From the Heart

the door and step away from it.”
    When Thorpe obeyed, he signaled him with a jerk of his head to come forward. He eyed the tape recorder. “Set it down and take off your jacket.”
    “No weapons, Ed,” Thorpe said easily as he carefully stripped off his jacket. “Just the tape recorder. We made a deal.” He gave Wyatt an apologetic smile. “You’ll have to excuse us, Senator. Ed and I have a private interview.”
    “Yeah.” Morrow stared at Thorpe a moment, then loosened his hold on Wyatt. “Yeah. You can go.”
    “T.C.—”
    “I said you can go.” Morrow’s voice lifted. So did the gun. “He’s here for me this time.”
    “Sorry, Senator.” Thorpe’s voice was calm and unruffled. His fingertips were prickling as he watched the gun hand tremble. “Ed and I have a lot to discuss. We’ll set something up later.”
    With a nod, Wyatt started to turn.
    “No.” Morrow stopped him with the word. He licked his lips, then ran the back of his hand over them. “You back up, all the way out.”
    Thorpe waited as Wyatt followed Morrow’s instructions. There was fear in the room; he could all but taste it. It didn’t lessen even after the door closed behind Wyatt. Morrow stood a moment, staring at the door.
    Thorpe didn’t want him to start thinking too carefully. “All right,” he said, and took a seat. “Let’s get started.” He turned on the tape recorder.
    Outside, Liv watched the building steadily. Everything but her mind was numb. She couldn’t feel her hands, her feet. She knew there was activity all around her—in thecommunications van, in the press area. Things were starting to hum. Her mind was focused on one thing. Thorpe.
     
    Thorpe kept his questions brief. He wanted as little emotion as possible. “Ed, it might be more comfortable for both of us if you . . .” He made a gesture with his hand, palm lowered to indicate the gun. Morrow glanced at it, then shifted the revolver until it was no longer aimed at Thorpe’s chest. “Thanks. Obviously, you chose Wyatt’s office because you worked here,” he went on. “Did you feel the senator was unjust in letting you go?”
    “He’s clean as a whistle, you know,” Morrow answered. “Couldn’t blackmail him. God I needed the money. In deep, T.C.—too damn deep. I thought about juggling some funds, but I didn’t have enough time. He found out about the gambling, about the people I’ve been dealing with. Not the senator’s kind of people.” He laughed in a quick nervous giggle and shifted the gun again. It was pointed back at Thorpe, but Morrow didn’t notice. “I thought I’d get something for taking him hostage, but they’d never let me get away with it, would they?” The look he gave Thorpe was lost and fatalistic. “I’d be a dead man before I got my hands on the money.”
    Thorpe changed the line of questioning. A man with nothing to lose was the most dangerous. “How much are you in for?”
    “Seventy-five thousand.” The phone rang and Morrow jerked up. The gun was pointed at Thorpe’s head.
    “Fifteen minutes, Ed,” Thorpe reminded him calmly. “We arranged for me to check in every fifteen minutes, right?”
     
    Someone pushed a cup of coffee into Liv’s hand. She never tasted it. Thorpe’s voice came suddenly, low and calm, from behind her through the machines in the van. Jolting, she dropped the cup. Coffee splashed warm around her ankles. You can’t stand here and do nothing, she told herself, steadying. Do your job. Turning, she went back to her crew to send out the next live bulletin.
    * * *
    Thirty minutes crawled into sixty. The office was stuffy. Thorpe knew he was dragging out the interview. All had been said. But his instincts told him Morrow wasn’t ready yet. The man was slouched in his chair, his eyes filmy. There was a thin bead of sweat over his top lip, and a muscle twitched in his left cheek sporadically. But the gun was still in his hand.
    “You’re not married, are you, T.C. ?”
    “No.” Carefully, Thorpe drew out a cigarette, offering one to Morrow.
    Morrow shook his head. “Got a woman?”
    “Yeah.” Thorpe lit the cigarette and thought of Liv. Cool hands, cool voice. “Yeah, I’ve got a woman.”
    “I had a wife—kids too.” The film in the eyes became tears. “She packed up and left last week. Ten years. She said ten years was long enough to wait for me to keep my promises. I swore to her I wouldn’t gamble anymore.” Tears rolled down to mix with the