accidentally “crossed the tube” and walked into the sniper’s line of fire as he pulled the trigger.
She held the phone out in her left hand so Bobby Joe could see it. What he couldn’t see was the microphone in her right ear that relayed instructions from Captain Leo.
Liz’s heart banged against her ribs, and bile threatened to choke her. She badly needed to go to the bathroom. All those Kegel exercises she’d done had better pay off now, because she didn’t have time to drop her drawers in the azalea bushes. Not in front of the TACT team or the television trucks. The latter might be out of range of bullets, but she definitely wasn’t out of range of their long-distance lenses. She fought down a hysterical giggle.
She walked slowly up the drive into the lengthening shadows. She’d been negotiating with Bobby Joe for four hours now, ever since the neighbor had called 911 to report that he had come back home to convince Marlene not to divorce him.
That he’d recognized Liz’s voice from high school had been bad luck, particularly when he’d refused to change negotiators. Personal history could have a deadly effect on a negotiation. Captain Leo had once allowed a taker’s preacher to speak to him. After the minister called down the wrath of God on the guy and said he’d roast in hell for eternity, Captain Leo had physically yanked him away from the microphone. On that occasion, Liz had spent the next twenty-two hours trying to talk the taker into giving up. She had, but it had been close.
Never under ordinary circumstances would a negotiator have walked into plain view, Kevlar or not. She was supposed to be a faceless, nameless voice on a line. The sympathetic everyman, or in this case, everywoman.
But here she was, walking unarmed up a driveway toward an unstable man with a rifle. Liz regularly ran five miles with little effort, yet now she was panting after twenty yards. She could smell her own sweat mingled with the metallic stench of the Kevlar. The vest pressed on her shoulder blades. The steel pad in the center, over her heart, felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds. She shrugged, but didn’t dare put her hands down to adjust the vest.
“Okay, Bobby Joe, I’m here. Send them out,” she called.
For a long moment nothing happened, then the front door opened barely enough for the thin child to slip through. The door shut quickly behind her, but not before the fading light glinted off the barrel of a rifle.
Uncertain, the girl stood on the porch, her eyes on her ragged sneakers. Despite the cold, she wore only a thin T-shirt and grimy jeans two sizes too big. Her dirty face was streaked with tears.
“Come on, Sally Jean, honey,” Liz said softly. “It’s all right, baby girl. Just come on down the steps to Liz.” She held out her arms. The child moved hesitantly down the porch steps.
Where was Marlene? Liz glanced at the door. She hadn’t heard a word from the woman in over an hour.
She had a bad feeling about this. It was imperative that she get the kid to safety, then go back for Marlene. If she was alive.
The child looked up at her with terrified eyes and began to stumble toward her. Liz started to kneel to gather her up when she caught movement from the corner of her eye.
The door opened again. Marlene?
No! God. The rifle. Bobby Joe was going to shoot her. As she stared, openmouthed, the barrel of the gun swung across and down.
He was aiming at Sally Jean! His own daughter! He’d sworn he’d kill her before he’d let her go. Liz had failed. He’d chosen to kill them all rather than surrender.
Liz swept the child into her arms and spun to shield her with her own body.
Sally Jean screamed and fought, arms and legs flailing, as Liz ran crookedly toward the command post.
She felt the first impact in the middle of her back before she heard the soprano ping of the rifle shot.
As she fell forward, two other thuds hit her between the shoulder blades. Worse than a mule kick. Much worse.
No breath. She’d crush the child….
Another ping. Pain seared her hip.
And all hell broke loose. As she went down on top of Sally Jean, she heard the thuds of running boots, the shouts of the TACT squad, a barrage of gunfire.
Hands grabbed her under her armpits, swept the child away from her, dragged her toward the command post, hauled her up the steps and dropped her facedown on the floor.
Captain Leo was talking to someone. She heard his voice through a halo of pain. She managed to turn her head to stare up into the grizzled face of Bill Lansing, head of TACT.
“Is she okay?” Her own voice sounded strangled.
“The kid? Yeah.”
“Am I dying?”
He laughed at her. Actually laughed, the bastard!
“Not unless one of your broken ribs punctured a lung.” Then he was gone and Captain Leo took his place. Her leg felt warm and wet.
“Three in the back of the vest, Liz.”
“I’m bleeding, I can feel it.”
“Oh, yeah. That. Flesh wound. Graze. Couple of inches over and you’d have a brand-new asshole.” He grasped her hand hard. “If you had to act like a goddamn hero, couldn’t you have managed it without getting shot in the butt in front of a dozen television cameras?”
CHAPTER TWO
SIX WEEKS LATER Liz shifted carefully on the wooden chair in the Cold Case interrogation room. Her rear end could still send a shock of pain through her if she moved the wrong way.
“Want to tell me about it?” Liz asked the obviously terrified young man who sat across the beat-up table. She could tell he longed to talk. He was barely out of his teens. He’d been seventeen when he’d shot one of his friends.
He’d been sitting in the “perp seat” for over two hours now. The front two legs had been shortened an inch and a half so that the chair canted slightly forward. Suspects were uncomfortable without knowing precisely why.
Liz kept her voice soft, gentle and understanding. One thing she’d learned from her negotiator’s training was that the key to getting a suspect to confess or a taker to give up was to exude empathy.
She’d left Leroy alone for thirty minutes while he ate his burger and drank his cola. Through the two-way mirror she’d watched him finish the food, lay his head on the table and fall asleep.
“Gotcha!” she’d whispered. Suspects frequently fell asleep the moment they were left alone, as though suddenly released from the tension of trying to get away with whatever crime they’d committed. Now, seated once more on the other side of the table, she leaned forward and regarded him sadly.
His words tumbled out. “Man, I never mean to kill Skag,” Leroy whined. “He my runnin’ buddy. He just be in the way. It was a accident. See, I mean to shoot Marbles.” He raised his eyes. He no longer looked frightened; he looked much put-upon. “Man, I ain’t goin’ to jail for no accident.”
He
