Nora Roberts: High Noon

"You'll get them out." Duncan reached out so their fingertips touched. "You'll get them out. Phin, your sister's out there now, and the rest of your family's coming. You should go out, be with them."

"I have to know what's happening." Crumbling, Phin covered his face with his hands. "I have to know something."

"I'll come out and tell you," Duncan assured him, then turned to Phoebe.

"Yes, that's fine. Go out with your family, Phin, let them know your mother and Loo aren't hurt. We'll keep you informed." She signaled to an officer. "Escort Mr. Hector to his family. If he needs to come back in, he should be escorted back in. All right?" She rubbed her hands up and down Phin's arms, felt the muscles quivering. "You go, help your family. I'm going to help your mother and Loo."

"I can't lose them, Phoebe."

"We won't lose them. Go on now."

"How am I supposed to feel?" Duncan said as Phin went out. "They were meeting me in there."

"He's responsible. And I'm responsible for getting them out." And that's what he'd wanted all along, she knew. Everything else had been building to this.

Showdown.

"Can I get some coffee in here?" Phoebe called out as she rubbed at the tension at the back of her neck. "And more water? Duncan, I have to ask you not to tell Phin anything I don't clear you to tell him."

"I got that. What can I do to help?"

"Listen. You're good at listening." She looked up at the board Sykes had posted. "His emotions are all over the scale. That's typical for this first stage. He wants the negotiation, that's our advantage. He doesn't want to come out of it, so that's his. I'm not calling him back." She turned toward Vince. "He knows how to reach me, he knows how it works. Action, right? He likes to take action, make the moves?"

"Yeah."

"It gives him more of a sense of control, of authority, if he makes the next contact. Let's give him that. Let's wait."

"Got the credit card report," Liz strode up quickly. "Five-thousanddollar charge, Mark D, two weeks before the bank robbery. He made the minimum payments on it until he went south."

"Bought her a ring in there, that's what he did." Phoebe pushed through her notes. "Got the property list, the personal effects. She had diamond-yellow-gold band-ring on her person. White-gold diamondcrusted wedding band in her purse. Not on her finger. She was wearing

Walken's ring when she died. Bastard Brentine. He knew it. Maybe not before her death, but he damn well knew what had been going on when he got her effects. And he stonewalls us."

She scribbled, highlighted, circled. How could she use it? Should she? Time would tell.

"He thinks he knows me, but he doesn't. I know him. And you know him," she said to Vince. "A lot of the men out there with guns pointed at that building know him. He wants to work me, but we'll be working him. He won't allow himself to relate to any of the hostages. They have to remain meaningless to him so he can do what he means to do."

"What does he mean to do?" Duncan asked.

"Kill them all. Kill himself and all of them."

"Oh Jesus God."

"To strike at me, personally and professionally. How can I ever do this again if I fail to save those people? How can I live with it? That's what he thinks."

Pacing in front of the situation board, she stared at the phone, willing it to ring. "The press and public opinion will rip me to pieces. That's what he knows. The connection between him and me will be made known, and the bank incident will be picked over again. I'll be disgraced, and useless as a negotiator, and I'll pay, finally pay, for causing his lover's death. That's what he thinks. And he'll die, in a spectacular and symbolic way. I'll have killed him, just like I killed her. That's what he wants most of all."

She turned to look at the clock. "We're not going to give him what he wants."

"Offer him a trade. He knows about us. Offer to trade me for two of the women. For Ma and Loo. I'm a bigger win for him, and then-"

"He wouldn't take it. And neither I nor the commander could allow it, Duncan."

But he would give it, she thought. He would risk himself for love. "Duncan." She spoke softly, so he could hear her heart under the words. "I know what they mean to you. I know what you're feeling." And it was killing her.

She turned as the phone rang. "All right. Here we go. Hello, Jerry." Inside the bank, Ma patted the hand of the woman beside her. "Stop crying now."

"He's going to kill us. He's-"

"Crying doesn't help."

"We should pray." A man across the circle rocked gently back and forth. "We should put our faith in the Lord."

"Can't hurt." But Ma was putting a good chunk of her faith in the men outside with guns. "Hush now," she repeated. "Patsy, isn't it? Hush up now, Patsy. That woman he's talking to? She's smart."

"How do you know?"

Loo squeezed her mother-in-law's hand fiercely, gave a quick shake of her head. "She sounds smart. She'll find out what he wants, and everything's going to be fine."

They circled each other for more than an hour before he broke communications again. "He's stalling. He wants to string this out, make it last.

There's something he wants to make me do, but he's not ready yet. It's under there, I can hear it under there."

"He's enjoying it," Duncan told her. "He likes telling you no. No food, no water, no medical supplies. He's cruising on it."

"Agreed, for now."

"He's not going to let any of them out." Sykes sat down beside Phoebe. "He doesn't want anything in exchange, and if he did, he knows that releasing any of the hostages is our advantage. They can give us inside intel, make it simpler to shut this down."

"They can't get a shot." Vince walked over to the situation board, gestured to the sketch of the interior of the store. "He's in this corner, northeast corner, and there's no shot. That's why he's there."

"He's been on the other side," Phoebe concurred. "He's familiarized himself with the layout, with the angles."

"They need to go in. Back door's the only way. A frontal assault gives him too much time. They need to deal with the explosives on the rear door."

"And if they make a mistake, if he's got an alarm on it, and it goes or blows, he'll end it."

"You have to get him out of the corner," Duncan said, and Phoebe turned to him.

"Yes, I do."

"If they can't get an angle on him, he doesn't have one on them."

"That's right." Phoebe closed her hand briefly over Duncan's. "That's exactly right. I need to talk to the commander. I need to know where to move him, if possible." She signaled to Sykes to make the call. "They have to let me know when they're going to take him. I know that's not how it's usually done, but they can trust me not to let him know it's coming. I have to move him; they have to know that's coming."

"Got it." Sykes turned with his radio to signal the command post. Shoving her hair off her damp neck, Phoebe paced, tried to put herself inside the shop. "He's going to have to let them use the bathroom at some point, unless he wants a big mess on his hands. And he doesn't. One bathroom, employees', right in the back room." She narrowed her eyes at the sketch. "How does he plan to work this? He'd have thought it through already, have a system ready. That's why he doesn't have all the hostages in the circle. Holding one back to release another. He doesn't have to move or interact with them to handle the basic function. But it's going to be distracting, and he'll have to be alert. He won't want to talk to me while that's going on."

She nodded. "And we're not giving him what he wants."

Time, she thought, to start playing him. She picked up the phone, called.

"Better be you, bitch."

"It's always going to be me, Jerry. You know how this goes. No lying to a hostage-taker, it puts the hostages at risk. No saying no to a hostage-taker, it pisses them off, and puts the hostages at risk. I'm supposed to empathize with you, be supportive of your feelings, listen to your demands and complaints."