Crossfire

“I think we should keep our personal lives out of the office,” she said.

He wanted to laugh again. “Is that a yes or a no?”

“I’ve been busy the last five years. I really haven’t had time to—” She seemed to catch herself. “What about you?”

He raised an eyebrow. Did she really care one way or the other? “I guess we’ve both been too busy.” He looked into her eyes, searching for just a little of what they’d once had together.

She was the first to drag her gaze away. She brushed a hand through her hair. He couldn’t help but remember how her hair had felt in his fingers. He wondered if it would feel the same.

He turned away, unable to look at her as he found himself drowning in memories of the two of them together, laughing late at night, walking the beach as the sun rose over the city, talking for hours on the phone, making love—oh, lordie, yes, making wonderful, passionate love.

“Flint, this has been my life’s dream,” she said behind him. “This job. I’ve trained for years for it. Isn’t it possible that I just want to help people, that I want to make a difference?”

He felt anger bubble up inside of him as he turned to look at her again. “Being the mother to our children wouldn’t have made a difference in the world? No, sorry, that job wasn’t exciting enough for you.”

“That’s a cheap shot even for you,” she said. “I was twenty-four years old. I had worked hard to become a paramedic. I wasn’t ready to quit a rewarding, exciting job to become a mother yet. But after a while I would have loved to have been the mother of our children. You were the one who said I had to choose. Either I stayed home and started a family right after we were married, or I could pursue a career—without you.”

He shook his head. He hadn’t meant to take that position. He’d regretted it for years. “We could have worked it out if you’d given us a chance. Instead you threw the engagement ring at me and walked out, left town and obviously never looked back.”

“You mean, the way we’re working it out now?” she asked with an exasperated sigh.

“Damn it Anna, I know what it was like to grow up without a mother, remember? I didn’t want that for my kids. Is that so hard for you to understand?”

“No, but it was all right for their father to be a cop?” She narrowed her gaze at him. “I thought you were going to be a cop who used his brain and wasn’t risking his life all the time. What changed?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now, does it. We have no kids to worry about, and it seems we both think we can take care of ourselves just fine.” She was right. They never could have worked it out. He didn’t want his wife risking her life at her job. He wanted her at home with their kids.

“Flint, I had hoped you might understand.”

He shook his head. “This has to be the worst decision you’ve ever made, but then, I thought leaving me was the worst, and obviously you’ve proven me wrong. You seem perfectly happy with your decision.”

She raised her chin, that defiant, obstinate look in her eyes. “I am.”

“Then we have no problem,” he said, and opened the door. “Let’s get this over with.”

CHAPTER THREE

7:32 a.m. Friday

LEE HARPER had been feeling odd all morning. Now as he glanced around the main floor of city hall, everything had a surreal feel to it. He and Kenny were on the ground floor at the back of city hall and they had their hostage. Kenny’s plan had worked.

“Could you help me over here?” Kenny snapped.

He turned to see Kenny wrestling with the woman. Lorna Sinke. That was her name. She was a tiny little thing, thin with brown hair and a small face that made her dark eyes seem larger. He’d seen her when he’d come to the city council meetings. She reminded him of Francine.

“Lee? Could you get your ass over here?”

He shook himself. “Sure.” He moved, feeling bulky in the large, cumbersome police jacket.

Kenny had her down on the floor but she was fighting him, kicking, scratching, biting him.

“Get my gun,” Kenny ordered. “Shoot the bitch.”

“You said no one would get hurt.”

“Shoot her, damn it! Or I’ll shoot you!”

Lee picked up the assault rifle, which Kenny had dropped, and walked over to where the two were struggling on the floor. The woman’s eyes were on him. She looked more angry than scared.

“Who are you fools?” she cried. “What do you think you’re doing? This is a city building on the historic registrar.”

“Shut the hell up,” Kenny said. “Shoot her, damn it!”

Lee just tapped her with the butt of the rifle, a light tap that connected with her skull. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she quit fighting. “Did I kill her?” he asked, feeling sick and confused. “I didn’t mean to kill her.” He was having trouble remembering what he was doing here.

Kenny snatched the rifle from him. “I told you to shoot her.”

“I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” Lee said.

“Yeah. Sure. You got the cuffs on you?”

Lee frowned, then felt in the pocket of his large jacket, producing one of a half dozen pairs. He remembered Kenny saying there could be cleaning people or repairmen in the building. Better to be prepared than not. Or maybe he’d said that. Not that it mattered. He handed a set of handcuffs to Kenny.

Kenny was looking oddly at Lee’s big police coat. He shook his head and slapped one end of the handcuff on Lorna’s wrist. She was coming around, only dazed, not dead. Lee felt a surge of relief. Francine wouldn’t like it if anyone got hurt.

Yes, he recalled now. The handcuffs had been his idea. “Easy and faster than rope,” he’d told Kenny, who hadn’t been that impressed. Kenny had liked it, though, when Lee had told him about the Internet supply shop he’d found where they could get real police handcuffs. “They even have police uniforms and badges.”

Kenny had gotten excited then. “Lee, you’re a genius. We’ll dress as cops. It will make it that much easier to get the old broad to let us in.”

“The old broad,” as Kenny called her, was wide awake again. Lee could feel her gaze on him as he glanced up. He thought he heard a sound from one of the floors above them. The building should have been empty this time of the morning on a Friday. But he would have sworn he heard a door open upstairs.

7:37 a.m.

LORNA MEMORIZED the men’s faces. If she were called in for a lineup, she wanted to identify these two without the slightest hesitation. The younger of the men grabbed her shoulder and tried to flip her over onto her stomach, no doubt so he could cuff her wrists behind her. He appeared to be in his thirties; his face was thin, hair dishwater-blond, and he looked slovenly even in the police uniform. Especially in the scruffy sneakers. He held some sort of assault rifle in his free hand, his fingernails grimy.

“Help me roll this bitch over,” he ordered the older one, his breath smelling of garlic and alcohol.

With the handcuff dangling from her wrist, Lorna gripped the canvas bag with her purse, lunch and the cookies inside. Her cell phone was palmed in her other hand where he couldn’t see it. She lay perfectly still, hardly breathing as he turned to the other man, the soft-spoken elderly man who’d first approached her.

“Lee? Are you going to help me over here or not?”

Lee was in his late sixties, early seventies, neat as a pin. Even his black lace-up leather dress shoes were shined, creases ironed into his uniform pants. He wore a large, bulky-looking uniform jacket, which, now that she thought about it, was far too heavy for Southern California. He was still kind of slumped over a little, looking uncomfortable, still giving her the impression that he was in pain.

But she thought she remembered where she’d seen him. Wasn’t he the man who had come to the council meeting the last two months? Something about his wife.

“Wait a minute,” the young one said, straightening as he stared back at the man. “Where the hell is your gun, Lee?”

“You said to bring firepower, Kenny.”