High Noon

not helping, Roy. Roy!” She sharpened her voice enough to get through. “You need to try to stay calm. The important thing is for us to work together so we can resolve this. I’d like to talk to him again, if he’s ready. I wonder if he could give me a name—it doesn’t have to be his name, just any name he’s comfortable with. So I’d have a way to address him.”
    “I feel sick. I feel…No! No! Don’t! Please, don’t!” Roy’s eyes wheeled as he strained against the shackles. “Please, God…Okay…Okay. I…I’m—I’m tired of listening to you whine, you worthless piece of shit. Keep it up and—and I’ll blow you to hell and be done with it.”
    “If you do that, I won’t know why you wanted me out here tonight. Why you’re angry. Will you give me a name to call you?”
    “He—” Roy’s teeth chattered. “S-sure, Phoebe. You can call me Cooper.”
    Though her throat tightened, she wrote the name clearly on the pad, followed it up with High Noon. “All right, Cooper. Since I can’t talk to you directly, I can’t hear how you feel. Can you tell me how you feel?”
    “Powerful. In fucking charge.”
    “Is being in charge important to you?”
    “Damn right.”
    “Wouldn’t it be more direct, more in charge, if you and I talked face-to-face?”
    “Not time.”
    She stared into Roy’s flooded eyes, listened to Roy’s tortured voice, and fought to get inside the head of a man she couldn’t see, couldn’t hear.
    “Can you tell me how we know each other, Cooper? Where we know each other from?”
    “You tell me something.”
    “All right. What do you want me to tell you?”
    “Do you care about this…worthless son of a bitch?”
    Tricky, she thought. Care too much or care too little, either could incite. “Do you mean Roy?”
    “You know I mean fucking Roy asshole Squire.”
    “He’s my ex-husband. I don’t want to see him or anyone else hurt. You haven’t really hurt anyone yet, Cooper. We can resolve this without—”
    “Tell that to Charles Johnson. You see—you see—God, okay—Did you see how surprised he looked when those bullets hit him?”
    “Are you telling me you’re responsible for the death of Charles Johnson?”
    “Can’t you fucking understand fucking English, bitch? I put him in the ground. Not the first time you helped somebody into the ground, is it? Is it? Won’t be the last, and that’s a promise. Please,” Roy wheezed. “Please, please, please.” And he shuddered under the spreading wings of the angel.
    “Did you know Charles Johnson?”
    “Just another worthless gangbanger. But you got him to come out, didn’t you? Got him to come out without doing any hostages. Nobody inside that place worth crap, but you saved them, didn’t you?”
    “Who didn’t I save, Cooper? Are the roses for her? Who is it you cared about I didn’t save?”
    “Figure that out, Phoebe, figure it out and beg for forgiveness. Maybe you’ll save yourself.”
    “I’ll beg for forgiveness now. If I wasn’t good enough or smart enough to save someone, I’ll beg for forgiveness now. Tell me what you want me to say, and I will.”
    “Better get started. Say…what? No, no, no!” Roy tried to stand, could only kneel. “Please. Okay, okay. Say time’s up. Goodbye, Phoebe.”
    “Cooper, if you—”
    The blast lifted her off her feet, shot her back through a hot burst of air. She landed in a heap, across a stranger’s grave.
    She knew what was whizzing overhead, thudding into the ground. Pieces of an angel, pieces of dirt. Pieces of Roy.
    Images flashed through her mind, fast, disjointed. The first time she’d met him, at a party, and the big megawatt smile he dazzled her with. Making love with him on the big bed in the hotel suite where he’d surprised her with a weekend, and roses, and champagne. The instant before their lips met the first time as husband and wife. Dancing. Lights.
    Then blank dark.
    Someone was shouting for her.
    Phoebe pushed up to her elbows. She caught a blur of movement as Duncan dove. And he was over her, holding her down. Through a tunnel she heard more shouts, pounding feet, the crackle of radio static.
    She didn’t struggle; there was nothing to struggle for.
    “What have I done?” she whispered. “Oh my God, what have I done?”

22
    She’d told him to go home. It pissed him off. What the hell did she take him for?
    Duncan paced the area outside her squad room. He couldn’t sit; he couldn’t settle, and he wished to God