High Noon

“How long before they think you’ll be a hundred percent?”
    She reached up with her good arm to touch his hair. She liked how it always looked as if he’d just taken a wild ride in that fancy car of his. “I’ll get a note from my private duty nurse clearing me for physical activity.”
    “Works for me. Meanwhile, how about going out with me Sunday? Sunday-afternoon barbecue at a friend’s. It’d be a chance to get to know each other, dynamics with others, before we lose ourselves in wild, sweaty sex.”
    “All right. Why not?”
    “I’ll pick you up about two.”
    “Two. I need to get home.” She rose to her toes, kissed him, softly, slowly, on either cheek. “I hope I keep you up tonight.”
    He watched her walk away, flick a killer smile over her shoulder. And decided the odds were heavily in favor of insomnia.
    As her car drove away, he went back to sit, to prop his feet on the padded hassock. Eating cold pizza, drinking warm beer, he thought it had been a hell of an interesting day.

12
    The call came through at seven fifty-eight. The kid was smart, very smart. He hadn’t panicked, hadn’t tried to play the hero. He’d used his head, and his legs, dashing away from the bungalow in Gordonston, hopping fences between the pretty backyards back to his own house, to the phone. And to nine-one-one.
    He’d given names, the address, the situation. En route to Savannah’s east side, Phoebe listened to the replay of the emergency call and thought the boy had the makings of a good cop.
    He’s got them sitting around the kitchen table. Mr. Brinker does. Mrs. Brinker, Jessie, Aaron, even the baby. Um, Penny, in her high chair. He’s got a gun. I think he’s got two guns. Jessie’s crying. Jesus, you gotta do something.
    She had more information. It came rolling in as she and Sykes sped toward the pretty neighborhood. Stuart Brinker, age forty-three, associate professor. Father of three—Jessica, sixteen, Aaron, twelve, and Penelope, two. Recently separated from his wife of eighteen years, Katherine, thirty-nine, art teacher.
    Twenty minutes after the nine-one-one, Phoebe walked through the barricade forming the outer perimeter. The media was already doing stand-ups outside the barricades. There were some shouts in her direction from reporters. Phoebe ignored them, signaled to one of the uniforms.
    “Lieutenant Mac Namara and Detective Sykes, negotiators. What’s the situation?”
    “Four hostages, three minor children. HT’s got them in the living room now.” He gestured toward the tidy white bungalow with azaleas blooming pink and white in the front yard. “Curtains closed on all the windows there. We can’t get a visual. HT’s got a couple of handguns. No shots fired. First responder’s been talking to him off and on. The word I get is the guy’s really polite, but isn’t doing a lot of communicating at this point. Kid who called it in’s over there with his mother.”
    Phoebe glanced over, saw the gangly teenage boy sitting on the ground, head in his hands. A woman sat beside him, her arm hooked firmly over his shoulder, her face pale as wax.
    “Sykes?”
    “Yeah, I’ve got him.”
    Phoebe moved on toward communications, and the edge of the inner perimeter, as Sykes walked to the boy. “Lieutenant Mac Namara, negotiator.”
    Information came fast now. Tactical had the house surrounded, the near neighbors evacuated. Sharpshooters were moving into positions.
    “He won’t talk much,” the first responder told her. “I’ve been trying to keep the line open with him. He sounds tired. Sad, not angry. He and the wife are separated—her idea, he says. Last time I got him to talk, he thanked me for calling before hanging up.”
    “Okay, stand by.” She studied the log, the situation board, then pulled out her notebook as she picked up the phone. “Let’s get him back on.”
    He answered on the third ring, and his voice was brutally weary. “Please, is this necessary? I want some time with my family. Some quiet, uninterrupted time.”
    “Mr. Brinker? This is Phoebe Mac Namara. I’m a negotiator with the Savannah-Chatham Police Department. I’d like to help. How is everyone in there? Everybody okay?”
    “We’re fine, thank you. Now please, leave us alone.”
    “Mr. Brinker, I understand you want to be with your family. You sound as if you love them very much.”
    “Of course I do. I love my family. Families need to be together.”
    “You want your family to be together,