Kay David - The Negotiator

Beck wanted to tell her everything was going to be all right

He’d be lying if he did. For the survivors, a hostage incident didn’t end when the SWAT team busted in.

In fact, Jennifer Barclay’s wide brown eyes told him shock had inched its way in, forcing into her eyes the kind of glazed disbelief he’d seen too many times. She’d been stronger than most, but that was over.

It was a mistake of monumental proportions and he knew it, but Beck decided he didn’t care. He reached for her.

She stepped back so quickly she almost fell. Grabbing the window sill, she spoke from between gritted teeth. “You lied to me! You promised no one would get hurt.”

Immediately, Beck’s mask slid into place. Her words weren’t what he’d expected, but different people reacted in different ways. Jennifer had been holding her emotions in check for hours and now she was going to erupt. At him.

She made no attempt to hide her emotions, and it wouldn’t have mattered if she had. He understood better than she did what she was feeling.

I feel guilty because I couldn’t stop this. I feel guilty because I survived.

Dear Reader,

Thirty-five years ago this August, I was eleven years old. Sitting in the front seat of my mother’s Cadillac, I waited impatiently for my eighteen-year-old sister Dana while she purchased gasoline. It was unbearably hot and I was already upset. In just a few weeks, Dana was moving away from home, going to Austin and the University of Texas. She was growing up and leaving me behind.

Then the radio blared with a sudden bulletin. That didn’t happen quite so often in those days as it does now, and even my young ears perked up as the announcer began to speak with anxious excitement. His news was not good.

A sniper was in the clock tower at the university, and he was shooting people. In broad daylight. With a high-powered rifle. I yelled at my sister to come quick and listen. We sat in the sweltering heat of that August day and held our breath. As the news went on, seemingly forever, her eyes met mine, a mixture of horror, disbelief and fright darkening their depths.

By the end of that afternoon, Charles Whitman had shot over forty people, killing more than a dozen strangers, plus his wife and mother. The rest of us were wounded, too, because he taught us a terrible lesson that day. No one is safe.

That incident is largely regarded as the genesis for SWAT teams as we know them. Back then, law enforcement officials weren’t prepared; they’d encountered few situations like this. Today, unfortunately, we’re all much better equipped, physically if not emotionally, to deal with such horrible circumstances. Daily, SWAT teams the world over handle hostage situations, suicide threats, snipers…anything and everything that is dangerous and deadly.

The Negotiator is the first in a trilogy of books I’ve written about just such a team. It will be followed in March and May by The Commander and The Listener. Set in the Florida panhandle, each of these stories will focus on a special member of the team. No one can fully understand the stress and danger these brave men and women face every day. I hope in some small way, however, that I’ve deepened understanding for everything they—and the people who love them—do to keep the rest of us safe.

Sincerely,

Kay David

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to the incredibly brave police officers who struggle every day to make the world a safer place. Their jobs are too important and too dangerous for any writer to fully capture the essence of their sacrifices, but I hope these stories somehow express the appreciation I feel for their efforts.

A special acknowledgment to Laura and Paula. Your support and encouragement mean more than I can adequately express. Thank you both for having faith in my abilities and for giving me the opportunity to tell the stories my way.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

EPILOGUE

LOOKING BACK on it, that night after everything was over, Jennifer Barclay realized with amazement that the morning had started out like any other ordinary day.

She’d had no sense of impending doom, no feeling things were about to go horribly wrong. Not a single clue. If she’d known—if she’d had even the slightest inkling—she would have stayed home in bed.

But she hadn’t suspected a thing.

She’d arrived at Westside Elementary at seven-thirty and by four that afternoon, as usual, she was totally exhausted. She loved her job as a fourth-grade teacher, but by May, even she needed a break. With only another five weeks of school, the kids had been wild, and none of them had wanted to concentrate. Their heads were at the coast, a mile down Highway 98, where the white Florida sand and crashing emerald waves were just begging to be enjoyed. Truth be told, Jennifer had had a hard time focusing herself…but for a totally different reason.

She’d had to change her schedule.

Jennifer always visited her mother on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but this afternoon she wouldn’t be able to make it to the nursing home. She’d had to arrange an after-school meeting for the children participating in the annual beach cleanup, and the disruption to her usual orderly agenda bothered her a lot. Her friends teased her, but for Jennifer, routine meant everything. During her childhood, no plans had ever been made, much less kept, and now nothing was more important to her than the steady, day-to-day patterns she lived by.

She hurried down the hallway toward her classroom and tried to convince herself to stop worrying. Half the time Nadine Barclay didn’t even know who she was, never mind if Jennifer was there or not. Alzheimer’s had robbed Jennifer’s mother of her family and her memories. Jennifer wanted to be a good daughter to her mother, though. She showed up twice a week whether Nadine knew it not.

Whether Jennifer wanted to or not.

Reaching her classroom, she walked inside and closed the door behind her. In between the last bell and the scheduled meeting, she had exactly five minutes to gulp the diet cola she’d retrieved from the teachers’ lounge, but she hadn’t even taken her first sip when the door opened. She closed her eyes for just a second, then turned to see who was standing in the doorway.

Ten-year-old Juan Canales smiled shyly at her.

“Juan!” Putting aside her plans to snatch a moment of peace, Jennifer grinned and held up the icy drink. “Come on in. I just went and got a Coke. If you don’t tell anyone, I’ll share it with you!”

He replaced his indecisive look with one of contained excitement. His family was very poor, and she doubted he and his siblings got enough to eat. Sodas would have been out of the question. The Canales family represented the flip side of Destin, the beautiful resort town Westside Elementary served. Juan’s mother cleaned rooms for one of the elegant beach hotels and his father clipped the bushes surrounding its luxurious pool. When Jennifer handed the little boy the filled paper cup, he gripped it with two hands and sipped slowly.

Jennifer studied Juan surreptitiously as he drank. He was one of her very best students, and even though she knew she wasn’t supposed to have favorites, Jennifer had to admit, he was one. Smart, clever and as sweet as he could be, Juan Canales made Jennifer ache to have children of her own. He was a perfect example of why she’d become a teacher, too. He seemed as starved for information as he was for everything else.