Keeping Caroline

by Vickie Taylor

  “I don’t have to do nothing, lady.” He shoved the gun toward her in the air, but the barrel was pointed up, not at her. “Not as long as I got this.”

  Caroline pulled out a chair. The legs scraped across the floor. She sat heavily, wanting more than anything to pick up the radio and talk to her husband. But she knew better than to reach for it. Yet.

  “If you don’t talk to them, J.J., they’re going to get nervous. They’re going to wonder what’s going on in here.”

  She’d been a negotiator’s wife long enough to know that the first two priorities in a situation such as this were to establish the perimeter so the suspect couldn’t flee, possibly taking hostages with him, and to establish communication. In this case, they wouldn’t have to worry about the perimeter. Open country surrounded the house on all sides. The cops would have a clear view of anyone trying to run. That left communication. Matt had made the first overture by sending in the radio. Now it was up to Caroline to get J.J. to accept it.

  But how?

  “Let ’em wonder.” J.J. paced to the window, stood to the side and pulled back the sooty gingham curtain with the barrel of the gun. He swore. “Too close. Damn cops are too close.”

  He raked his hand through his hair, gun and all, and yelled at the closed window, “Get back! You hear me, get back!”

  “They’re not going anywhere, J.J. Not until they find out what’s going on in here.”

  Two black-clad figures scurried across the lawn outside, too far to be in range of the derringer, but close enough to spook the H.T. Just as Matt planned, she was sure.

  J.J. swore and exploded into movement. He grabbed Mr. Johnson by the arm and dragged the old man toward the window. “Get back, I said,” he screamed, waving the gun too close to Mr. Johnson’s head for comfort. “Back!”

  Caroline jumped to her feet. With J.J.’s back to her, she was able to use a hand signal to keep Alf, who had risen to a crouch, ready to jump, in place. The gun was still too close to Mr. Johnson for the dog to safely take J.J. down.

  “They can’t hear you!” Caroline yelled. “Use the radio! Don’t make them think you’re going to shoot.”

  Caroline was all too aware that negotiation wasn’t the only function of the emergency response team. Sharpshooters would be in place by now. She wanted this siege over, wanted her baby and her friends safe, but she didn’t want a young man’s blood spilled to do it. Besides, once the shooting started, none of them were safe. Sharpshooters sometimes missed their targets, and ricochets weren’t particular who they killed.

  “I’ll show them I’m serious,” J.J. yelled, but he didn’t sound serious to Caroline. He sounded scared. “I’ll show them.”

  “No, J.J. If you kill one of us, any one of us, they’ll kill you.”

  “I’m not afraid of dyin”’ he said, spinning to face Caroline. But his eyes said differently.

  Caroline gave her pounding heart a moment to settle, then spoke in a soothing tone. “I know you’re not afraid, J.J. You wouldn’t be here if you were the type to scare easily. But you are angry. And you want Matt to know why you’re angry.” She had to swallow before she could spit the next part out. “If you hurt one of us, the cops out there will kill you before you can tell him why you’re so mad. He’ll never know why you did this.”

  “I’m doing this because of him. Because of what he did!”

  “Then tell him that! Pick up the walkie-talkie.” J.J. stared at the walkie-talkie as if it was a snake rising to a flutist’s tune. “It’s a trick. Another cop trick, like he tricked my dad.”

  “Not a trick. Just a way to talk to him.”

  “I—I can’t.”

  The young man’s uncertainty, his fear, was palpable. The wild look in his eyes made up Caroline’s mind about what she had to do next. “Someone has to,” she said. “Someone has to tell them what you want.”

  She sat, then slowly reached across the table toward the walkie-talkie. J.J.’s wild, wide eyes followed her movements, but he didn’t try to stop her. All she had to do was pick up the radio, she thought. Press the button and talk to Matt, and the negotiation would begin. Her life and Hailey’s would be in his hands.

  Oddly, she found comfort in that. Her life had been in Matt Burkett’s hands since she was fifteen years old.

  Matt stood in the middle of the semicircle of cops gathered around the hood of his car, his neck, shoulders and back so tense that the muscles had begun to burn.

  He hardly noticed.

  His sole focus—the focus of all of them—was the radio between them, tuned to the same channel as the one he’d sent into the house with Alf. It sat on the hood of his car like an offering to the gods.

  A silent offering.

  Damn it, it was too quiet. They’d taken the dog into the house, radio and all. Why wouldn’t they talk to him?

  A crackle of static from the radio yanked him above the tide of panic dragging him under. In a heartbeat, the radio was in his hand, his finger on the talk button. All of the principles of negotiation he’d learned over the years flashed through his mind. He discarded them all.

  Anything. He’d give the H.T. anything to end this.

  Except his family.

  He swallowed so hard his ears popped. Steady. He couldn’t afford to lose it now, when the H.T. was ready to talk.

  But it wasn’t the H.T.’s voice that cut through the static. It was Caroline’s. Composed. Confident. As if she wasn’t being held captive in her burned-out house by an unstable teenager with a gun and a grudge.

  “Matt?” she asked. “Are you there?”

  God bless Caroline.

  At least one of them had her act together.

  He pressed the radio button under his thumb. The cops around him lowered their eyes, angled their heads away, all the privacy they could provide for a man and wife.

  “I’m here, Caro.” Then, despite all the things he wanted to say to her, had wanted to tell her for more than a year, he dredged up the strength to do what he had to do and added, “Let me talk to J.J.”

  “He’s…not ready to talk yet, Matt.”

  Disappointment broke out in a cold sweat on his chest.

  “But he wants you to know everyone’s okay in here.”

  Matt almost barked out a derisive laugh. He doubted J.J. Hampton wanted him to know anything. Because J.J. wouldn’t know that if the cops didn’t get some communication from inside the house, they would eventually make a tactical assault. Nor did he know how dangerous that assault would be—for all of them.

  But Caroline knew. And she’d taken it upon herself to prevent the worst from happening.

  His wife’s courage made a new wave of emotion rise in Matt’s throat. “You’re hurt,” he choked, his vision streaked as red as the sleeve of her shirt had been when she’d stood on the porch.

  “It’s just a scratch. An accident,” she added quickly.

  Matt bit down on his disbelief; it wouldn’t help for the boy to feel threatened. And any boy who heard what Matt thought about Caroline’s proclamation was definitely going to feel threatened.

  He forcibly lowered his voice to a sympathetic tone. “We could bring some medical supplies up to the house.”

  Caroline paused. Matt imagined her cutting her milk-chocolate eyes to J.J. for a reaction. When she spoke, he heard the vehemence of that reaction—and her plea for patience—in her voice. “No, it’s okay. It’s not that bad. We’re all fine.”

  Matt barely got a handle on his frustration before he replied. “There’s nothing fine about any of this,” he growled, then took a step back. Back into the negotiator.

  He needed to get J.J. talking, engaged in the process of negotiation. He had to find something—other than revenge—that J.J. wanted badly enough to bring the boy to the table. To establish the pattern of give-and-take that would build a relationship, confidence, between the H.T. and the negotiator. One painstaking trade at a time, he had to get J.J. to trust him.

  In the meantime, he could a
t least buy some time. “Okay,” he said, and blew out a breath that would rattle an oak tree. “Maybe we all need a few minutes to cool off, here. It’s gotta be hot cooped up in there. How about some cold sodas?”

  Again the pause, then Caroline came back. “Sodas aren’t what he wants, Matt.”

  His heart beat with a dull thud, like a hard rubber mallet on concrete. So the H.T. was ready to negotiate, after all.

  Closing his eyes and tipping his head back a fraction, Matt asked softly, half fearing the answer, “What does he want, Caro?”

  “He wants the cops outside to back off. They’re too close.”

  Matt snapped his head forward, eyes wide open. The last thing he needed was that boy focused on what was happening outside. Even now, tactical officers surrounded the house, crawling around the foundation on their bellies fixing suction-cup microphones, even cameras no bigger than a nail head to every window they passed. Soon Matt would be able to hear every sniffle in the house and see into nearly every room.

  Unless J.J. caught on that he was being bugged.

  “I can probably do that,” Matt said quickly.

  One of the deputies who’d been listening took a step away and spoke quietly into a different radio, one that was tuned to the same frequency as the tactical teams’s ear-pieces, warning them of the new development.

  “As a show of good faith,” he continued, giving another deputy a pointed look. “I’ll have the guys pull their cars back. Another fifty yards or so good enough, J.J.?”

  He didn’t really expect J.J. to answer, but that didn’t stop him from talking directly to the boy.

  “You know, it would probably go over easier with some of these deputies if they knew you showed the same kind of good faith, J.J.”

  This time, Caroline sounded uncertain. “He says to tell them to back off.”

  “I’m working on it.” Matt put on his best good-old-boy country drawl. “But they just aren’t sure it’s the right thing to do. I don’t have any jurisdiction out here. It’s gonna take more than me sayin’ so to convince them. They need some kind of sign from J.J.”

  After a silence that seemed to last an eon, Caroline’s voice crackled back over the radio. “He wants to know what you want.”

  A surge of adrenaline warmed Matt’s chest. Success at last! He had J.J. on the hook. Engaged. Now all he had to do was reel him in. Slowly. Carefully.

  As if Matt’s whole world didn’t depend on the outcome.

  “He’s got five people in there,” Matt said, forcing himself to not rush. “Wouldn’t hurt nothing if he let one of you go.”

  Hailey’s name was on his lips. But he couldn’t ask for her. No, Hailey and Caroline were the ones J.J. really wanted. He wasn’t likely to release them. Not yet. Successful negotiations started with small exchanges, and moved up from there. Hailey and Caroline were the pièce de résistance.

  Small exchanges. His choice was obvious. As much as he longed to claim his own family’s freedom, he asked for Jeb instead. Jeb, who had experienced enough violence already in his young life.

  It didn’t matter, he rationalized to himself as Jeb jogged down the porch stairs and across the front lawn, holding onto Alf’s collar for guidance just as Matt had taught him. He wished Caroline had kept the dog. If this got ugly, she was going to need all the help she could get. But none of it mattered. Matt was going to get them all out safely.

  All of them.

  He held his radio up again. “That’s good, J.J. These cops feel a lot better now. They’re moving back.”

  On cue, the deputies backed their vehicles fifty yards away from the farmhouse.

  Matt waved over the deputy who’d intercepted Jeb. The boy was wriggling furiously in the man’s grasp when Matt reached out to him. “It’s okay Jeb, it’s Matt. It’s me.”

  Jeb swung into Matt’s arms and dug in like a tick on a dog. “He’s bad! That man is bad!” Small fists pummeled Matt’s back with surprising strength.

  “Shh.” He cupped the back of Jeb’s head and pressed his cheek against a nappy crown. “I know. I know he’s bad. But I’m going to take care of him. Are you all right?”

  Jeb’s fury dissolved into sobs. “I’m okay.”

  “Good.”

  “But I hurted Miss Caroline. I shooted her.”

  Matt’s stomach flipped. Jeb raised puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks. “I didn’t mean to. I was trying to protect her. I got Momma’s gun. But I couldn’t see him…”

  Matt pushed Jeb’s head back to his shoulder. “Shh. It’s okay. It’s fine. It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.”

  He held Jeb tight and rocked him until the sobs subsided into hiccups, then asked him to go with the deputies and tell them everything he knew about what had happened in the house. Matt wasn’t too hopeful about gathering useful intelligence from a five-year-old, but he wasn’t about to pass up a chance to turn up something. Even a small chance.

  Time passed. Minutes rolled together into hours. The audio bugs and video cameras were in place. The trouble was, there was nothing to see or to listen to. About midnight, he’d gotten J.J. to release the Johnsons in exchange for two pizzas with double pepperoni and a six-pack of Cokes, but Caroline and Hailey were still in there. Just waiting.

  Waiting for him to save them.

  Matt had spent the past two hours talking into the radio—about everything and nothing—until his throat ached and one of the deputies handed him a bottle of spring water, but to no effect.

  J.J. had everything he needed for now, and he’d clammed up.

  At least Matt could still communicate with Caroline.

  “You still there, Caro?”

  “It’s not as if I can go anywhere.”

  He almost smiled at her tired humor. When had she stopped being the shy, insecure girl he’d met and become this strong, self-assured woman? When had she changed from being the one who needed protecting to the protector?

  The answer came to him with a flash of pain, like a slim knife blade slicing off a strip of flesh. If the loss of her only son and the withdrawal of the man she loved hadn’t been enough to change her, then becoming pregnant with a child her husband didn’t want would probably have done the job. She’d struck out on her own, and she’d made it. He was proud of her, but no woman should have to be that strong.

  No man should ever be so wrong.

  If he did nothing else with his life, he had to tell her he’d been wrong.

  “How about Hailey?” he asked. “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s a trooper.” But worry colored her voice.

  He turned to the monitor displaying the kitchen interior. J.J. paced in front of the cabinets, but it was a measured pace, not the frenetic step of trouble. Caroline sat on one side of the table, Hailey in her arms. The baby wriggled, flailing her fists, and squalled.

  Matt recognized that impatience. “She’s hungry.”

  “She should have been fed an hour ago.”

  Matt swallowed a gullet of guilt, standing outside safe, helpless, while hunger gnawed at the belly of his infant daughter. As she got hungrier, she would undoubtedly get noisier. Maybe Matt could use that to get J.J. to release her.

  Or maybe J.J. would just decide to silence her himself.

  “Feed her,” he said, refusing to acknowledge the horrid images burned indelibly in his mind by the thought of J.J.’s ragged nerves unraveling on Hailey.

  “I—I can’t,” Caroline said.

  “There’s no room here for modesty, Caro. Just turn your chair around and do what you have to do.”

  Caro let go of Hailey with one hand and wrapped her fingers around the back of the chair, spinning the seat away from the table.

  “Cut it out,” J.J. yelled in a voice so high it made Matt’s fillings ache. He stalked even closer to Caroline, bending his elbow as he approached so that the gun stayed jammed in her face. “Do what I tell you! Sit down. Ain’t nobody goin’ nowhere.”

  “I am. I’m sitting.” C
aroline turned very slowly, easing her cheek past the muzzle of the gun. She kept turning until the weapon was behind her—and her body was between it and Hailey. “I’m just turning this way so I can feed my baby. You aren’t going to shoot me for feeding my baby, are you?”

  She lowered herself to the seat with the same slow, fluid grace with which she’d turned. J.J. seemed frozen, his face twisted in rage, unsure what to do. Then he lifted the gun so that his elbow pointed toward the ceiling and the muzzle drew down on the nape of her neck.

  “No!” Matt shouted, but he hadn’t pressed the radio button.

  He fumbled with the device, his fingers stiff with fear, but before he could speak again, Caroline lifted her shirt and J.J.’s face contorted into a new expression. Rage faded into…panic. Horror. He recoiled. Wide-eyed, he backed up until his hips hit the counter and then slid down the stained maple to his heels on the floor.

  In another situation, his reaction would have been comical. Matt visualized the headline. Teenage Boy Confronted With The Reality Of Breast Feeding Collapses On Floor.

  Matt was beyond laughter, though. Nearly beyond breathing. Gingerly he uncurled his cramped fingers.

  Caroline lifted Hailey. The world went still for a moment. Even the cops milling around paused, their faces softening, as the ultra-sensitive microphones planted on the windows picked up Hailey’s soft sucking sounds.

  His little girl. She might as well have sucked the soul right out of his body.

  His hands shaking, Matt lifted the radio. That had been too close. He had to get his wits about him. Had to end this before anyone died. Caroline. Hailey.

  God.

  He could use this time to take the next step—direct contact with the H.T. “J.J., I know you can hear me. Caroline’s going to be busy for a while, so she’s not going to be able to talk for you. Why don’t you pick up the radio and talk to me yourself?”

  He waited, not expecting an answer, but not able to keep himself from hoping, either. “You must be tired, J.J. You’ve been in there a long time. Maybe you could tell me why you’re in there. What you want.”

  Matt held his breath while J.J. picked up the radio, then looked at the window almost as if he knew the camera was there. Fatigue glazed the boy’s eyes, bruised his cheeks. “You know what I want.”