Ryan nodded, and cleared his throat.
Maggie turned from Ellis Van Vleet onto 24th Avenue. She had been driving in a grid, but focusing on streets where she knew there were some empty buildings, especially houses.
Coco sat up right in the back, looking out the window like she knew what they were looking for.
She waited for a white Escort to pull into its driveway, then started moving south. A lot of the lots on 24th were deep, with a great deal of mature trees, and she tried to focus on going slowly enough to see beyond all the vegetation.
She’d gone two blocks when her phone buzzed on the passenger seat. She glanced over to see that it was Wyatt. She reached over and tapped at her phone to connect, unable to help remembering all the warnings she’d given the kids about texting while driving.
“Hey,” she said on speaker.
“Hey, he’s on Facebook live. Right now,” Wyatt said. “Where are you?”
“Crap! On 24th. Let me find a place to pull over,” she said.
She drove another hundred feet, checked her rearview, and then yanked the Jeep over onto the swale. She heard Coco’s nails scrape against the leather, heard her tags jingle as she slid sideways in the seat. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Coco was okay, then she slammed the Jeep into park and picked up the phone. She took herself off speaker. “Okay, what’s he saying? Is Sky there?”
“Slow down. It’s over,” Wyatt said, “But Myles recorded it. We won’t have the comments, but we’ll have the video. But she’s not in it, Maggie.”
“Did you watch it?”
“No, I’m on my way over to the airport. I’m gonna start looking over there. I’ll take the east side, and Quincy’s starting on the west. We still don’t know if she’s in that tower’s range. We’re working on pinging his phone, but—”
“I want to see it,” she said.
“I know, just hold on.”
He put her on hold and had just come back on line when her phone buzzed.
“He just sent you a link to Google or Drive or some crap,” Wyatt said, the tension in his voice getting thicker. “Go ahead and look at it. I’m coming off the bridge into town.”
“Okay.”
Maggie disconnected him, then clicked on the text message. It took her to Dropbox. She clicked on the video, and there was Ryan again. He was farther away from the camera this time, at least six or eight feet. Someone was holding that phone.
“Mom, I just have a minute,” Ryan said. If possible, he looked worse than he had the last time. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m really sorry about—”
Maggie hit stop and stared at the wall behind him, at the graffiti scrawled all over it.
At the graffiti that was just above and to the right of his head.
She thumbed back to her home screen, tapped her phone open, and called Wyatt back.
“Yeah.”
“Wyatt, I know where she is!”
“Where?”
“She’s in that old trailer on Oyster Road!”
“Oyster Road,” he mumbled. “Where the hell is that?”
“Right off of Brownsville,” she said. “It’s the next left after you pass West Pine.”
“How do you know she’s there?” In the background, Maggie heard someone honking.
“The graffiti. That wall you saw, he’s in front of it,” she said. “It says Bella was here, in big blue letters.”
“Sky’s Bella?”
“Yes! Do you remember about three or four years ago, when I busted Sky and Bella? They were supposed to be staying at Bella’s and her Mom didn’t know anything about it when I called. We finally got one of their other friends to cop that they went with some older kids to this place on Oyster Road.”
“Hold on,” Wyatt said. “Okay, what’s the address?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to look on Google Maps. If you take Brownsville west, the first left after West Pine is Oyster. It’s just a bunch of scrubby woods, but the next curve, like a block down, there’s a beat to hell trailer. That’s where it is.”
“I’m calling it in. Wait for me. I’m five minutes away.”
“No. I’ll call you when I get there.”
“Maggie.”
“I’m not going in, Wyatt, but I’m going. There’s good visibility of the road from the trailer, so everybody needs to either pull into the back of the lot across the road, or come from the other way and park in those woods.”
She checked her side mirror, then glanced in the rearview at Coco. “Hold on, baby.” Coco sat down.
Maggie checked the traffic again, then pulled back onto 24th. She was two minutes away. There was no point in using the siren. Ryan would hear it as well as anybody.
“Maggie.”
“I’ll see you in a few minutes.” She just caught his ‘dammitall’ before she disconnected.
She went faster than she wanted to know about all the way down Brownsville, slowing only when she came to the intersection with West Pine. This end of Brownsville was primarily undeveloped, save for a few businesses, and storage parks. She was the only one on the road until she turned off it.
The trailer was located about a block down, right in the curve where the road eased to the left. Her best place to go was the undeveloped land on the right side of Oyster; the south side of that abutted the lot the trailer was on. Somebody might still spot her from the trailer, but only if they happened to be looking in the five seconds it took her to approach the empty lot and then pull into the trees.
She barely glanced to her left as she pulled in, but she registered Sky’s truck out front. For just a moment, she got that sensation in her stomach that she had when she was about to fall asleep, that odd, moment of being without gravity as she dreamed that she was falling.
That feeling was gone by the time she turned off the Cherokee. It was replaced with the steady warmth of immediacy, the almost calming adrenaline of being on a scene at a critical time. She got it when she was in on busts, she got it when she was about to draw her weapon. It was the odd combination of fear of the unknown and the focus of training and experience. It was a lot better than a mother’s stark terror.
Coco whined softly in the back, and Maggie wondered if she had seen the truck, too.
Her position didn’t give her much of a view of the trailer’s lot, and even less a view of the trailer itself. She looked over her shoulder at Coco, who was standing, ready to jump out of the car and help, whatever Maggie was trying to do.
“Stay here, baby,” Maggie said quietly, then she grabbed her phone, opened her door and got out.
She moved deeper into the lot, around trees and through bushes, until she was directly across from and beside the trailer. Now she could see Adrian Nichols’ car parked in the back, parallel to the mobile home. Just a few yards beyond it was more woods.
She tapped her phone and called Wyatt back.
“I’m turning onto Brownsville,” he said by way of hello. “Where are you?”
“The lot at the corner. Adrian’s car is in back and Sky’s truck is in front.”
“See anybody?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t see me.”
“We’ve got units from PD that are coming in from the south side,” Wyatt said. “Quincy and some of the other guys are going to approach from the other side. Where you are, I guess.”
“Yeah.” Maggie moved back the way she’d come until she could see the front of the trailer again. Still no movement. The sight of Sky’s Toyota made an instant sheen of sweat develop above her upper lip.
“We’re not hiding,” Wyatt said. “Going in no sirens, nice and calm, but with numbers. Let’s see if we can get this kid to talk.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m pulling in,” Wyatt said. A moment later, the crunch of gravel sounded behind her
and she turned to watch him park next to the Cherokee.
She walked toward him as he got out.
Ten minutes later, units were in place on either side of the trailer, with cruisers blocking Oyster at both ends. Quincy and several other deputies had joined Maggie and Wyatt in the undeveloped lot. They’d been discussing the best way to approach Ryan Warner, who undoubtedly knew they were there, unless he was unable to know it, which was something no one voiced.
Everyone had donned their body armor and attached their radios to their shoulders. No one wanted anything other than a peaceful surrender brought about by convincing communication, but everyone prepared for something far less ideal.
“We checked,” Quincy was saying. “His phone’s still off.”
Wyatt held up a finger and touched his earpiece.
“Okay,” Wyatt said. “Lon Woodman is reporting that someone was messing with the blinds in front,” he said. “So…we have movement inside.”
Everyone knew what he meant. Someone was alive inside. The concern, among many, was the tone of the video that had led them here. The opinion was pretty unanimous that it sounded a lot like a suicide note. The kid was exhausted, and under a great deal of duress. Not the kind of conditions that encouraged reasonable thought.
Maggie stared at the ground as Wyatt went on, not wanting anyone to have to look her in the eye.
Ryan yanked his fingers out of the blinds and spun to glare wildly at Sky.
“How could you do this?”
“I’m trying to help,” Sky said, her voice cracking against her will.
“Help? Why didn’t you just stay home, stay out of it?” he yelled. “Nobody wants to just leave me alone!”
“They can’t, Ryan,” she said. “They can’t.”
“It’s all his fault!”
He swung his gun arm to point at Adrian, still standing at the counter. Sky didn’t know if he even realized he was pointing with the gun, but it made her heart pound even faster, and Adrian had gone pale.
“I’m sorry, man!” he said. “I said I was sorry!”
“I don’t care! I’m sorry, too!” Ryan stepped from one foot to the other, weaving like a caged cat. “You think I’m not sorry? I’ve lost everything! Everything!”
“Ryan, not everything. You can still have a life one day.” It sounded weak and stupid, even to her.
“Really?” he asked, leaning toward her. “Really? I shot a police officer.”
“It was an accident,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter, Sky! I wasn’t supposed to have the gun! Not to mention kidnapping,” he said, sweeping the gun in Adrian’s direction. “I’ve seen enough Law & Order, Sky. That’s a federal offense. You basically go to prison forever for that.”
“What were you even thinking, dude?” she asked gently.
“I don’t know! I was just angry! I don’t remember what I was thinking,” he answered. “It was his fault and I just wanted to scare him the way he scared me!”
“Well, I’m scared,” Adrian said, his voice so quiet Sky almost didn’t hear him.
“I want you to get out,” Ryan said, and his tone had gone from frantic to determined. “I want you to just go, Sky. Get out of here.”
“Why?”
He leaned in close.
“Because I don’t want you here!” He yelled.
“No.”
“Geez, you’re stupid,” Adrian said.
Ryan spun around to face him. “Shut up!” Adrian stepped back until he was right up against the counter.
“Ryan, let me call my Mom,” Sky said, trying to find a calming tone.
“What for? She’s already here, right? She’s got to be out there with all of them!”
“Because we can tell her how it is,” Sky said. “We can let them see that you’re not dangerous.” She didn’t know if that was actually true; he just wasn’t in a frame of mind that she could predict. She believed in her heart that he never meant to hurt anyone, but now she was pretty sure he could hurt himself, or Adrian, or all three of them. She felt he was most likely to hurt himself.
“They don’t care, Sky! It’s not their job to care!”
“She cares.”
His eyes were wild when he looked at her then. Wide with desperation.
“She cares about you, and she cares about her friend,” he said.
“Ryan, if you don’t talk to them somehow, if you don’t start talking to them, they’re going to come in here. Listen to me, let me call her and ask her to come in and talk to you. She will, and no one is going to do anything with her in here.”
He looked over at Adrian, then looked up at the ceiling and sighed. He stood there for a moment, his body swaying just enough to notice, and Sky actually thought about trying to take him while the gun was pointed at the floor.
It was a stupid thought, and fleeting. Yeah, her mom had taught her to defend herself. Wyatt had taught her how to snap the neck of any boy who asked her out on a date, but she wasn’t some TV cop. Standing here, one foot away from someone who had a gun in his hand and who wasn’t thinking clearly, it was scary, and her feet were rooted.
She wanted her mother. She wanted Wyatt. She wanted to go home, but she did not want Ryan to get hurt. She didn’t want him to hurt himself, and she didn’t even know why she cared so much.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said to himself. “I don’t know how to make this stop.”
“Ryan,” she said calmly. Slowly. “If you don’t talk to my mom, that’s not going to be your decision.”
Quincy listened to the voice in his earpiece. “Roger that.” He looked up at the rest of them, who were waiting. “SWAT’s still at least twenty minutes out,” he said.
SWAT was part of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, and would ordinarily have been on scene in a probable hostage situation. Unfortunately, SWAT was on a meth bust way out in Tate’s Hell.
“I don’t think we should wait for SWAT,” Maggie said.
“I can swing either way,” Wyatt said, his face grim. “But let’s see if we can try to get somewhere here in the meantime. Let’s get the horn and try to communicate with him.”
Maggie’s phone vibrated, and when she pulled it out her pulse sped up. “It’s Ryan.” She didn’t wait for someone to tell her what to say or do. She answered.
“Hello,” she said.
“Mom.”
Maggie took a breath, let it out slowly. “Sky.”
“Mom, Ryan says he’ll let you come in and talk to him, but just you.”
“Okay. Am I on speaker?”
“Yeah.”
She opened her mouth, and Wyatt shoved a finger up in the air to stop her from speaking.
“Okay. Ryan, I can come in there and talk with you,” she said anyway, and in the corner of her eye she saw Wyatt turn his back to her, hands on his hips. “But can you let Sky and Adrian out first?”
“I told Sky to leave,” she heard him say from nearby.
“Sky, come on out here, and let me come in and talk to Ryan.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I can’t, Mom.”
“I’m not keeping her here!” Ryan said over her, raising his voice. He sounded like he was deteriorating.
“He doesn’t want to hurt anybody, Mom.”
“Then we need to talk about this calmly and rationally and find a way for all of us to be safe.”
“She can come in, but that’s it. Nobody else,” she heard Ryan say.
“That’s fine, Ryan,” Maggie said quietly. Wyatt turned around and mouthed for her to put him on hold. She looked down at the ground. “Ryan, I want to help you. I promise you, that’s what we all want.”
“She can come in, but no gun,” she heard him insist.
“He says no gun,” Sky said.
“I heard him.”
“And if she’s got one of those vests like those guys are wearing, I want her to take it off!”
There was a fumbling sound over the phone, like Sky had put a hand over it or held it away.
“Dude, my mom’s not coming in here without a vest,” she said, almost whispering.
“She will if she wants to come in here,” Ryan said. He sounded like he was across the room. He was moving.
“I can do that,” Maggie said.
“No, I’m telling you that my mom is not coming in here without a vest,” Sky was saying over her. “You’re scared and you haven’t slept and you have a gun. We don’t need another accidental cop shooting!”
“No vest,” Ryan said back, more quietly.
“Forget it, Mom,” Sky said it into the phone.
“No vest, Ryan,” Maggie said loudly. “Five minutes.”
She disconnected the call before realizing she was disconnecting her daughter, not just the boy with the gun. She could hear the echo of Sky’s voice in her ear, and now her little girl suddenly seemed far away.
She lowered her phone and looked at Wyatt. He pressed his lips together, not looking at her, and she knew how angry he really was. She put the phone in her back pocket and started removing her body armor.
“Maggie, I don’t think this is such a hot idea,” Quincy said, shaking his head. “Come on.”
“I know it’s not, Quince,” she said quietly, ripping open the Velcro at her waist.
“Boss?” Quincy asked Wyatt.
Wyatt looked up and glared at Maggie. He crooked his finger. “Come with me.”
She followed him over to Quincy’s cruiser, about ten feet away, as she opened the other side of her vest. Wyatt stopped and turned on her.
“We won’t get into how pissed I am.”
“I know you’re pissed.” She took off the vest.
“We won’t get into how pissed I am,” he said again. She craned her neck to look up at him. “Do you have your back-up weapon on you?”
“Yes.”
“Give it to me.”
“Why?”
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