Shoot / Don't Shoot

The lie seemed to come easily. He played along, all the while looking daggers at Joanna with the same hard-edged stare he had used on Leann Jes­sup at the end of the candlelight vigil.

“Anyone care for a drink?” a cocktail waitress asked.

“Sure,” Jim Bob said. “If you don’t mind, the wife and I will join you. We’ll both have coffee, black.”

“You’d better get back to your friend on the phone,” Larry said. “She’ll think you’ve forgotten all about her. Tell her to come here and we’ll talk.”

Joanna walked back to the phone. “What took you so long?” Carol demanded.

“My in-laws showed up. They’re sitting there chatting with us. They’ve ordered coffee.”

“Get rid of them,” Carol said, repeating verbatim the same thing Larry had said. “I’ve called for backup. The SWAT team is gearing up, but it’ll take a little while to get everybody in place. They’ll take up strategic positions outside the hotel. Cars should be on the scene within two minutes. I told them no lights, no sirens. Nobody’s to try going inside until I give the word, and I’m leaving my office now. Can you tell if he’s armed?”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell for sure, but most likely.”

“That’s my guess, too. Are you?”

“Yes.”

“Good girl. Hang in there, Joanna. Believe me, everybody here’s on top of this thing. We’re getting a search warrant for both his house and vehicle. And don’t worry. No matter what happens, we’ll find those girls.”

“You’d better,” Joanna said, but it was a hollow threat, fueled by desperation and hopelessness and nothing else.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Joanna hung up the phone and started back toward the congenial-looking group gathered in front of the poinsettia-banked fireplace. As she walked, the physical weight of the Colt under her jacket was almost as heavy as the terrible weight of responsibility pressing against her heart.

This time it was no dream. Wide awake now, she was back in her worst shoot/don’t shoot night­mare—with Jenny in danger and with people she loved sitting directly in the line of fire. Carol Strong and her backup officers were riding to the rescue, but none of them knew this lobby layout as well as Joanna did. And if Dysart caught a glimpse of cops taking up positions outside, he might turn a gaily decorated hotel lobby into a killing zone.

While Joanna had been on the phone, a school bus had pulled up outside the hotel entrance. Now with whoops of laughter, a crowd of thirty or so teenagers, all of them carrying luggage, swarmed into the lobby. At the sight of all those kids, something came together in Joanna’s heart—an urgency and a determination that hadn’t been there before. As a police officer and as a parent, she had a moral obligation to do something to prevent a gun battle from erupting in a room packed with other peo­ple’s innocent children. Ready or not, the way to do that was to stop the battle before it ever had a chance to start.

Joanna was almost back at her chair when the cocktail waitress arrived carrying cups, saucers, and a pot of coffee on a tray. Seeing an opening, Joanna paused, letting the waitress step in front of her.

“Carol’s coming,” she said to Larry, carefully es­tablishing and maintaining eye contact with him as she continued forward. “She’ll be here in just a few minutes.”

As Joanna stepped around the waitress, she reached out and snagged the coffeepot’s handle. With one smooth movement, Joanna shoved the waitress out of the way and sent the glass coffeepot and its steaming contents hurtling past Jim Bob’s startled face. It landed, upside down, in Larry Dy­sart’s lap.

He screamed and lurched to his feet, shattering the pot as