even got himself a Tac-Vest. Feels confident. Sure, it leaves his legs exposed, but the worst that could happen is getting his knee blown away. Even then, there’s plenty of time to kill the boy.”
He looked at Johnson. “The security video…what was the suspected gunman wearing?”
“Jeans, sneakers, long baggy UCLA sweatshirt and a matching cap pulled down low,” came the response. “Wearing a backpack. Must have had the gun concealed inside it.”
“Smart prick,” Lewis muttered. “Went in prepared. What’s everyone’s take? Are we wearing him down at all?”
The team members were silent for a moment. “He’s tiring,” Jolie said finally. “And the exchange is an important concession.”
“He’s playing ball,” Dace agreed. “But I’m not ready to claim we’re anywhere near breaking him down yet.”
Dr. Ryder agreed. “He still feels in control. The decision to release the hostages was his, made on his terms. I don’t think he’s an imminent threat. But he does still believe he’s walking out of there with the cash.”
Lewis nodded. “I’ll let command center know about the hostage release.” He slipped out of the back door of the vehicle.
Herb Johnson had his head down, listening to a voice on his mike. “He’s disappeared down the hallway again,” he reported.
“There’s only the vice-president’s office and the vault down that way,” Sharper interjected. “Our guess about keeping the hostages in the vault must be right.”
Johnson bent his head, listening to his earpiece intently. “He’s marching a man toward the door. Has the kid draped over his shoulders still. The boy is crying.”
Dace shot a glance at Jolie, but she wasn’t looking at him. Studying her profile, however, he could see that the muscles in her jaw were tight. The involvement of the boy was hard on her. Odd how he could read her emotions better now than he’d been able to eighteen months earlier. She’d shut down then. They both had. And when he’d lashed out at her for her seeming lack of feeling, he’d been lashing out as much at himself. At fate. At a cruel God that had snatched away his greatest joy.
Just the memory of the accusation he’d leveled sent a burn of shame through him. Unable to reach her emotionally, he’d reacted with anger. Anger was about the only feeling that hadn’t hurt back then.
But it had hurt her. Them. Because a few short weeks after Sammy’s funeral, she’d left. And then there’d been no reaching her at all.
“The first hostage is out,” Johnson reported. He listened a few more seconds before continuing, “It’s a man. Naked. And inside the HT’s allowing one man and one woman to use the restrooms while he watches. He doesn’t leave himself exposed.”
The hostage would be given a blanket and led to the command center for debriefing. He could have valuable information about the gunman inside. And they had to be certain the released man was indeed a hostage, and not the HT himself, mounting a bold escape.
“He’s showing concern for the hostages,” Dr. Ryder said with a degree of relief. “Holding them in the vault kept them separate from the HT. Made it easier for him to avoid seeing them as human. This may be a very good sign.”
“Might be a good time to distract him with a call,” Sharper suggested.
“Go ahead and try,” Dace told Jolie. But he knew the HT wasn’t going to answer right now. The man was too smart for that.
But then, maybe he was giving this guy too much credit. How smart could he really be if he still thought there was any way he was going to be allowed to walk away from this thing?
Twenty minutes crawled by, with Johnson relaying the intel about the activity inside. The HT had worked his way through most of the captives before a rap sounded at the double back doors.
They were pulled open, revealing Lewis’s grim demeanor. Behind him Dace could see several unfamiliar faces, and his stomach took a nosedive. The effing-B-I had arrived.
“Officers.” The dispassionate tone was belied by the fury glittering in the man’s eyes. “The feds have decided to crash the party. They’ll be taking over negotiations.”
Chapter Three
It was more than a little anticlimactic to be relegated to onlooker after taking an active role in neutralizing the situation. Dace stood a few feet away from Jolie, near the edge of the inner perimeter, chafing at the change. An hour had ticked by since they’d briefed the feds and left the NOC unit. If they hadn’t been ordered by Lewis to stand by, he’d have gone back to the precinct to duty. At least there he’d be allowed to do something productive. There was no way the feds were going to accept help from the locals.
“Hey, Jolie!”
Dace turned his head to see Ron Wetzel, a sergeant from Jolie’s old precinct, pause as he was hurrying by.
“I didn’t know you were back in these parts. Had enough of busting movie stars and director wannabes and came back to the real people, huh?”
“You guessed it, Ron.” There was none of the guardedness in her tone that was present when she spoke to Dace. Her voice was friendly. “The glamour got to be too much for me. Give me a barricade any day over taking burglary complaints from self-important wine growers.”
“Where were you assigned there?”
Dace listened unabashedly to their conversation, more interested in her answers than he wanted to admit.
“Fifth precinct. Partnered with Selma Garcia. You know her?”
“I don’t think so.” Someone nearby shouted the man’s name, and he started to move away. “Hey, come on down to the Blue Lagoon sometime. See some of the guys.”
“I’ll do that. Tell everyone hello for me.”
“You got it.”
Dace kept his gaze trained on the bank, what he could see of it from this distance. So the rumor he’d heard had been right. She’d gone from here to the LAPD. He’d asked around after she’d moved out. After he found she’d changed her cell-phone number and left her job. Officers in her old precinct had been pretty closemouthed, but he’d heard she might have headed to LA. And that had been the end of it. Hard to find someone in a city of four million who obviously hadn’t wanted to be found. At least not by him.
That’s when the bitterness had swamped him and he’d forced himself to stop thinking about her for good.
At least he’d given it a damn good try.
But those efforts were going to be shot to hell if he had to see her every time they were called out to an incident. Metro City PD was large enough for them to coexist without running into each other often. With a population of half a million and a police force of over eight hundred, she could have been back in the city a year without them ever bumping into each other.
But instead, they’d been thrown together on the same HNT unit, requiring them to work closely together on volatile incidents. Which only went to prove yet again that fate was a fickle bitch with a mean sense of humor.
“What happened to Rob Marlow?”
Her question interrupted his dark thoughts. He and Marlow had been paired on HNT for three years, and the man had been his mentor in incident response.
“Took his twenty and out last month. He and his wife are moving to Burbank. And Thompson took a promotion and left HNT in January.”
“Burbank?” Her voice sounded as incredulous as he’d felt when his partner had relayed the news. “What are they—”
“So are you going to ask to be reassigned, or am I?” He didn’t glance in her direction, but knew she’d heard him.