by Francis Ray
“I am.” He let his hand fall. “I know we can’t make love, but let me move back in bed with you. You see how Ashton and Gabrielle want me here. We can be a family again.”
She stared at him on the ugly black leather sofa he had insisted they buy and saw him for the selfish man he was. “Robert, when you left, I cried. I blamed myself when I should have blamed you. Now I thank you. I don’t love you. I don’t hate you. You’re just the children’s father. When you can maneuver better, you’re leaving.”
Feeling free, Gina left the room and saw Gabrielle in the kitchen with a bottle of water in her hand, anger in her eyes. “Gabrielle.”
“Why can’t it be the way it was?” she asked, her voice quaking.
“Because we don’t love each other,” Gina told her with a new calm.
“You could,” Gabrielle told her.
“No. We couldn’t, and I refuse to try again.”
Whirling, Gabrielle went out the back door. Gina didn’t even think of going after her. She loved her daughter, but she was not going to dictate how Gina lived her life.
By Wednesday, Gina could think of Max and not get misty. Thursday saw her determined not to give up on him. Aware of how much the grand opening meant to Max, Gina called and luckily got Sophia on the phone. Assured that Max was outside, Gina walked Sophia through the signature dishes, plus a welcoming meal and brunch on Sunday.
Helping made Gina feel a part of Journey’s End. She refused to think she and Max couldn’t resolve whatever the problem was.
Robert didn’t have any visitors besides his assistant every day. Perhaps that was why he was so cranky. He should have one friend who cared. The children had taken to avoiding the den. He didn’t appear to notice or care that they spoke to him when they came home from school, then didn’t come back until time for bed.
Gina certainly noticed that Gabrielle and she were at odds again. Why she couldn’t figure out. She yearned for the closeness they once had shared, before the divorce. Unfortunately, Gabrielle was growing closer to Robert and further from Gina.
And there was nothing she could do about it.
Sunday afternoon, Celeste was ready to go after Alec.
She decided on bare and flirtatious and pulled out a backless white sundress with a floral-print flared skirt. Sam and his wife were having Alec’s birthday party at their house and had invited her. She was going.
Shortly after one that afternoon, she pulled out of the driveway and headed for the freeway. Alec wasn’t getting away from her. She glanced at the sheet of paper that Helen had written her name and address on that day at Patrick and Brianna’s place. Celeste was familiar with Myrtle Beach but not the area Helen and Sam lived in. She wasn’t worried. Her navigation system wouldn’t let her get lost.
In a little over an hour, Celeste saw the Myrtle Beach sign welcoming visitors. She refused to listen to the little voice that said she might not get the welcome she expected from Alec. If he gave her any problems—and she was sure he would—she’d just show him the note he’d written.
She patted her pocket, felt the paper, her trump card. Flicking on her signal, she exited Highway 17, looking for a convenience or grocery store. She didn’t want to arrive empty-handed at the party. She grinned. She’d give Alec his present in private. Laughter bubbled from her lips.
Spotting a convenience store at the end of a strip shopping center, she signaled to turn and parked in front. She reached into her purse and grabbed her wallet. The top was down, but there were only two other cars in front of the small store. She’d only be a minute.
Pushing the tinted glass door open, she started to the back. Alec would be surprised to see her. Grabbing a twelve-pack of Pepsi, she placed it on the counter. “I’m getting another,” she said to the young woman behind the cash register.
The woman’s eyes were wide and fixed behind Celeste. Fear instantly coursed though her. Slowly, she turned. Two feet in front of her stood a disheveled man with a dirty overcoat and a gun in his hand. It was pointed straight at her.
Alec’s “small” birthday party had fifty or more people milling around Sam and Helen’s huge backyard. Beneath the trees were several tables, but most of the people seemed content to wander and eat. As usual, Sam had cooked enough barbeque for anyone who wanted to take a plate home afterward. Helen had all kinds of salads and vegetables lined up. Alec hadn’t seen it yet, but he was sure there was a cake someplace.
He felt every one of his thirty-five years and then some. Most of those attending were on the police force. They were laughing or playing cards or horseshoes, enjoying themselves. Alec couldn’t. Standing with a can of soda in his hand, he never felt less like celebrating.
He missed Celeste. Hated that he had hurt her. His hand clenched on the can. He’d known he’d have to walk away, yet he’d made love to her anyway. He hadn’t been able to do otherwise. If he had a weakness, it was Celeste.
A week felt like years. He’d returned to work, did his job, but the joy he once felt was no longer there. And it had nothing to do with the possibility that he might have to draw his weapon again. It had to do with an emptiness inside him that he feared would never be filled unless he had Celeste in his life again. Absently he wondered how long before the ache in his gut went away, how long before he felt alive again.
He’d picked up the phone countless times to call her and always hung up. He couldn’t offer her any kind of life unless he was a whole man. Not for anything would he begin a relationship with her knowing that one day or night he might not come home because he couldn’t draw his weapon at a crucial moment.
So far he and Tony were doing investigative fieldwork on a double homicide. An officer in homicide could go weeks without drawing and even longer without firing his weapon. But the chance was always there. Alec just prayed he’d be able to do his job.
“Alec.”
He turned, alerted by the grave sound of his brother Sam’s voice. Alec’s blood ran cold. The last time his brother had worn that dire expression was when Patrick had been wounded. Patrick stood beside Sam and Simon. Brooke’s husband was there as well. Earlier, Rafael had been charming some woman. All of them were off-duty. “What’s wrong?”
“Let’s go inside.” Taking Alec’s arm, Sam led him back into the house but he didn’t stop until they stood in the front by Patrick’s truck. Patrick slid in and started the motor. Simon climbed into the backseat.
“What I’m going to say isn’t going to be easy,” Sam said, opening the passenger door.
Alec’s gut knotted as a patrol car, lights running on top, pulled up beside the truck, and suddenly he knew. He grabbed his brother’s shoulders. “Just tell me Celeste is all right.”
“We don’t know. A patrol car answered a silent alarm. When he got out of his car, a man in an overcoat came out and fired two shots before disappearing back inside the store.”
Alec’s head briefly fell; then he quickly got inside the truck. “Tell me the rest on the way.”
Sam climbed inside. Patrick gunned the motor. “The call I went in earlier to take was from Anderson in burglary. They found a woman’s handbag on the seat of a silver convertible BMW registered to Celeste de la Vega. Inside were a checkbook, a notepad, and a sheet of paper with my and Helen’s address and phone number.”
Fear, then rage gripped Alec. He wanted to scream his fury. Aware that he couldn’t help Celeste or those with her if he let those emotions control him, he slowly pulled it together. “Is Rafael going to negotiate?” Alec asked, his voice calm.
“He left as soon as I told him,” Sam said. “He’s the best. Brooke’s husband is staying with the women.”
Rafael was the top police negotiator on the Myrtle Beach police force, but they all knew there were those variables that no one could foresee—like a druggie or a mental patient. Who else would wear a coat on a day the temperature was in the eighties?
Siren blaring, lights flashing, the patrol car sped through a red light. Patrick was right behind it.
Alec’s hands clenched in his lap. “Her family. Have they been notified?”
“Anderson was going to call as soon as he got off the phone with me,” Sam said.
Alec felt Simon’s hand on his shoulder. He had been in the burglary division before he transferred to Charleston. “He’s good, Alec. SWAT is probably already there.”
“Get Anderson on the phone. I want to call her parents and her sister. They have to be going out of their minds with worry,” Alec said.
“Way ahead of you.” His brother handed him a notepad with a phone number and his cell phone.
Alec stared at the phone. What would he say? How could he help them?
“Just say what you feel,” Patrick said. ‘We’re almost there.”
Alec punched in the numbers. “Hello—”
“Are you related to Alec?” a female voice interrupted.
Caller ID. “This is Alec. Is this Celeste’s sister or mother?”
“Thank God,” the woman said. “I’m Yolanda, her sister. I told my parents that you would bring her and the others with her out safely.”
“I’m going to do my best. We’re almost there, Yolanda. I have to go, but I just wanted you to know that—” They pulled up into the shopping center. Police cars and TV vans were everywhere. So was an ambulance. Alec swallowed the knot in his throat. “I love her. I’ll call.”
Disconnecting the cell phone, Alec jumped out behind Sam. Running, they reached the command center. Behind a patrol car, Rafael stood with a microphone in his hand. At Alec’s questioning gaze, he didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. His hard expression spoke volumes.
There was no way a SWAT sniper could get a clear shot with the dark-tinted windows. Unless Rafael could talk the man into surrendering, people could die.
“Come on, Floyd. Let’s think this through,” Rafael said calmly. “Nobody is hurt thus far, and we want to keep it that way.”
“Are you listening to me?” a shaky male voice bellowed, the sound coming through the speaker. “I want a gassed-up car here in five minutes, or I’m going to start killing people.”
“Floyd, we’re working on your demands, but these things take time. How many people are in there with you?”
“Five, so you’d better listen and stop jerking with me!” he yelled.
“I wouldn’t do that, Floyd. You have the power, but you have to realize that you have five precious bargaining chips. A smart man like you would keep every one of them unharmed.”
Silence.
Alec pointed to himself, then toward the store. Rafael shook his head and clicked back on his microphone. “Floyd, as I said, you’re in control here. You have the power to end this peacefully. With a good lawyer, you’d be out on the streets in no time.”
“I ain’t going back to jail. You heard me. You just get that car here, or I’m going to kill her.”
TWENTY-ONE
Alec broke and ran for the store. Patrick and Simon wrestled him to the ground.
“Let me go.”
“Getting yourself killed is not going to help Celeste or any of the other people in there with her,” Simon said. “She and her family are depending on you to bring her out safely.”
Rafael gritted his teeth and turned toward the storefront. “Floyd, now you’re not thinking like the smart man I know you can be,” he said. “Act rashly and you aren’t giving us a reason to keep talking. Don’t forget, I’m working on that car for you.”
“It shoulda been out here by now. I gotta get out of here.”
“I understand, Floyd. You just let the hostages go and we can talk.”
“You trying to play me for a fool. I oughter shoot one now.”
Alec came to his feet, his pleading eyes on Rafael.
“Remember, you have the power, but you have to use it like the smart man you are,” Rafael said. “The car is almost here, but I need to make sure everyone inside is all right first. I need to send a policeman inside.”
“Nobody comes inside unless they want a bullet!” Floyd yelled.
Unbuttoning his shirt, Alec turned and met Anderson, the burglary division chief. “You’re off-duty and not in this division, Dunlap.”
“I’m asking, Captain Anderson. Begging, if it comes to that,” Alec said. “If the woman you loved was in there, wouldn’t you want to be the one to go in?”
“The object is not to give him another hostage,” Anderson said.
“He won’t get one,” Alec said with steely determination.
Captain Anderson stared at Alec for a few more seconds, then said, “Get me a vest and an ankle piece.”
Alec pulled off his shirt and fastened on the bulletproof vest. He straightened after fastening the ankle piece.
Patrick handed over his 9mm. The gun had more stopping power than the .35 on Alec’s ankle. “Just in case.”
Alec stuck the gun in the small of his back and pulled back on his shirt. He was ready; he just hoped he had the opportunity.
Celeste wouldn’t give up hope. She had too much to live for. Her legs out in front of her, her back to the plate-glass window where the robber could watch them and the police, she prayed. Beside her was a young girl who looked about sixteen. She sobbed quietly now. When the robber had shot at the policemen, she’d become hysterical. The man threatening to shoot her only escalated her hysteria.
Celeste had to shake her to get her to stop. The man’s unsteady hand on the gun, his mumbling to himself, weren’t good signs that he was lucid enough to think clearly.
On the other side of the teenager was the store clerk, a woman in her mid-thirties with frizzy red hair. The other two were young men in their early twenties.
“I’ll kill them!” Floyd yelled into the phone, pointing the gun at the teenager again. For some reason, he seemed to have fixated on her. “If you want a dead cop, then send him in.”
Celeste’s heart thumped in her chest. Alec was out there. She didn’t know if hostage negotiators gave their full names or not, but she was sure Rafael gave the robber his to let her know that Alec was outside. She hoped he’d called her parents. Her mother would have finally met Alec. Celeste touched the note in her pocket and refused to think she wouldn’t be there when they met in person.
“You think I won’t off one of them? You think I’m bluffing? I want that car!”
“Floyd, it’s like this,” Rafael said calmly. “No car unless I’m one hundred percent sure that everyone inside is all right. You’re asking for everything and not willing to give anything in return. This is a give-and-take situation.”
“I’ve got the gun!” he yelled.
“We know that, Floyd, but it’s getting close to five, and that means traffic is going to be a bear,” Rafael told them. “You want us to clear the way, but that’s going to take more time. You let him come in for a quick look and you’re on your way in under five minutes.”
Silence.
Alec didn’t have to glance at his watch. Rafael always hooked a watch to his belt loop at the start of negotiations. Ninety-eight minutes had passed since Alec had arrived on the scene. Helicopters whirled overhead. Two were police, but the others were with the news media. They could only get so close, but with the high-powered lenses on their cameras they didn’t have to do much more. He was aware the hostage situation was being carried live on at least one TV station.
He’d talked to Yolanda less than ten minutes ago and her local news in Houston wasn’t carrying the standoff. The story hadn’t gone national. Her mother and then her father had gotten on the line, begging him to bring Celeste safely back to them. He promised he would. He refused to think he wouldn’t hold her again, hear her teasing laughter again.
“If there is an accident on Highway Seventeen, things are not going to go smoothly for you, Floyd,” Rafael told him. “You could be sitting in a fully fueled car in the next five minutes. It’s up to you, Floyd.”
“Send him in, but if he’s packing he’s going back out feet-first!”
Rafael stared
at Alec. “Don’t do anything foolish.”
Hands raised, Alec stepped from behind the police car. It was up to him now. He’d wanted this, refused to think of the last time he’d had to pull his gun. One-handed, he opened the door, pausing long enough for the sniper across the street to maybe get the robber in his sights.
The man either was too smart or just had dumb luck. He was too far back for the sniper to take him out. Alec cursed under his breath. The man stood thirty feet from the entrance. The five hostages were positioned in front of him.
Alec saw Celeste at once. Her eyes were huge in her face. His gut knotted; his heart raced. Hold on, baby. I’m here, and I’m taking you home to your family.
She appeared unharmed, as did the other hostages. As Alec did not want to bring attention to her, his gaze passed over her and stayed on the thin-faced man with a gun pointed at him. His hand trembled, perspiration beaded on his face, and it wasn’t just because of the overcoat. Alec had seen too many addicts coming down from a high not to recognize one.
“My car.”
“I haven’t gotten a chance to make sure they’re all right,” Alec said with a calmness he was far from feeling.
“Talking time is over.” Floyd grabbed the young girl in front of him by the hair and shoved the gun against her temple. “A car, or I put an end to her worthless life.”
“Please, don’t kill me! Please! Please!” the teenager screamed, crying uncontrollably.
“Let her go. You’ll get what you want,” Alec told him.
The two men and the woman hunched their shoulders, bent their heads, cowering in fear, but they remained in front of the gunman. Celeste stared at Alec, then calmly turned to the man. “I’m dating a policeman. If you take me, your chances are much better of getting out of here alive.”
“No!” Alec shouted, taking a frantic step toward her.
Shoving the teenager away, the man grabbed Celeste, hooking his arm beneath her neck. “Well, looks like we have lover boy in person.”