his patience. He stared at the laces of his tennis shoes and the hem of his jeans, which rode half an inch up his ankle. “You can trust me. Just toss me the gun and it’ll all be over. You’ll be safe,” he finished calmly, as though he were encouraging the boy to throw a baseball.
There was no answer.
“You know what happened when the dog went to the flea market?” he asked, his nonchalant tone belying the intensity with which he studied the screen. “He stole the show.”
Timing was the key to survival. The longer he could stall the harried boy, the more chance he had of talking him down. Or at least getting little Marissa out of there.
Though he could see the two kids, he still listened attentively. The little girl’s unnatural quiet bothered him. The resiliency and adaptability of children was amazing, but Marissa’s mind was going to catch up with her eventually.
Maybe today. Maybe ten years from now.
And it was going to be hell for her when it did.
“Tell me what you want, James.”
“You got that dog?”
“Like I said, I’m working on it.” Turning to the officer on his right, Jack whispered, “Get me a dog.”
Nodding, the young man took off at a trot.
“What else?” he asked. A dog was not the reason the kid had barged into a classroom brandishing a gun. Jack would bet his life it wasn’t the reason he’d cleared out everyone but the four-year-old child he now held hostage.
“I want my little sister back,” James said. He still had the gun on the child, but he’d turned toward the window. Looking for Jack?
“Where is she?’
“In a foster home.”
Jack scanned the paper he’d been given. There was nothing about a broken family there. With raised brows, he glanced around at the officers surrounding him. They shrugged, shook their heads. The school principal was there. When Jack met his eye, he nodded.
Shit. It was information he should’ve had an hour ago.
“So, Mr. Hotshot Cop, you gonna make the trade? You gonna bring me my sister?”
Chances were he couldn’t. But Jack wasn’t going to tell the kid no. Number-one rule of engagement—never tell the perpetrator no. The word signified endings.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, instead.
“Yeah, you do that.”
Marissa was crying. Jack couldn’t hear her, but he saw a tear drip off her chin.
James saw it, too. The boy stared at the teardrop for a long moment. And bent down to wipe the little girl’s cheeks.
She glanced up at her captor, terror on her face, before her expression once again went blank.
Jack took a deep breath. Calmed the shudders rushing through him. “Hey, James, you ready to come out?” he asked. “We’ll do everything we can to get your sister back, I promise.”
“Yeah, right.” There was no mistaking the boy’s bitterness. “I’ve heard that before. I’ve waited almost a year.”
“But I’m here now,” Jack said. “And I promise I won’t leave until I’ve gotten to the bottom of this.”
“Don’t screw with me, man,” the boy said. “I know how it works. As soon as you get this kid, they put handcuffs on me and adios.. You’re gone, never to be heard from again. And Brittney’s left with some guy who slaps her for wanting more than one glass of milk at dinner.”
Lowering his head, Jack felt the ache of years’ worth of struggle climbing up the back of his neck. An officer handed him a couple of typed paragraphs on a computer printout. Information he should’ve had an hour ago, except that the boy’s mother hadn’t thought it was pertinent.
James’s mother had never been married. Had had several live-in boyfriends, but only two children, James and Brittney. By two different fathers. Neither father was in the picture. Ms. Talmadge had lost custody of her three-year-old daughter because of repeated abuse. And since Child Protective Services was attempting to place Brittney in a permanent home with a new family, James had been denied visitation rights.
“How do you know her foster father slaps her?”
“She told me.”
“You’ve seen her?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“I go by her day care sometimes. Talk to her through the fence. Now, I mean it, man, get me Brittney—and a dog—and I’ll make the trade.” He jabbed the gun at Marissa’s throat.
“You know why the dog didn’t speak to his hind foot?”
James turned toward the window. “What’s with the jokes, man?”
“The dog didn’t speak to his foot because it’s not polite to talk back to your paw.”
The skinny teenager shook his head, but his shoulders visibly relaxed.
Jack checked the list. He asked James a couple of questions about various friends named there. About the volleyball team he played on. James’s only response was to adjust the gun at Marissa’s throat. His hand was shaking.
“You know why dogs wag their tails?”
James looked at the window.
“Because no one else will do it for them.”
The kid gave a disgusted snort. He was still looking in the direction of Jack’s voice.
“You know how to tell if you have a stupid dog?”
Carefully monitoring the activity around him, waiting for the appearance of the dog, Jack continued sitting on the ground as though nothing was going on.
“It chases parked cars,” he said.
The little girl was lying still, her cheek pressed to the tile of the classroom floor. Her eyes were open, unmoving, staring vacantly at the floor.
“James, tell me again how you think holding Marissa is going to help you get Brittney?”
“Because it’s an even trade. A little girl for a little girl,” he spat.
Although this emotionally disturbed kid’s thinking was clearly twisted, there was no doubting his confidence in this theory he’d worked out.
The entire team of uniformed men and women were watching Jack. And the monitor. They were standing by in case Jack ran out of time. Waiting for a signal from him to move in.
James leaned back against a desk. It slid, toppled, caught the boy on the ankle.
From the open window Jack heard the crash. An angrily whispered Shit.
“James? You okay in there?”
“Like you care.”
“Believe it or not, I do care.” And he did. In an objective sense, as an observer. It was what made him so good at his job. He had to care. Because if he didn’t, he’d never be able to reach his perpetrators.
If he didn’t find a way to empathize, he’d lose his sanity by hating.
Hating every single person like James who put innocent people in danger.
Hating the young man who’d aimed his gun at Melissa’s chest and—
No! He knew better than that. He had a job to do.
For the poor distraught woman who stood only a few yards away from him trembling in the arms of a young blond man in business attire. Slacks. A tie. White shirt. His expression was a mixture of fear and unadulterated rage. He must be the