Chapter 29
Inside the post office the hostages and their captor sit in a circle to eat their pizza and drink their waters. They make
polite conversation between bites, unaware that outside the post office chaos reigns. Just as the police completed Operation
Pizza Delivery, a family member of one of the hostages saw her chance and made a mad dash for the building. (Though what she
thought she was going to do once she got there, Hope has no idea.) They intercepted the kid before anything could come of
it, but no sooner did they handle that situation than the county team showed up.
Now, in the parking lot of the building next to the post office, the NOC is being set up, SWAT is mobilizing and scoping out
the building for access points, and Hope is being asked a barrage of questions before she hands over the reins and leaves
them to it.
It is for the best that a team that does this regularly is taking over. Hope stepped in when she was needed; she did what
she could. And nothing awful happened on her watch. That, she tells herself, is a good day’s work. And yet she has a nagging
feeling that she is abandoning these people, leaving them in the hands of strangers.
Two team members take charge: Adam and Chris.
Chris sees the concern on her face and tells her that he will take good care of the hostages, that he will work toward a peaceful surrender with no one harmed.
Though they both know he can’t promise that, she goes along with it because at least he has the intent.
In the background the other team members are getting all the technology up and running with a no-nonsense efficiency.
When the hostages’ voices, coming from inside the post office, fill the command center through the speaker box, Hope has to
resist the urge to applaud. This is what they’ve needed the whole time. The ability to eavesdrop will bring intel, give them
an advantage, and hopefully bring this day to an end soon.
Hope looks around for Bo, but he has slipped away. She wonders if he, too, feels that his work here is done. She’s sure it’s
been exciting for him to come out of retirement for a few hours. In a way, she feels like she has done the same.
“Excuse me,” she says to the members of the team. “I just need to go find my . . . partner. He might have more to add.” They
nod, turning back to the frenzy around them.
Hope steps out of the NOC, which is a huge semitruck with an RV-like setup inside. The quarters are tight in there and the
interior dark in contrast to the sunshine she steps into. She shields her eyes as she scans the area but doesn’t see Bo anywhere.
She checks to make sure his car is still there, and it is. She didn’t think he’d leave without saying goodbye. She walks across
the parking lot to the place where the witnesses smoked cigarettes and told their story when she arrived hours ago. She stops
there to scan the perimeter again but still doesn’t see Bo.
She keeps walking and looking, walking and looking, until she finds him.
When she finally spots him, he’s hunkered down, his lanky body like a collapsed folding chair, as he speaks to the kid they’d dragged away from the post office.
The girl is sitting on the curb out by a mailbox near the main road, put there for customers who just need to drop their mail and go.
Hope draws closer yet stays back, not wanting to interrupt whatever he is saying to the girl.
Hope watches as Bo comforts her, handing her a paper napkin to dry her tears.
A man stands off to the side, also watching the two of them, his brows knit together and his mouth a grim line.
He must be the girl’s father, the husband of one of the hostages.
Morrow, Hope thinks, recalling the brief report she read early on. This is Morrow’s family.
Bo sees her, stands, and gives her a smile. He points to the girl on the curb. “This is Maya. Her mom is inside. She and I
were just talking.”
Hope steps toward the girl but doesn’t sit on the curb beside her like Bo had. She needs to get back to the NOC and facilitate
the transition. “Nice to meet you, Maya,” she says.
Bo points to Hope. “This is . . .” He stands still for a moment, searching her face, his own blank. Then he says, “Faith.
She’s a negotiator. She’s the one who’s been talking with the man who’s inside so he’ll start to feel good about coming out.”
Maya peers up at Hope, keeping her from processing what Bo just said. He had forgotten her name, then called her by a different
one. “Are you going to get my mom out of there?” Hope hears the hope in her voice.
There is no sense explaining that a new team has come to relieve them and that she and Bo will soon be going home. The only
thing, the right thing, is to tell this girl yes. Yes, for sure she is going to get her mom, and the other women, out of there
safely. The sooner the better. Maya has nothing to worry about.
Maya seems placated with the platitudes, and Hope decides not to correct Bo about her name, chalking up his gaffe to the stress
of the day. She is not the only one who needs a break. Hope and Bo excuse themselves, waving goodbye to Morrow’s family, falling
into step as they head back to the NOC.
“You will, you know,” says Bo.
“I will what?”
“Get them out of there safely. You just need lady luck on your side.”
“Lady luck?” she asks. She thinks of the old Frank Sinatra song. She and Alex used to go to an Italian restaurant in Philly
where they played nothing but Sinatra. It was one of their favorites. Homesickness and longing swell inside of her, unbidden
and, at the moment, inconvenient.
“Something to happen that will open him up even more,” he says. “Something that connects you, something you can’t plan or
manipulate. It just happens. I’ve seen it many times.” He gives her a wink. “You’ll see.”
But she won’t see. Because she is going home. And so should he. “I came to find you because I thought you’d like to take part
in the debrief before we turn things over to the experts,” she says to him.
He gives her a look. “Turn things over?”
“Yes,” she says. Doesn’t he understand that the county is the relief team, that they’re dismissed? “We can go,” she explains.
He keeps shaking his head. “No, we can’t. I mean, I could leave and no one would miss me. But I’m not going to.” He shakes
his finger at her like a schoolmarm. “And neither should you. You’ve built rapport with Tommy. And that’s not nothing.”
“Someone else can build rapport with him. And besides, I don’t think they want us here. They want to handle it,” she says.
“It’s their job.” She feels a tremble in her throat and swallows against it. It’s ridiculous to let emotions in over this.
She’s completed her assignment; now she gets to go home. Rufus will need to go outside. Rufus! As she thinks of her dog, she
realizes she has forgotten to mention Tommy’s request.
“I forgot to tell them about Covey!” she says. “They’re going to need to know about that.” She checks her watch. “Tommy’s stepmom will be here anytime. We—I mean, they—will need to figure out how to go about letting Tommy see the dog. We—I mean, I—promised him that.”
She quickens her pace. Hope hopes that agreeing to the dog was the right thing to do. She’s counting on the dog to break something
open in Tommy, to pave the way toward the resolution they all need. If she’s right, she’s a hero. If she’s wrong, she’s an
idiot.
“You negotiated that,” Bo says. “You need to be here when it happens.”
She shakes her head, insistent. “They’ll handle it.”
She expects him to argue with her, but he says nothing, just keeps his head down as he trudges to the NOC, to the people inside
it waiting to take over the negotiation.
Inside the post office the hostages use the boredom to their advantage, hoping and praying that Tommy will do as Nadine said
and fall asleep. They talk in low tones about boring things on purpose. They do not make jokes so there are no loud outbursts
of laughter. Sylvie asks Nadine a lot of questions about the post office rules and regulations just to increase their odds.
When Nadine starts to tell a story about the time someone tried to mail live chickens, Sylvie shakes her head, a quick, subtle
redirection. No funny stories.
The mood is deliberately quiet and subdued. So much so that they feel themselves getting sleepy. So surely Tommy must be as
well. Tommy, sitting where Nadine told him to, has eaten a whole pizza by himself. Finished, he leans his head back, resting
it against the cabinet. They take turns glancing at him. They notice his eyelids growing heavy. He has to work to keep them
open.
They all think, Any minute now.
Sure enough, there finally comes a time when Tommy’s eyes close and do not open again. Nadine silently pumps her fist in the
air as they all exchange smiles, their heads swirling with the thought of the freedom that awaits. They find themselves leaning
forward as they look to Nadine, expecting her to get up and run to the door like they’d talked about. But instead, they watch,
their faces contorted with confusion, as she crawls toward Tommy. Blythe wants to cry out, “No! This isn’t what we agreed
on!” but she cannot say a word. She has to sit silently as Nadine reaches for the gun that rests in Tommy’s lap.
She’s going to get that gun and shoot him with it, thinks Blythe. She can’t say that she would blame her. But Nadine is potentially risking their freedom for the sake of revenge.
Blythe claps her hand over her own mouth to keep from calling out as she watches Nadine use her pincer fingers to slowly,
gently slide the gun from his lap. The room holds its collective breath as she inches it across the fabric of his jeans.
Tommy’s eyes fly open and his hand clamps down on Nadine’s at the exact same moment. Then everyone is hollering—Tommy hollers
at Nadine, Nadine hollers at Tommy, and Blythe, Morrow, and Sylvie just holler, whether in fear that Tommy will shoot them
or in outrage that they are not free doesn’t make a difference. They had a chance, and now that chance is blown.
Blythe wants to yell at Nadine too. She wants to scream out, “Why didn’t you just unlock the door like we planned?” But to
ask that in front of Tommy is to divulge that they had a plan, which would only anger him further. And it would reveal that
Nadine has her own set of keys, which he still doesn’t know. Maybe at some point she will get the chance to ask Nadine what
she was thinking, but now is not the time.
She thinks of her own impulsivity in attacking Tommy when he had her package.
That wasn’t smart either, but she got her package back.
She looks to it, as if to confirm that it is still there, tucked under her stool.
She goes and picks it up, brushes her fingers across the seam, smoothing down the little tear that Tommy made.
In the midst of the melee, she thinks about Murphy and how glad she is that she is keeping all of him all to herself.