughout this evening, so this was just another to add on to the pile.
“Mandalay,” she answered, speaking into the device almost as soon as she flipped it open.
We all stood there, gathered in the kitchenette as if seeking some type of comfort within our small clutch. Safety in numbers, shared empathy, I don’t know. I couldn’t tell if it was actually working or just feeding the tension.
The expectant silence grew, as our only access to even her side of the conversation came in the form of reflexive nods occasionally coupled with scattered “yes’s” and “uh-huh’s.” After a trio of minutes, during which our edgy anticipation swelled into a thick bubble around us, she finally uttered something more than a monosyllabic response.
“Are you absolutely sure?” she asked whoever was at the other end of the line, her features creasing into a frown. “You want both of them? No, I’m sure he will be agreeable to it. Okay. Thanks, bye.”
She closed the cover on the silver device and clipped it back to her belt before looking at all of us. Then she allowed her gaze to center on me.
“That was the HNT,” she said. “The lead hostage negotiator wants us to bring you and Felicity to the scene.”
CHAPTER 30:
A gelid rush of foreboding injected itself directly into my heart and spread quickly through veins and arteries with each successive beat. My entire body took on a frightening chill. Hollowness filled my chest, and after a moment, my brain pointed out that I wasn’t bothering to breathe. I released my mental grip on the feeling of icy terror and allowed my autonomic reflexes to continue once again unimpeded.
Even though I’m certain that my heart had never actually stopped beating, I would swear that I felt it stutter a bit as it seemed to restart.
I looked at Agent Mandalay and then slowly shook my head. “Call him back and tell him I said no.”
“Do what?” Ben asked with confusion in his voice.
“But, Rowan, I thought you…” Constance began.
“Me, yes,” I cut her off. “Felicity, no way. She’s not getting anywhere near that sick bastard.”
“Rowan…” Felicity brought her head up as she spoke.
“Listen, Row, the scene is secure,” Ben offered.
“I don’t care,” I returned. “What do they want her there for anyway?”
“To interview,” Mandalay said. “The same reason they want you.”
“Interview about what?”
“Porter,” she returned. “He called her today, so she’s had direct contact with him as well. You need to understand, Rowan, the HNT looks for every piece of information they can possibly use. No matter how insignificant you may think it seems, they want to know about it.”
“Fine. Then she can tell them everything he said to her by phone if they want to know that badly,” I asserted.
“Rowan,” Felicity interjected again. “You’ll not be going without me then.”
“Honey, you know as well as I do what Porter has done. I’m not willing to take the chance.”
“Aye, but I am.”
I shook my head vigorously. “No, Felicity, I can’t accept that.”
“Rowan,” Mandalay began, “I can understand your concern, but think about it. There are over two dozen police officers on the scene, and that isn’t even counting FBI and SWAT. Now, where else could Felicity be
