High Noon

squad’s marked off the minimum safe distance. Nobody goes beyond it. Not negotiable.”
    “All right, okay. Situation changes?”
    “I just got here two minutes ago.”
    “Let me get started.”
    She went forward slowly now. Even with the lights there were pockets of dark. Someone handed her a vest, and she shrugged it on as she studied the weeping man sitting on the grave.
    An angel looked out over him, her face serene, her wings spread wide. There was a lute clutched against her breasts.
    Below, the man hunched with his face pressed to his updrawn knees, the sound of his weeping raw and harsh against the insect buzz. Pink roses—fresh to her eye—were scattered around him. “I’m Phoebe Mac Namara,” she began, and his head jerked up.
    She froze, stopped in her tracks well before reaching the tape strung out by the bomb detail. Everything in her turned to ice, then thawed again in a sudden gush of hot panic.
    “Roy.”
    “Jesus.” Beside her Dave clamped a hand on her wrist. “I didn’t see his face. I didn’t recognize him.” Wasn’t entirely sure he would have. “Phoebe, you can’t approach,” Dave said over Roy’s wild shouts. “You cannot approach.”
    “Understood. Understood.” But panic sweat sprang onto her skin. “Roy, be quiet now. You have to calm down. Take a breath and calm down. I’m here now.” While she spoke, she wrote quickly on her pad. Check on my family! Cop on the door. Carly here. She dashed down Phin’s address. “We’re going to be all right.”
    “He’s going to kill me. He’s going to kill me.”
    “Who?”
    “I don’t know. Oh God, I don’t know. Why is this happening?”
    “Can he hear us, Roy?”
    “He says he can hear. Yes, he can hear. You…you fucking bitch. I have to say what he tells me or he’ll blow it up.”
    “It’s all right. If he can hear me, can he tell you what he wants?”
    “I…I want you to shove some of this C-4 up your twat, you useless cunt.”
    “Do we know each other?”
    “You cost me,” Roy said with tears running down his cheeks. “Now I cost you.”
    “What did I cost you?”
    “You’re going to remember. Phoebe, help me, for God’s sake, help me.”
    “All right, Roy. All right. Let me keep talking to him. You must be angry with me. Will you tell me why?”
    “Not…not time yet.”
    “You called me out here, and I came. There must be something you want from me, something you want to tell me. If you’ll explain to me why—”
    “Fuck you,” Roy said on a hitching sob.
    “I feel as though you don’t want to talk to me yet. Is it all right if I talk to Roy? Can I ask Roy questions?”
    “He’s laughing. He’s laughing. He…Go ahead, have a nice chat. I need a beer.”
    “Roy, how did you get here?”
    “He…drove.” Eyes swollen from weeping and blows darted around the graveyard. “I think. In my car.”
    “What kind of car do you have?”
    “M-Mercedes. E55. I just got it a few weeks ago. I just…”
    “All right.” She scribbled down the make of the car. Find, she wrote. “He drove your car from Hilton Head?”
    “I was in the trunk of my car. I couldn’t see. Blindfold, gag. Coming home, driving into the garage. In the garage. Gun to the back of my head.” He pressed his battered face to his knees again. “Came up behind me. Then, I don’t remember. I don’t know until I woke up and I couldn’t see or talk. Hard to breathe. In the trunk, tape over my mouth. Couldn’t find air.”
    She took one relieved breath when Dave stepped back and wrote All safe. Cop on doors. “How long ago?”
    “I don’t know. ”
    “Okay, it’s okay. How did you get here, where you are now?”
    “Heard the trunk open.” He lifted his head again, shivering. Phoebe could see the insects feasting on him. “Something over my face—got dizzy, tried to fight. Hit me, hit me in the face. I woke up, and I was here, like this. He was talking in my head. In my head. I screamed and I shouted, but nobody came. He talked in my head, told me what to do. My phone, he left me my phone, told me to call nine-one-one, what to say. Only that one call, he said, only say what he told me to say, or he’d push the button.”
    “You never saw him,” Phoebe said as she scribbled down Roy’s full name, address, telephone number, and wrote How long missing? under it, circled it twice before passing it to Dave.
    “Roy…”
    But he was sobbing now. “I didn’t do anything. Why is this happening?”
    “That’s