High Noon

negotiating.”
    She opened the book, stared at the blank pages. Women in love, she thought, spoke the same language. So she read from her own heart.
    “I know what love is now. How could I have thought I knew before him? Everything before is pale and soft and foolish. Now, now that I know love, the world’s bright and strong and real. He makes me real.” She closed the book. “Send three people out, Jerry, and I’ll read more.”
    “No more out! No more. You read what she wrote. I want the cameras on you while you read what she wrote.”
    “Jerry—”
    “Fuck you!” He screamed it out so all his rage seemed to fill Phoebe’s head. “You read what she wrote, then you’re going to give the statement. You do it now, you start it now, or I pick one and take her out.”
    Phoebe stepped a little closer, got the sharp order through her earpiece to stop. Looking past Arnie, she could see part of the line of hostages. And she saw Loo. So tall, Phoebe thought. All that gorgeous hair. Such a good shield.
    “I’ll read it, Jerry.”
    “I want to see the rose, the rose she put in it.” He was weeping. He was lost. “Ask for a goddamn hostage, I do one. You understand me? Ask for another, I pick one and put one in the back of their head. You show it, you read it, you tell the goddamn world how you killed my angel. Then it’s done. Then this is done.”
    Death, his longing for it as much as his lover, vibrated in his voice. And he would take, she knew, fourteen people with him.
    With her gaze steady, she turned the book, flipped pages. “She saved your rose.”
    “I can’t see it.”
    “I’m holding it up. I’m doing what you want. I can’t come closer, they’re holding me back.”
    “Two steps forward. Everybody, two steps! Hold it up! Goddamn it.”
    She shifted, turned the book only a fraction. In her mind she saw the red X’s on the sketch. She saw him shove Loo’s head to the left so he could get a better view. And meeting his eyes, just for an instant, she said, “It’s all I can do, Jerry.”
    Go!
    The sound of the shot cut straight through her. She barely heard the screams, the shouts, the running feet that followed it.
    She watched Loo run out, on her own, and straight for her. The force of the embrace knocked Phoebe back two steps. “Oh God, oh God, oh God. I thought I was going to die. I thought he’d kill us all.”
    “You have to get clear now, Loo. You have to move out of this area.”
    “You saved my life.” She drew back, gripped Phoebe’s face in her hands. “You saved us all.”
    “Ma Bee’s over that way. You need to get clear, go to Ma Bee.”
    “You saved us all,” Loo repeated as cops hustled up to pull her away.
    Phoebe dropped the book, turned. And there was Duncan pushing his way toward her. “How did you get through?”
    He held up a laminated ID. “I stole it.” His arms came around her. “I love you. Still a bomb in there, right? Let’s get the hell out of here, let’s go home, let’s go to Acapulco.”
    “Yeah, but for now, let’s just move far away from the building with the bomb inside.”
    “Your hand’s shaking.”
    “Yours, too.”
    “Not just my hand.”
    “I have to sit down, Duncan. I have to find a quiet—quieter—place to sit down for a minute.”
    She moved through the aftermath with him, nodding, acknowledging those who congratulated her. Good job, nice work. Then she stopped short when Sergeant Meeks stepped into her path.
    He said nothing, simply looked at her. Then he inclined his head and strode away.
    “He ought to be on his knees to you,” Duncan muttered.
    “Not his style, and I don’t give a damn anyway.”
    Duncan led her back to the boutique, nudged her into a chair.
    She breathed out. “Can you give me five here?” she asked the rest of the team still inside. “Five to clear my head, then we’ll finish this up.”
    “No problem, LT.” Sykes jerked a thumb toward the door, paused on his way out. “Hell of a job.”
    “Yeah.” And in the relative quiet, she breathed in again as Duncan crouched in front of her.
    “Honey, you look like you could use a drink.”
    “I could use several.”
    “I happen to know an excellent pub.” He lifted her hands, kissed them, then just buried his face in them. “Phoebe.”
    “I was never in any real danger. Not me.”
    “Tell that to my guts.”
    It was so cold in here, she thought. How had it gotten so cold? Only her hands were warm, where he’d kissed them. “Duncan,