High Noon

tonight—”
    “Phoebe.” Dave spoke quietly. “They will be.”
    “All right. He was engaged. I only know her first name—Mizzy. I don’t know if they were living together or—”
    “It’ll be taken care of.”
    Of course, yes, of course it would. “A personal attack of this nature has to stem from a personal grudge. Who have I pissed off, hurt, threatened?”
    “We’ll need to speak to Arnold Meeks.”
    “Yes.” She drew a deep breath. “He needs to be interviewed and his whereabouts confirmed. But this wasn’t his doing. He was a bad cop, he’s no doubt a violent man, and a complete asshole. But he’s not a killer. If what this Cooper told me tonight is fact, he’s killed at least twice now. In cold blood. Meeks acts in rage, short-term planning, without factoring in the consequences.”
    “Someone acting on his behest. With or without his knowledge.”
    “Maybe. But I think it’s more personal yet. You hurt me, I’ll hurt you, and a whole lot worse. Something I did or didn’t do. Someone I didn’t save.”
    When she closed her eyes, pressed her fingers against her lids, all she could see was Roy. She dropped her hands into her lap. “A failure, a professional failure that was personal to him. Who did I lose, Dave? When? How? I need to go back over my case files, all the way back. Any hostage or hostage-takers, any cop or bystander, anyone who was injured or killed during an incident where I was negotiator.
    “I think it’s going to be a woman,” she added.
    “Why?”
    “Because he’s Gary Cooper. Because Roy was chained to a woman’s grave. We can’t discount anyone, but I think it’s going to be a woman. He knows, or he’s learned how to handle, weapons and explosives. Maybe he was trained in the military or law enforcement. Or maybe he trained himself. Because he planned this. Roy wasn’t impulse, not spur of the moment.”
    She pounded her fisted hand on her thigh. “I couldn’t hear. How could I listen and know how to respond, know how to bring him down when I couldn’t hear his voice, the inflection, the emotion?”
    “Phoebe, you’re not responsible for this.”
    “Then why did he set it off? Did I ask the wrong question, choose the wrong tack? All the time, trouble, the risk he took to get Roy where he wanted him, to get me there, then he ends it? I have to listen to the tape, I have to figure out what I said—or didn’t say—what pushed him to end it.”
    He swiveled his chair until they were knee-to-knee, face-to-face. “You know better than that.”
    “Under normal circumstances, we all try to know better than that. But this wasn’t normal circumstances. It was about me this time.”
    “What you said or didn’t may not be the answer.”
    “No. He’s killed two people, because of their connection to me. I have to know why. We have to find the answer, Dave, because he has no reason to stop at two. He’s been outside my house.” She closed her eyes again. “He may try for someone I love next.”
    “He won’t get near them.”
    “He can’t once we identify him, find him, stop him. I…I need to contact Roy’s fiancée. And I have to tell Carly. I have to find a way to tell Carly.”
    “What you have to do right now is go home, get some sleep. Take a little time, Phoebe. It might be a good idea for you to talk to the counselor about this.”
    “The best cure for guilt and misplaced responsibility in the negotiator is work, study and training.” She managed a ghost of a smile. “Someone wise has been known to say that, often.”
    “Maybe I have, but in this case, you need sleep first. We’ll talk about the rest of it later.”
    When she walked out of Dave’s office, she went straight into the women’s room and finally let herself be sick. Viciously, violently sick.
    Emptied out, skin clammy, eyes running, she sat back against the stall door until she got her breath back. She didn’t weep. This had gone far beyond anything as simple and cleansing as tears. She simply sat on the floor, back braced, until she was sure she wouldn’t be sick again.
    Then, after rising, she walked to the sink to wash her face, to rinse out her mouth with cupped handfuls of cold water. He’d been looking into her eyes, she thought as she lifted her head to look into her own now. He’d been looking straight into her eyes, his full of fear and pleas, this man she’d once loved. This man she’d made a child with.
    Then he was gone. Gone, she thought, because