Chapter 30
The hostages’ yells erupt over the speaker as the incoming team scrambles to place their first call to the suspect even as
the SWAT commander insists they can enter through the back and put an end to this with minimal risk. SWAT likes to end things
with force, but negotiators like to end things with words. Sometimes it seems that the two sides are at odds, but they are
all fighting the same battle. Usually they find a way to meet in the middle.
Pushed to the side, Hope and Bo watch them search for that middle, Hope silently fearing that any ground they’ve gained today
is now lost. Until the screams erupted it had been silent. Whatever just happened inside the post office has shifted the environment
from quiet sanity into mad uproar. If they’d had eyes and not just ears on the situation, they’d know what happened. Now that
the county is here, they will likely be able to use drones or robots. Or maybe the dog could have a camera mounted on his
collar? She will mention this to the team as soon as she can. But first they need to make contact. She watches as they make
several failed attempts to contact Tommy. They try his cell phone and the post office landline to no avail.
The hope is not so much leaking out of the room as whooshing out of it like a tire blown.
She could leave, but she needs to tell them about the dog first. She wants to explain to them what Covey means to the suspect.
She will refer to him as the suspect because, to them, he is still just that.
But in the last few hours he’s become Tommy to her.
Tommy who asked for his dad, the one thing he knew he couldn’t have.
She understands this better than most people.
She wants to make sure that Tommy gets to see the dog.
As unconventional as it is, it makes sense to her.
She just hopes she can communicate this in a way that will make sense to them.
Beside her, Bo shifts his weight from side to side. She can almost hear his old bones protesting as he does. He probably shouldn’t
be on his feet for too long. “You could go, you know,” she whispers to Bo.
She watches his face harden as he shakes his head. A single muscle in his jaw flinches. “I’m staying put.”
Hope doesn’t argue further. She looks away, sees Adam from the county team looking at her with his finger crooked, beckoning
her. “I’ll be right back,” she says to Bo.
Adam is all business. “It’s kind of tight in here,” he says. “I think we’ve got it under control if you’d like to take off.”
“Oh, I know.” Hope can take a hint. She would feel the same if she’d relieved someone but they kept standing around in the
close quarters inside the NOC, which is growing warmer by the minute from all the body heat. “I just wanted to tell you before
I go—I almost forgot about the dog.”
“The dog?” asks Adam, narrowing his eyes. Hope sees him motion for his other team members. As they walk over, Bo does as well.
She appreciates the gesture of solidarity.
With everyone looking at her, she finds herself fumbling with her words.
“Tommy—the suspect,” she corrects herself, “asked to see his father, which turned out was just a bluff. His father is deceased. But I didn’t find that out until I tried to get in touch with him.
I did speak with the stepmother, and when she found out what was happening, she offered to bring the father’s dog here, in case that would help. ”
As she speaks she recalls the earnestness in the woman’s voice. She’d wanted to do something, to help somehow, like so many
people want to do in cases like this. In police work it is expected to see the worst of society. But Hope has also seen the
best of it too. At times it is easy to forget one and dwell on the other.
“The suspect is apparently quite close to the dog. It seems that after his father died, he really wanted to have the dog come
live with him. There was some sort of custody battle over the dog, for lack of a better term. And there was some bad blood
between the stepmother and the suspect as a result. I think her offer to bring the dog is her way of trying to mend fences.”
The group nods and Hope continues. “The trouble is the dog is all the way in New Bern, and she had to get ready, then drive
more than two and a half hours.” Hope shrugs. “At the time I honestly thought the situation would be resolved before she got
here. But it seemed like she needed to make the effort as much as the suspect needed to hear that she was bringing the dog.
So I went along with it.”
Chris wrinkles his nose like he has caught a whiff of something foul. “I’m not sure I feel comfortable with him having access
to the dog. Especially if there’s bad blood between him and the stepmother. He could be setting up some sort of revenge ploy.
And even if he isn’t, it could provoke him further. The emotions this could trigger feel too loose.”
The teammates exchange glances. “We run a tighter operation than that,” Adam adds, siding with his teammate because of course
he is.
“I get it,” says Hope. “No pun intended, but I don’t have a dog in this fight. Not anymore.” In her peripheral vision she
sees Bo frown as she adds, “But I truly didn’t think it would go this far.”
“And if it did, you knew you’d already be gone.” Adam pretends to say this under his breath, but it is loud enough to be heard by everyone standing there.
Hope feels a flash of anger but wills herself not to show it. She knows it’s the right thing to allow Tommy to see the dog—she
feels it deep inside—but gut instincts are hard to explain. She must be willing to stand up to the scrutiny of her decision.
And then she can go home. Well, she corrects herself, not home.
More and more, she wants to go home-home, not just to Alex, but back to her team in Pennsylvania, who would have her back
the same as this team has one another’s. She can’t blame them for their unity. She’d be the same with her team. Except, she thinks, you left them behind. She blamed the work for what happened and abandoned her job, which included the people she’d worked side by side with for
years. Driven by grief and plagued by PTSD, she ran away, sought shelter here. It was supposed to have been safe, she thinks. That was why I came.
“She shouldn’t leave,” Bo speaks up, interrupting her thoughts and making her heart rate hitch at the same time.
Adam turns on Bo. “Remind me again what department you’re with?” he asks, crossing his arms and squinting at him.
Nonplussed, Bo answers, “I’m retired FBI, here of my own volition, with the authorization of the Sunset Beach police chief.”
He gives Hope a sideways glance, then returns his gaze to Adam. “I came to act as a consultant since the situation here was
sort of . . . unprecedented.” He rocks back on his heels. “I’ve met the chief a few times, and when I heard about this, I
gave him a call, offered my services. He was glad for the assistance, especially since your team had . . . delays.” He reaches
over and pats Hope’s shoulder. “Turns out I wasn’t really needed. This young lady had it all under control without me.” Hope
notices he’s still not using her name and wonders if he still can’t recall it.
Adam frowns. He opens his mouth, perhaps to argue some more, but he is silenced by the interruption of a ringing phone.
“I guess that’s for you,” says Bo, looking in the direction of the back of the truck where Adam and Chris are to sit for the
negotiation, one to talk, one to coach. They nod and rotate on their heels at the same time, moving toward the ringing and
into their positions. Hope reaches for Bo’s sleeve and pulls him with her, getting out of their way so the team can work.
She moves until she can go no farther, resting her aching back against the walls of the semi. She watches the negotiation
from a distance, feeling detached from what is happening. She should just leave already. In truth she is relieved to be relieved.
Though nothing really bad has happened so far, she knows all too well that things can go sideways without warning. She would
rather be back at 108, relaxing with Rufus, if it does. Caught between the team’s desire for her to go and Bo’s insistence
that she stay, she stands immobile. Just wait a bit longer, she tells herself. Appease Bo. And then you can go.