Closer Than You Know

by Brad Parks

  “How long has she been in there?” Amy asked.

  “Uh, don’t know. Little while now.”

  They paused the conversation—out of respect for the dead—as the sheet-draped form of Claire Dansby was carried out to an ambulance. Then Amy asked to be let into the patrol car. At the very least, Melanie Barrick deserved some company.

  “Hi there,” Amy said softly as she slid into the seat next to Melanie.

  “What’s happening?” Barrick demanded.

  “Aaron has locked himself in the room. He has your son with him. The hostage negotiator is on the other side of the door. Aaron has made it very clear he’ll hurt your son if anyone tries to come in.”

  “But is he making demands, or . . .”

  “I don’t know. They haven’t let me in the house. From what I understand, they’re just talking. I don’t know if he’s asked for anything specific.”

  “So how does this end?”

  “We don’t know. We have snipers in place, and the CIRT team is ready to roll. But those are last-resort options. For now, we just have to be patient. Everyone is prioritizing getting your baby out of there alive.”

  Barrick just looked up toward house.

  “Sorry about the, uhh . . . ,” Amy said, nodding at Barrick’s tethers.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”

  “And I’m also sorry I didn’t figure this out sooner.”

  “Took me a while too. Can’t blame you.”

  They both stared up at the house for a long moment.

  “Has he fathered other children?” Barrick asked.

  “Not that I know of in Augusta County,” Amy said. “Then again, until a few moments ago, I didn’t even know about your son.”

  That Aaron Dansby might have other children—a strange extended family, united by a father’s brutality—was something neither woman could even consider at the moment.

  Soon, a mostly bald man wearing dark body armor approached the patrol car.

  Amy felt herself recoiling. Had something happened? Was this it? The news that would haunt Amy forever and positively shatter the woman next to her?

  The man introduced himself as Staunton City Police Officer Matt Ezzell and explained he was a trained hostage negotiator. Accurately reading the stricken looks on the women’s faces, he began with the news they most needed to hear.

  “The baby is fine,” he said.

  “Thank God,” Melanie said, putting her hand over her heart.

  “We’ve been talking with Dansby intermittently. Sometimes he answers us, sometimes he doesn’t. We’re not getting much out of him, to be honest.”

  “So what does he want?” Amy asked.

  “That’s why I’m here,” Ezzell said, then peered intently at Melanie Barrick. “He wants you. He says he won’t talk to anyone else.”

  SIXTY-THREE

  They couldn’t guarantee my safety. Ezzell must have told me that at least four times during a monologue about how anything could happen up there, how Dansby had already killed one woman and might be trying to lure me close so he could kill another.

  I didn’t care. Alex was in danger. That bested any argument he might make.

  Once I finally convinced him I wouldn’t be deterred, he had me uncuffed and led me up to the house. The officers who had previously prevented my charge inside were now parting for me like the Red Sea, starch-limbed and grim-faced.

  As I entered the front door, I looked to my left. The couch and rug, once neutral shades of off-white, were now splattered with blood. The acrid odor of gunpowder hung in the air.

  “So what do I do, exactly?” I asked, pausing at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Just get him talking,” Ezzell said. “Obviously, the end goal is for him to surrender peacefully.”

  “No,” I said. “That’s your end goal. My goal is to get my son back.”

  I didn’t give a damn about doing it peacefully.

  “Call him Aaron,” Ezzell continued. “That will make him feel more familiar with you. Once you get him talking, you want to keep him talking. If he’s talking, he’s not shooting anyone. You’re trying to build a rapport with him. You want him to think you’re his friend and that you like him. That’ll make him more likely to surrender.”

  Somehow, I didn’t think surrender was as much on Dansby’s mind as it was on Ezzell’s.

  Amy Kaye wasn’t far behind me. I turned to her before I started climbing the stairs.

  “If anything happens to me, please make sure Alex goes to Ben,” I said. “Ben is his father. Those are my wishes. Is that clear?”

  “Yes,” Amy said.

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Then I started up. The Dansby staircase had a turn in it. I was soon on the second-level hallway. It was lined with men in thick body armor and helmets, crouched behind plastic shields.

  “He’s straight ahead,” Ezzell said.

  I walked to the door and knocked.

  “Aaron,” I said in the calmest tone I could muster, “this is Melanie Barrick.”

  “Good. Are you alone?”

  “No, there are officers up here with me.”

  “Still? Jesus,” he fumed. “Tell them to go the hell away.”

  “We’ll do that if you hand over the baby,” Ezzell said.

  “Not a chance,” Dansby snapped. “And I’m not talking to you anymore. I told you that.”

  Ezzell and I exchanged glances.

  “Ask him what he wants,” Ezzell said in a low voice.

  “What do you want, Aaron?” I asked.

  “I want to talk to you, alone, without those armed goons ready to storm the door the moment I open it for you. I talk to you alone. That’s how this goes.”

  Alex began crying. It was a sound that reached down into that core of me—the piece of me that was Alex Barrick’s mother and nothing else—and set a fire going.

  “I’ll go in,” I said to Ezzell. “Please just clear out your men.”

  He was shaking his head, but I pressed on: “Look, Alex and I, we’re a package deal. If he’s got Alex, he might as well have me. I’d rather be in danger but with my baby than safe out here with you.”

  “Yes, I realize that, but I can’t—”

  “Please,” I said, putting my hand gently on his arm. “Please let me do this.”

  Then, from inside the room: “Do it, Ezzell. Clear your men out and let her in.”

  “I can’t do that, Aaron!” Ezzell shouted back. “I can’t give you another hostage.”

  “Your job is to save lives,” Dansby said back. “You forget: I’ve seen your training. You have to prioritize lives above everything. And I’m going to make this decision real easy on you. You either clear your men out and let Melanie in here, or I’m shooting this baby. And I’m giving you exactly ten seconds to make up your mind. Ten . . .”

  I surged toward the door and threw my weight against it. “No, Aaron, please!” I shrieked.

  “Nine,” he responded.

  I was already crying hysterically as I grabbed the doorknob, trying to shake it loose.

  “Eight,” he said.

  I pounded down on the knob with two fists, using my hands like a fireman’s ax. I struck so hard, the pain radiated up my arms, all the way to my shoulders. The knob didn’t give. I screamed, banshee-like.

  “Seven,” he said.

  Alex was crying harder. Was Dansby hurting him somehow? It made me even crazier. I kicked the door, but the lock held.

  “Please, God. Do something! Do something!” I roared at Ezzell.

  “Six,” Dansby said.

  I backed up as many steps as the narrow hallway would allow, then flung myself at the door with everything I had. It didn’t budge.

&n
bsp; “Five,” Dansby said.

  Forget the door. I ran up to Ezzell and grabbed him by the shoulders.

  “Four.”

  “Please! Please!” I wailed.

  Ezzell’s eyes were darting from the door to his men. Was he thinking about ordering them to charge? Wasn’t it too late for that? I couldn’t tell what was going on in that bald head of his.

  “Three.”

  I started pounding on Ezzell’s armored chest, pleading in broken, nonsensical globs of semi-sentences.

  “Two.”

  And then: “Okay, okay, you win, Aaron!” Ezzell shouted. “Stop the count. Stop it right now. We’re going. Melanie is coming in. Just give us a moment here.”

  I stopped pounding Ezzell. My hands were throbbing. I was bawling and hyperventilating simultaneously.

  Ezzell was directing his men’s retreat down the stairs. I was trying to steady myself. I had to keep my senses about me. Alex needed me.

  At least he had stopped crying. I’m not sure I could have gathered my wits otherwise.

  “They’re going,” I said in the direction of the door, my voice cracking. “They’re going. Just don’t hurt him.”

  My breathing was still too fast. Ezzell came back to my side.

  “You all right?” he asked. “God, this is a disaster.”

  “Disaster,” I said between gasps, “is always closer than you know.”

  He looked at me quizzically, holding the glance long enough that I could see doubt, regret, and a hundred other emotions telling him this was a terrible idea.

  “Just get the hell out of here,” I said.

  “All right,” he said, giving my arm one last squeeze. “Good luck.”

  He walked briskly away, then made the turn down the stairs. Once he was on the first floor, he hollered up, “Okay, Dansby! We’ve moved out. But if I hear a gunshot, all bets are off. We will come up there and we won’t be talking anymore. Is that clear?”

  There was no answer from inside the bedroom. I went up to the door and tapped it lightly.

  “It’s me,” I said. “And I’m all alone.”

  “Are you armed?”

  “No.”

  “You better not be. If anyone comes into this room with a gun, I’m shooting this baby first and asking questions later.”

  “I swear to you I don’t have a gun.”

  There was a pause.

  “Okay,” he said. “You can come in. The door is now unlocked.”

  A large breath leaked out of my lungs. Even my wildest nightmares couldn’t have concocted a scenario like this. I was all alone, going back into a room with the man who raped me.

  He was armed. And all I had for protection were my own desperate prayers.

  * * *

  • • •

  Slowly, I turned the knob and pushed through the door into the room.

  The bulbs in the ceiling fan were illuminated, casting a harsh white light on everything below.

  There was a dresser immediately to my left at an odd angle, like it had been used as a part of Dansby’s defensive fortifications but had been shoved out of the way so I could enter. Halfway across the room, an armoire had been moved so it was perpendicular to the entrance of what was either a large walk-in closet or a master bathroom.

  A mattress was leaning against one of the windows. A box spring was against the other.

  Neither Dansby nor Alex were anywhere within sight.

  “Close the door,” Dansby said from the other room. “I want to hear it close.”

  “Okay,” I said, shutting the door forcefully enough it made a noise.

  “Now, lock it.”

  I did as instructed. “It’s locked.”

  “Hold your hands out in front of you. I have to be able to see them.”

  “Okay,” I said, palms extended.

  For a brief moment, his head flashed from the other side of the armoire, like he was some kind of frightened forest creature. It went back just as quickly. Then he walked out. He had Alex tight against his body, facing outward, and a gun to Alex’s tiny temple.

  The sight of it—my small, helpless baby with that ugly black pistol next to his head—nearly made me pass out. I had to lean against the dresser for support.

  “Oh God, please, Aaron, no,” I said.

  “Don’t move,” he said.

  “I’m not going anywhere. Can you please stop pointing the gun at Alex? He’s your son, for God’s sake. Your son.”

  “I know that,” he said. “Keep your hands up.”

  I held them a little higher for his inspection.

  “Lift your dress,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I want to see if you have a weapon under there. Do it slow. Real slow.”

  I reached down for the hem of my dress, gathered it in both hands, then brought it up to my waist.

  “All the way up,” he ordered.

  “It’s belted, it won’t go any further,” I said.

  “Fine,” he said. “Put it back down, but keep your hands up.”

  As I followed my orders, I studied Alex more closely. It had been a month since I had seen him. His face had fleshed out. His head seemed to have become more symmetrical. But really, he hadn’t changed as much as I might have thought.

  He had the same eyes. His father’s eyes. But his eyes too.

  He was still my baby. My beautiful, beautiful baby.

  “Can I hold him?” I asked.

  “No,” Dansby said.

  He was swaying back and forth to keep Alex soothed, a bizarre gesture considering he had a gun trained on the child. Alex had a slick of drool coming out of his mouth. His hands were perched on Dansby’s arm, his tiny fingers splayed out for support. If he knew his mother had just entered the room, he gave no indication of it. Did he remember me? Or was there no place in his still-forming circuitry for someone he hadn’t seen in more than a month?

  I chased away the thought and focused on Dansby.

  “Okay. So I’m here,” I said. “You’ve got a gun. I don’t, but a lot of guys downstairs do. What happens now?”

  “We talk,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “About whatever,” he said. “I always wanted to talk to one of my women. You in particular. I’ve thought about you a lot. You may find this hard to believe, but I’ve probably thought about you over the last year more than you’ve thought about me. I really . . . I really do care about you.”

  I wasn’t interested in any of this. I didn’t want him caring about me, thinking about me, any of it. I didn’t want to be in the same room as him. I didn’t want to be in the same universe.

  But Ezzell’s instructions—keep him talking . . . build a rapport with him—came back to me.

  “If you care about me so much, why did you rape me?” I asked. “Why rape any of us?”

  “Good question. Why. I’ve asked myself that same question a lot of times.”

  “So what’s the answer?”

  “I don’t know. I just . . . I had to.”

  “That’s bullshit,” I said. “You made a choice every time you entered another woman’s bedroom and forced her to have sex with you.”

  “I know, I know. I don’t mean I was compelled by dark voices or anything. It’s . . . I’m only really alive during my encounters with . . . with women like you. We told people my wife, Claire, couldn’t have babies. But the fact is, I’m impotent with her—with every woman I’ve ever dated, actually. I can only ever perform with a woman if I’ve broken into her house. That’s the only thing that excites me enough. I’ve never had a problem performing with any of you. As you know.”

  He allowed himself a sick smile before continuing.

  “Claire knew I had a . . . a sexual problem, obviously. She was willing to do anythin
g. We even tried having her role-play rape fantasies for me. It didn’t work. My equipment always knew the difference.”

  “So did your wife know about your . . . about what you did?”

  “No,” he said, scoffing. “Claire? Oh God, no. She thought I suffered from frequent insomnia and that driving to the park and going for a walk helped me. I quote-unquote ‘drove to the park’ at least twice a week. All the while I was looking for my next encounter. She never had a clue.”

  “Couldn’t you have tried, I don’t know, therapy or something?”

  “Are you kidding me?” he snorted. “I’m a Dansby. You think Senator Dansby ever had therapy? Or Congressman Dansby? Or Governor Dansby?”

  I couldn’t listen to much more of this nonsense. “Well, you’ll get plenty of therapy now,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean in prison, Aaron. You understand this is over, right? Those men downstairs, they’re not going to let you just walk out of here. You might as well surrender. Give me Alex and let’s do this without anyone getting hurt.”

  “No,” he said. “No, that’s not how this is going to end.”

  “Yes, it is. Yes, it is, Aaron. Just put down your gun, give Alex to me, and then walk out with your hands up. Let me raise our son the best way possible. He’s your flesh and blood. Give him that chance. I bet if you surrender now, they’ll send you somewhere around here. Your family could surely arrange that. We’ll come visit you, Alex and I.”

  That was a lie, of course. And it may have been too thick of one, because Dansby’s eyes—which had been trained on a piece of the floor—flared up at me, filling with anger.

  “You think I believe that?” he said, gripping the gun tighter. “You think I’m that stupid?”

  “No,” I said weakly. “No . . . I’m . . . I’m serious. Alex is . . . He’s going to want to know who his father is. It would be up to him, of course, but we would absolutely visit you if he was interested.”

  “You’re lying to me right now,” he said, his volume growing. “Don’t lie to me. Not you.”

  “Come on, Aaron. You have to think about what’s best for Alex.”

  “I am, I am!” he insisted. “That’s what this is all about. That’s why I wanted you here. Just . . .”