by Lisa Black
He steeled himself to enter the map room. He had held Rachael in his arms three days after her birth, true, but on the other hand he had no children and went to some effort to avoid dealing with anyone under twenty-five. Now he moved toward Theresa’s daughter as one might approach an injured tiger. The analogy fit almost too well—Rachael was desperate, unpredictable, and definitely wounded.
He pulled up a chair, sitting in front of her so she could see him and the monitor at the same time. The boyfriend—a pretty even-keeled kid, to Patrick’s great relief—noticed him first, then Rachael. She regarded him warily, wondering if he now functioned in the capacity of cop or loving uncle.
“I don’t have any news. The situation is still just as you see it on the TV here—your mom is fine.”
“What are you guys going to do?”
“We’re going to negotiate until they give themselves up peacefully. That’s how these things usually end, especially bank robberies. But I wanted to tell you that the hospital called, about Paul.”
“How is he?”
She looked like her mother, he noticed for the first time. Her eyes, brown instead of Theresa’s crystal blue, had always thrown him off, but now he could see it in the shape of her lips and the line of her jaw. And like her mother, she hid her vulnerability well, refusing to even hint at its possibility.
But Rachael was only seventeen, and about to face a decision he wouldn’t want on his shoulders at fifty. “He’s in pretty bad shape.”
She seemed surprised, but then teenagers still believed in immortality. And she hadn’t seen the blood. “Is he going to die?”
“They don’t know. But I have to tell you it’s a possibility.”
She did not respond, simply absorbed. Just as her mother would have done.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Rachael, when I know you’re so worried about your mother. I wish it could be avoided.” Seventeen or not, Rachael was a human being and deserved the truth. Paul had been about to become her stepfather. “I’ll let you know as soon as I get any further news.”
“Mom would want me to go and stay with him.”
Patrick wrote down the names of the hospital and of Paul’s doctor but said nothing. Theresa would probably prefer him to get Rachael away from the scene, both for psychological reasons and to be out of harm’s way in the event of explosions or gunfire, but he couldn’t bring himself to influence the girl. Deciding things for other people did not come as easily to him as it did to, say, Chris Cavanaugh.
He left her there to think about it, sighing with guilty relief as he left the room—on little cat feet, the way one leaves a funeral parlor.
Moving back upstairs, he turned his mind to Lucas Parrish and tried to fit the information Lucas’s sister had provided into some useful framework. He couldn’t. The conversation had served only to convince him that Parrish had a loftier goal in mind than getting a teller to stuff some cash in a bag.
On the other hand, the sister had listed “wealth” among his aspirations. Perhaps Lucas Parrish was exactly what he appeared to be, a kid blessed with enough smarts to have a dream but not enough to bring it to life. Maybe it really was just the money.
CHAPTER 27
2:58 P.M.
“Detective?”
Peggy Elliott skipped up a few steps to catch him. She carried a textbook that must have weighed seven pounds, easy. “I’ve been reading up on RDX.”
He paused on the landing. “That was quick.”
“I’m a reference librarian. It’s what I do.”
His partner had an appointment with death penciled in, Theresa sat out of reach with a gun to her head, and yet Patrick found himself wondering if Ms. Elliott had a significant other, and if not, how she might react to an offer of coffee or lunch….
Later. “Thanks. Please don’t tell anyone else—I’d get in trouble for discussing an investigation in progress. What did you find?”
“Nothing, unfortunately. There is no way to neutralize it—chemically, I mean. You could always throw it in the lake or blast it into space. Or just pull out the detonator.”
“The lake, huh?”
She nodded. “Then run like hell.”
Patrick returned to the negotiator’s area like a moth to the flame, afraid to look at the television monitor but unable not to. He retook his seat just as Lucas Parrish finally answered the phone at the information desk across the street and said, “Hello, Chris.”
“Thanks for picking up, Lucas. I was getting worried about you.”
“That’s so sweet, Chris. Remind me to drop you a card on your next birthday.”
“I’m glad you have your money, but now we need to work out where you’re going to go from here.”
“I have an aunt in Chicago. I figure she’ll let me sleep on her couch for a few weeks. After that, I’ll head for Las Vegas. Ever seen the Grand Canyon, Chris?”
“I’m mostly concerned with Cleveland right now. You know there’s a whole lot of cops with guns on this block who are pretty worried that you’re going to hurt some of those hostages. You have to know they’re willing to take you out to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“I wouldn’t respect them if they weren’t, Chris.”
“We’re going to have to work together to come up with a good exit strategy, one where no one gets hurt.”
“Exit strategy. I like that. It sounds all corporatelike.”
Again Patrick felt a desperate need to travel through the wires and strangle the little shit.
“Why don’t you tell me what you have in mind?”
“I could tell you, Chris, but then I’d have to kill you.”
Cavanaugh wiped moisture from his nose, then pinched the bridge. Patrick wouldn’t say he seemed worried, exactly, but he did not speak with the confidence he had earlier that morning. It scared him. Cavanaugh had been through this process hundreds of times more than Patrick had, and something about this situation was atypical. But then, hell, from Paul to Theresa to Rachael, nothing about the day had been typical.
“I’ll go first,” Cavanaugh offered. “If you put down the weapons and come out, you have my word that you will not be harmed in any way.”
“You can go first, last, and always, Chris. It doesn’t matter, because this is not a negotiation. We’ll leave when we want to leave, and if your cops try to stop us, we’ll kill a few hostages. End of story.”
“If you hurt people, I can’t guarantee your safety.”
“We’ve already hurt people, in case you haven’t been paying attention. So I’m guessing our safety has become irrelevant. At least I can still pick the way I go.”
Patrick found himself chewing on a knuckle. Lucas had gotten it, finally—he had no way out. He could collect the money, he could keep the cops at bay by threatening the hostages, he could trade barbs with the famous negotiator—he could do everything but leave. He had two choices: He could give up, or he could go out in a blaze of glory or some other suitably dramatic ending.
Dreamy, his sister had said. Romantic.
Patrick had no doubt which choice Lucas would take.
“That’s not true.” Cavanaugh continued to work on it. “We can still salvage the situation. No one else has to die today. We can work this out as long as we trust each other.”
“See, that’s just it. As I believe Bobby and I have made clear, we are not going to trust cops, ever, ever, ever. You’re not going to negotiate us around that, Chris, do you understand? You fail. Period.”
Cavanaugh’s voice grew hard. The word “fail” had a rejuvenating effect on him. “I don’t get this, Lucas. You told me who you were, you told me what you wanted, you sent Jessica upstairs, and we let her come back. We worked together on the money shipment. Now we get to the most critical part of the day and you won’t tell me what you want?”
“I don’t believe you care what I want.”
“If you try to leave with hostages, they’ll kill you. You’ll be giving them no choice. I know you�
�re intelligent enough to see that.”
“I’m intelligent enough to know that your goals and my goals have never coincided. Y’all gave me the money figuring you’d get it back after we die, and we’ll die if we put these guns down. I know it. Bobby knows it. So stop wasting your breath and my time.”
He hung up.
Cavanaugh dropped the receiver into place with a clatter. “I just don’t get this guy.” He sounded almost plaintive for a moment.
“What’s he going to do?” Patrick asked, feeling worse than Cavanaugh sounded. “Keeping hostages with him is the only way to get to that car. He has no choice.”
“I know that. What makes it worse is that Theresa is an obvious choice for him. He thinks we’ll place more value on her life than on a stranger’s.”
Jason returned from the direction of the command center. “Laura’s plane finally landed. She’ll be here in ten.”
“Fifteen,” Cavanaugh said, dialing the phone. “She exaggerates. I need to stall them, to let SRT figure out how to get a hook on that car. And we’ve only got one card to play…. Lucas? May I speak to Bobby, please? There’s a loose end I’d like to tie up.”
Eric Moyers, Patrick thought.
“Is this about his brother again?”
“I want to show you I can be trusted, that I have told you the truth every minute of this day, and that if I tell you you won’t be harmed, you won’t be. I can prove I didn’t lie about Bobby’s brother. Will you at least give me the chance to do that?”
“No.”
“What about Bobby? It’s his brother, the last of his family. Shouldn’t he be the one to make this decision?”
The phone gave a snapping sound, which led to a low hum. Lucas had switched to speakerphone; they heard his retreating voice as he changed places with his partner. “He wants to talk to you about your brother. I don’t know, just talk to him. I want to check out the street anyway.”
Patrick said, “I thought you never—”
Cavanaugh covered the receiver while he answered him. “Use the family? This is different. I don’t expect the sight of his next of kin to fill Bobby with remorse. But I do expect it to convince him that he has based all his actions today on erroneous assumptions. If one crumbles, they all may, including his assumption that getting away scot-free is a possibility.”
Patrick dropped it. “If Lucas doesn’t want to talk to us, why does he keep picking up the phone?”
“Because deep down he wants me to find a solution for him, to find a way to make this come out all right. He’s a little boy who started out to steal an apple and instead set fire to the orchard, and now he’s scared. Most of these guys are like that.”
Patrick wasn’t so sure. Lucas seemed like the least frightened guy on East Sixth, and Cavanaugh needed a reason to keep the reins from the imminent Laura. She would only be secondary anyway—but maybe that was still too much for Cavanaugh. It didn’t matter, really. They had to do something. Maybe this would drive a wedge between the two robbers.
The monitor showed Bobby’s approach. In the background Theresa seemed to be conversing with Jessica Ludlow. Be careful, Patrick silently warned her. She should stop trying to investigate and keep her head down.
The other half of the criminal team spoke into the phone. “What?”
“Family seems to be the most important thing to you,” Cavanaugh told him. “Is connecting with the last member of your family more important than robbing a bank?”
“I don’t get you.”
“I’m saying if I can produce your brother, not just on the phone but let you see him, would you put down your weapon and end this day peacefully?”
“If you can bring the dead back to life, Cavanaugh, I’ll do anything you say.”
“I’m serious, Bobby. This is a real deal we’re making here. I can only hold up my end if I can trust you to hold up yours.”
“There’s just one problem,” Bobby said. “I know you’re lying.”
“I’ll bring him down, and we’ll stand in the doorway, across the street at the library building.”
Bobby’s derisive snort exploded over the wires. “I sure hope this guy you’ve got looks more like my brother than he sounds, or you’ll have to stand in the next county to convince me.”
Cavanaugh paused, his finger off the “talk” button.
“You’re not going to have us walk Eric Moyers across the street?” Jason whispered. “That’s against the rules.”
“We’re not going to hand him over, just let his brother see him. We can break Bobby, and we have to…. Okay, Bobby, we can make this work. I can let you converse with your brother if that will satisfy you that I’m telling the truth. But what are you going to do for me?”
They heard—and saw, on the monitor—Bobby turn from the phone and explain the situation to Lucas.
Lucas sounded more strained than ever. “Give up? Are you nuts?”
“If it’s not him, we can waste ’em. But if it is—if he’s really still alive—then I don’t want to die, man.”
“What?”
They heard a clunk as Bobby dropped the phone. He moved across the tile and joined Lucas for what appeared to be a heated talk. They both stood at the corner to the entranceway.
“Snipers!” Cavanaugh barked into his radio. “Green light!” Meaning they were far enough from the hostages—take the shot.
“Negative. Out of range.” One or both were sufficiently hidden by the teller cages.
“Damn.”
The two conversed with a number of hand gestures but only an audible word here or there.
Cavanaugh next contacted Mulvaney. “Can we turn up the volume on those mikes? We really need to hear what they’re saying.”
“If we could,” the captain’s voice drawled over the radio, “don’t you think we would have hours ago?”
“True, sorry.” Cavanaugh set the radio down. “They’re keeping their voices low. They don’t want the hostages to hear.”
“What’s the plan?” Jason asked. He seemed truly worried, which didn’t make Patrick feel any better.
“They’re going to make a run for it. At least debating this issue will delay them a bit. It also seems to be breaking down the partnership—best-case scenario, they get in a fight and shoot each other.” Cavanaugh tilted his head back, drained another bottle of water. “Second best, I can make this deal with Bobby and they give up. No one else gets hurt.”
Patrick tried to loosen his tie, only to realize he had removed it hours before. “Lucas didn’t come this far just to make Bobby feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”
“But it gives him an out. He’s got to know by now that he isn’t going to drive the Mercedes into the sunset with a trunkful of cash. Giving up for the sake of his buddy is a much different animal than giving up to save his skin.”
“Altruism has drama,” Patrick agreed, though he couldn’t shake the feeling that Cavanaugh might be drawing the conclusions he preferred.
“It all depends on what’s going on in Lucas Parrish’s mind,” Cavanaugh said, as if he’d read Patrick’s.
Jason still worried. “How are you going to get Eric Moyers to go along with this? He went to great pains to avoid even a phone call from his brother, much less a visit.”
“He won’t like having those people’s blood on his hands either.” Cavanaugh straightened his collar, tucked his shirttails more tightly into the slightly wrinkled khakis. “You’ve talked to him more than we have, Patrick, what do you think?”
“Hmm?” He’d been watching the monitor, where Bobby and Lucas continued to converse with intensity but not, so far, apparent anger. “He isn’t a bad guy. He’d want to do the right thing, and he’s not afraid of his brother, more contemptuous of him. But he also strikes me as having a well-developed sense of self-preservation. Look, they’re done talking.”
Cavanaugh leaned over the communication set just as Bobby, on the monitor, swept up the phone receiver. The robber’s first words came as someth
ing of a surprise.
“Tell me again what you have in mind,” he asked.
Patrick noticed the slight breath of relief Cavanaugh let out before going back into the dance.
“If I produce your brother—so that you can see him and talk to him, long enough and close enough to satisfy you that he is your brother, Eric Moyers, then you and Lucas put down your guns and come out. You will not be harmed by the officers.”
“That sounds like weasel words. Who will we be harmed by, then?”
“No one. No harm will come to you from anyone, as long as you put down your weapons and come out, leaving those people safe. We’re not interested in shooting you, Bobby, or hurting you or Lucas. We just want to get those bank employees back to their families and all these police officers back to their families.”
Patrick thought he laid the family emphasis on a bit thickly, but it kept Bobby talking.
“One condition,” he said. “We don’t serve any time. Lucas and me, we’ve already seen the inside of prison for longer than we ever cared to.”
Jason shifted in his chair and muttered to himself. “This part is always sticky.”
“That’s not really up to me, Bobby, but I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that you can both walk off free after this has ended. You know that’s not how it works. But if you give up peacefully, without hurting anyone else, it will count in your favor with the courts.”
“Meaning we’ll go to jail and you’ll throw away the key.”
This could lead to several more hours of negotiation. Hostage takers never wanted to go to jail, but all knew that they would. Just like escaping with the money—the trick was to keep them talking until they accepted the reality of the situation. It had to be so tempting to lie to them, Patrick thought, to tell them anything they’d like to hear just to end this. But unless they were completely insane, they’d know you were lying, and further discussions would be pointless.
However, that they were even considering jail time represented a huge concession. The brother card might actually work.
“I don’t know what kind of sentence the judge will require, Bobby. As I said, that’s not up to me. But I know what kind of sentence you’ll get if anyone else dies today, and you won’t like it better.” Cavanaugh spoke almost gently. He did not wish to threaten, his voice said. Merely inform.