by Diana Palmer
Scotty pointed the gun at him and then, suddenly, shifted it to Dora, who walked out to see what the fuss was about.
“You slut!” he shouted at Dora. “You filthy slut! You killed my mother! She died because of you!”
Dora went white and caught the door facing.
“And you, you horny old fool, you were never home, and she’s why!” He laughed sarcastically at Dora. “She’s fat and old and ugly. Is that the best you could do?”
“Scotty, you need help,” Ward said, trying to be calm. He moved forward.
“Don’t,” Amanda cautioned him. “Don’t dare.”
Ward stopped. Scotty looked at her and blinked. He even smiled. “Smart lady. You’re Miss Todd.” He nodded. “He complains about you all the time. He says you’re trying to get his job. Good for you. He never does anything except watch television. When he isn’t humping the fat lady, that is.”
Dora went white and red alternately. “You don’t understand,” she said, her voice squeaking.
“You had a husband and two little kids,” he muttered. “Didn’t you think about them? Poor little kids, some mother they got!”
Dora bit her lip. “If you want to shoot me, go ahead,” she said hoarsely. “But you won’t...you won’t hurt my boys?”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Lady, you’re the one I came here to kill,” he said. He lifted the gun and pointed it at her. “Only you. This is for my poor mother, you stupid slut!”
Amanda knew that he was going to fire the gun. It was make a jump for it or watch Dora die.
She never knew where she got the strength to push forward and knock his arm just as he fired. The pistol, an automatic, discharged three times in the struggle, and the shots brought screams from two subscribers who’d just pulled up in the parking lot.
Scotty went wild. He swung the pistol barrel, catching Amanda’s shoulder, and knocked her down. He fired at the ceiling and the glass in the front window, shattering it.
Amanda stayed on the floor, cursing silently as she held her bruised shoulder and flinching at the shots. She couldn’t let him shoot Dora, but her action had caused something in his brain to snap. They were all going to die. She’d never see Josh again. She whispered his name and closed her eyes.
“Damn, damn, damn!” wailed Scotty. He backed up and grabbed Lisa around the neck, the pistol to her jaw. “Don’t come near me,” he said hysterically. “If you come near me, I’ll kill her!”
Everyone froze. Scotty backed away with Lisa until he reached the steps that led down through a hall into the print shop. He locked the door and then pushed Lisa away from him. He had them cornered, Amanda and Ward and Dora and Lisa, all at gunpoint, in the one office.
“Sit down,” he said, gesturing toward the floor as sirens approached. “Hurry!”
He was nervous and wild, and they knew better than to make him more nervous. The automatic held several shots, and he’d used only five. He had at least enough left, Amanda reasoned, to account for every one of his hostages.
A police car screeched to a halt in front of the building and a door opened. A voice called out to them through a bullhorn. “This is the police. Throw down your gun and come out with your hands in the air.”
“Fat chance!” Scotty yelled, and laughed. He was enjoying himself now. For the first time he had his old man in a tangle. “I’ve got hostages!” he called.
Amanda looked at Ward and could have cursed him blindly. It was going to be a long day.
* * *
JOSH FLEW IN from Nassau just after lunch, his head throbbing from too much business, to confront Ward Johnson about Dora. First he tried to find Amanda, without success. Next he tried Mirri, who had apparently gone off on her honeymoon; no one answered the telephone at her office.
Now, tired and irritable, he buzzed Dina. “Still no answer at Johnson’s office?” he asked.
“No, sir,” she replied. “I called the telephone company. They’re going to send someone out.”
He frowned. “Doesn’t it strike you as rather odd that the phone at a newspaper office would be out this long without it having been reported?”
“I wondered about that. There’s... Just a moment, sir.” After a pause she came back on the line, sounding not at all like her usual efficient self. “Mr. Lawson, it’s Ted. He wanted to know if you’d heard that some madman is holding the staff of the Gazette hostage.”
He was on his feet and in her office before she could repeat herself.
“I won’t be in this afternoon,” he said.
She watched him go out and turned back to the phone. “Ted, he’s on his way over there. Are they all right?”
“So far. The guy’s on dope and high as a kite. I’m sorry Amanda’s in there with him. It looks bad, Dina.”
“Poor Mr. Lawson,” she said softly.
* * *
SCOTTY WAS ENJOYING his play for power. He waved the gun around and watched with pure pleasure as his father chewed on a thumbnail. His mother had suffered because of this man. He wanted his father to know how it felt to be helpless and alone.
“This won’t accomplish anything,” Amanda said, holding the arm he’d injured as she sat against the wall with her colleagues. “You’ll only make things worse for yourself.”
“You talk too much,” he said.
“Someone hasn’t talked to you enough,” Amanda continued quietly. “Would your mother want you to do this?”
“Of course she would!” he exclaimed, astonished. “She hated him! He gave her nothing but heartache. This...woman of his was the last straw. She cried.” He seemed to puff up with outrage as he looked at his pale-faced father. “She cried, damn you!”
He pointed the pistol at Ward, who went paper white.
“Don’t shoot him,” Dora pleaded, sliding close to Ward. “Kill me, but don’t hurt your father!”
Ward looked at her, stunned that she cared that much. He didn’t know what to say, but his eyes were eloquent. “Dora, don’t, honey,” he said gently. “Don’t.”
“Why couldn’t you love my mother?” Scotty cried at him. The gun in his hand shook. “Why!”
Ward looked up at him. “Your mother never wanted me in the first place,” he said coldly. “She wanted money and position. I just wanted to run a country newspaper. I could never do anything right in her eyes.”
“She was a saint!”
“She was a selfish, whining drunk!” Ward raged. “And you know it! You’re heading down the same road she took, can’t you see?”
“I ought to blow a hole in you,” Scotty said with cold determination. He aimed the gun right at Ward’s chest. “It would be so easy. All I have to do is pull the trigger...”
“Scott Johnson!” called a voice through the bullhorn.
Scotty jerked around, wild-eyed. “What?!” he yelled.
“I’m the police negotiator,” came the reply. “I want to talk to you.”
“Yeah? What about?”
As he spoke, the power went off. The telephone had long since been shut down. Now the office went dark.
“Turn that back on!” Scotty yelled.
“Come out and talk to me,” the negotiator returned.
“Like hell!”
A big black limousine pulled up just past the roadblock, and Josh got out of it. He found the officer in charge and drew him to one side.
“I own this place,” he told the officer without pausing to elaborate. “There’s a back door through the print shop and a hallway that leads to the newspaper office where he’s holed up. If you’ve got a man who can pick a lock, you can get in behind him.”
“I’ve got one,” the watch commander said tersely.
“Are they all right in there?” Josh asked.
“So far, so good. We don’t know what he wants. He’s done some shooting, but we don’t think
he’s shot anyone yet.”
Josh’s face hardened. “Oh, God,” he said as thoughts of a wounded Amanda filled his head.
“Is there a gun in that office besides the one he’s got?” the watch commander asked.
“Not that I know of. The manager won’t have one in the building. I can sketch the layout for you, if it would help,” he offered, trying not to think about Amanda in that building with a madman. All around the streets, shopkeepers and pedestrians were trying to get a look across at the action. Motorists slowed as they passed the police and sheriff’s cars.
“It’s a sideshow,” the police officer muttered while Josh penciled in a notebook the man had produced.
“Just consider that he’s holed up in a newspaper office,” Josh replied with black humor. “What a story they’ll have when it’s over.”
“I hope they all get to write it.”
“My God, so do I,” Josh seconded.
He stood and smoked a cigar while the negotiator tried to talk Scotty out of the building. But Scotty was enjoying himself and wouldn’t budge. As the day wore on, though, he began to show signs of withdrawal, and he got more nervous by the minute.
“I need a drink,” he said uneasily at last. “Is there a bottle in here anywhere?”
“No. You know I hate liquor,” Ward said coldly.
He went to the door and yelled, “I want some liquor. Get me a bottle of whiskey. Now!”
“Finally,” the negotiator said on a sigh. “An opening!”
They sent for a bottle of whiskey. It was doctored first, of course. A new seal was put on so that it would look as if it hadn’t been tampered with. And if the boy was as desperate as he sounded, he wouldn’t be looking at it very closely.
“Are they crazy?” Lisa gasped when they put the bottle of whiskey next to the door and left. “They’re crazy!”
“No, they aren’t.” Scotty chuckled. “They’re smart. They know what I’ll do to you people if they don’t give me what I want. God, I need a drink!”
He eased to the door, looked out, and swept up the bottle. He checked the top. They couldn’t inject anything into a metal cap without it showing, and if they’d opened it, the tax seal would be broken. It wasn’t.
“Good boys,” he mused. He moved back inside and ripped off the seal. “Nice brand, too. High quality. I couldn’t afford this,” he added, glaring at his father.
Ward, who’d been a newspaperman for a long time, knew almost certainly what the police had done. He didn’t blink an eye.
“Don’t drink it,” he told his son. “You’ve had enough.”
It was a calculated risk, and it worked. Scotty glared at him and deliberately upended the bottle, swallowing two large mouthfuls.
Ward averted his eyes so that his son wouldn’t see his triumph.
“That’s pretty good.” Scotty nodded. “Pretty good.” He swallowed some more.
Ward checked his watch without being obvious. The stuff would take several minutes to work. He hoped everyone outside realized that and wouldn’t take any foolish chances.
Amanda’s arm was throbbing. She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. It all seemed unreal somehow, except for the throbbing of her shoulder. Only days before she’d been in Josh’s arms for one long night, touching heaven. Now she was faced with death. She remembered too well what Josh had said to her at the last. If it was true, and all he felt for her was desire, he probably didn’t miss her at all. She’d die, and his life would go on without interruption. That hurt most of all.
“I’m very sorry,” Dora managed through tears as she looked at the others. “It’s my fault.”
“No, it isn’t,” Ward said. He clasped her hand in his. “We were looking for something we’d never had, and we had the misfortune to find it in each other. I’m sorry, too, but nothing’s really changed except that Gladys is dead.”
“And you’re glad, aren’t you?” Scotty demanded, red-faced.
“I’m glad for her, Scotty,” he said simply. “She was unhappy, and she made everyone around her unhappy as well. Maybe now she’s at peace.”
“You wouldn’t care if she was. You never loved her!”
“Actually, I loved her very much when we married,” he replied. “But I wanted a child, and she didn’t. I took away her choices,” he added quietly. “She tried to have an abortion, but I found out and stopped her. She never forgave me. She got even in ways you can’t imagine. Once, she told me that you weren’t even my child. She had other men, Scotty,” he said, hating to admit it in front of his coworkers. “She had plenty of them.”
“You’re lying!” Scotty burst out. He raised the gun again. “You take that back! She wasn’t like that! She was my mother and she loved me!”
“She loved using you against me,” he corrected. “And she did a good job of it. Look at you. You’re her image, right down to the drunken stagger!”
Scotty lost his grip on the gun, and it fired accidentally. The bullet ripped into the wall just an inch above his father’s head.
Outside, Josh froze at the sound. His heart shook him, and he seemed to stop breathing. “Amanda...” he choked, terrified.
The hostage negotiator and the police officer in charge exchanged glances. “Bill, see if you can get a glimpse inside the office!”
An officer with binoculars homed in on the glass window. He didn’t see blood. “It’s all right,” he said. “And the bottle’s open. He’s drinking from it.”
“That’s one break,” muttered the officer in charge. “But it’s going to take another few minutes for that drug to work, and he’s got ants in his pants. If we wait much longer, he may decide to shoot somebody.”
He considered for a minute while Josh clenched his teeth in impotent anguish.
“We go in,” the policeman said quietly. “Carefully, but we go in.”
“Couldn’t you call in the SWAT team?” Josh muttered.
The policeman smiled at him. “What do you think we are, daisies?” he mused. “I started out with the SWAT team. Hawkins, with me,” he said, motioning to another officer.
They put on flak jackets and armed themselves with shotguns. Josh felt sick to the soles of his shoes as he considered the consequences. All his arguments against marrying Amanda vanished as he wrestled with the nightmare of her predicament. He loved her. That was all that mattered anymore. If she loved him enough to marry him, he was ready. Past ready. If she died now, how would he bear it? The law enforcement people started to move. He stopped them, worried.
“The drug should work, shouldn’t it?” he asked.
“Listen,” the officer said sympathetically, “this kid is used to drugs. It will probably be less effective on him than it would be on a nonuser. You don’t want us to bet those people’s lives that it’s going to work in time?”
He sighed wearily. “No. I don’t.”
The officer clapped him on the shoulder. “Trust me. I’ve done this since I was in my early twenties.” He had to be forty now, Josh observed, and found he was less worried than he had been.
The police squad moved in. Incredibly, the entire operation took less than three minutes from beginning to end. They entered through the print shop and stealthily picked the lock that led into the Gazette office. Outside, as arranged, a squad car siren went off at a designated time to camouflage the soft noise picking the lock made. Then, simultaneously, the men armed with shotguns stormed in behind a shattered Scotty.
There were shots.
Josh cursed roundly and made a break toward the door, but two of the officers caught and held him, cursing and white-faced.
“Just stand still,” one policeman told him. “You won’t help by walking into a bullet.”
A minute, a very long minute, later, the front door of the Gazette opened. “All clear!” the police officer called from the doorway. �
��No fatalities!”
Josh slumped. “Oh, God,” he breathed, and as the officers let him go, he ran for the front door. They weren’t going to stop him this time, not if he had to tackle someone!
He got past the uniformed men and found Amanda on the floor, holding her arm. He knelt in front of her and touched her with shaking hands.
“Oh, baby,” he whispered. “I’ve been out of my mind!”
“Josh? Josh!” She reached up with her good arm and felt him hold her so close that her ribs ached. She clung, whispering to him, her voice breaking as she gave in to the strain of the past few hours and began to weep.
The others were led outside and turned over to the paramedics. Scotty had a flesh wound in one arm, and there was a rather large hole in the wall where he’d been standing. The sedative in the whiskey had finally taken effect. He was being led away. He didn’t look at his father, who was standing with his arms around Dora, almost in shock.
“Was it bad?” Josh asked her.
“It could have been much worse,” Amanda said.
Josh looked at Ward Johnson and then at Dora. “He’s your son, I gather,” he said, his eyes blazing with fury as he held Amanda.
“Yes,” Ward replied. That look made his knees go weak. He pulled Dora closer. “My wife died and he blamed me. And Dora.”
“I blame you and Dora myself,” Josh said icily. “If you have one shred of sense left, you’ll get out of my sight while you still can. If anything had happened to Amanda, hell itself wouldn’t have been far enough away to save you.”
Ward had never seen that look in another man’s eyes. He pulled a shocked, sick Dora out the door and never looked back.
Lisa was being comforted by Tim and Vic and Jenny, who’d been at lunch when Scotty invaded the office. Lisa was giving them an abbreviated version of the standoff.
Josh got Amanda to her feet and lifted her in his big arms. “Let’s get you taken care of, sprite,” he said softly. His face was still pale, but he was smiling.
“Wow,” Jenny was whispering to Lisa as she spotted Josh. “Who’s the hunk?”
“Your boss,” Josh said with a teasing glance in her direction. “But I’m already spoken for. And flattery will not keep you at your desk. Get a camera, for God’s sake, and start asking questions! Where’s your sense of exclusivity?”