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. Urn, 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 MacNamara 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 MacNamara, 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 MacNamara. 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, I understand. Why don't you bring them out now? All of you together. I'd like you to put your weapons down now, Mr. Brinker, and come out with your family."

"I can't do that. I'm very sorry."

"Can you tell me why not?"

"This is my house. This is the only way we can be together. I thought about this carefully."

Planned out, not impulse, she thought as she made notes. Not anger but sorrow. "You sound tired."

"I am. I'm very tired. I've done my best, but it's never quite good enough. It's exhausting to never be quite good enough."

"I'm sure you've done your best. It's hard, don't you think, to make important decisions when you're tired and upset? You sound tired and upset. I'd like to help you, Mr. Brinker. I'd like to help you work this all out so you can make the right decision for your family."

"I painted this living room. Kate picked the color. I didn't like it too yellow-and we argued. Remember, Kate? We fought over the yellow paint right there in the Home Depot, and she won. So I painted it.

And she was right. It's sunny in here. She was right."

Living Room, Phoebe wrote on her pad, circling it. "You did the painting. I'm terrible at painting. Can't get the cutting-in part. Have you and your family lived here long?"

"Ten years. It's a good place to raise children. That's what we thought. Good neighborhood, good schools. We need a bigger house, but..."

"Your family's grown." Family, family, family, Phoebe told herself. Focus on family. "How many children do you have?"

"Three. We have three. We didn't plan on Penny. We couldn't really afford..."

"Penny's your youngest, then? How old is Penny?"

"Two, Penny's two."

Phoebe heard an excited child's voice call: "Daddy!"

"Is that her I hear?" Now she heard a choked sob from Brinker and kept talking. "She sounds very sweet. I have a little girl. She's seven, and I just wonder where the years went. I love her more than anything. She sure keeps me busy, though. I imagine your family keeps you very busy."

"I've done my best. I don't know why it's not enough. If I'd gotten the full professorship, we could afford a bigger house."

"You sound discouraged. It must be hard. You have an older daughter, is that right? Jessie, and then a boy in the middle, Aaron. Your wife, Kate, and you must be very proud. Still, it's a lot of work. I understand that. A lot of worry."

"I needed that professorship. I needed tenure. I needed Kate to understand."

The use of past tense, and the despair, set off alarms. "Tell me what you need Kate to understand, Mr. Brinker."

"That I can't do any more than I can do, or be more than I can be. But it's not enough. I'm the husband, I'm the father. I'm supposed to make it work. But things fall apart; the center cannot hold."

"That's Yeats, isn't it?" She closed her eyes, hoping she hadn't made a mistake.

There was a beat of silence. "Yes. You know Yeats?"

"Some. And I think sometimes that's true, things do fall apart, or seem to. The center can't always hold it all. But I also think things can be rebuilt, or reformed, and the center shored up again to hold it all differently. What do you think?"

"Once it falls, it's not the same."

"Not the same, but still there."

"My family's fallen apart."

"But they're still there, Mr. Brinker, and I hear how much you love them, every one of them. I don't believe you want to hurt them. Or that you want to hurt them by hurting yourself. You're the father."

"Weekend father. Perish instead of publish."

"I hear you're discouraged, and you're sad. But you're not ready to stop trying. You and Kate, eighteen years together, and those beautiful children you've made together. You don't want to stop trying. You love them too much."

"She doesn't want me anymore. What's the point? We made it all together. I thought we should end it all together. Here, in our home. The five of us, going together."

Thought we should. This time his use of past tense told her they might be turning a corner. "The five of you need to come out together, Mr. Brinker. Your children sound frightened. I can hear them crying now. You and your wife are their parents, you and your wife are responsible for keeping them safe and well."

"I don't know what to do anymore."

"Look at your children, Mr. Brinker, look at your wife. I don't believe anything's more precious to you. You don't want to hurt them. You can make the center hold. Look at the yellow walls. You gave them that sunny room, even when you weren't sure it would work. Put the guns down now, Mr. Brinker. Put them down, and bring your family out. You said you'd done your best. I believe you. Now, I believe you'll do your best again, and put the guns down. Bring your wife and your babies out."

"What's going to happen? I don't know what's going to happen."

"We're going to help you. You and your family. Will you come out with your family now? It's the right thing to do for them."

"I don't want to go into the black without them."

"You don't need to go into the black at all. Will you put the guns down, please?"

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"I know. Can you listen to me now, Mr. Brinker?"

"Yes. Yes."

"Put the guns down. Please put them down and step away from them. Will you do that?"

"Yes. All right. I'm sorry."

She wrote Coming out. Surrendering. Signaled that message to Tactical command. "It's going to be all right. Did you put the guns down?"

"Yes. I put them on the shelf. High, where Penny can't reach them."

"That was the right thing to do. I want you to come to the front door. You and your family. Don't be afraid. No one's going to hurt you. I need you to keep your hands up, just so everyone can see you did the right thing and put the guns down. There'll be police outside, but no one's going to hurt you. Do you understand?"

"I can't think."

"It's all right. Will you bring your family out, please?"

" I... I can't keep my hands up and talk on the phone."

Phoebe closed her eyes, took a breath. "That's fine. Why don't you give the phone to Kate now? And you can all come outside together."

"All right. Kate? You need to take this call."

"God. God." The woman's voice wrenched out the words. "We're coming out. He doesn't have a gun. Please, please, don't shoot. Don't hurt him. Don't hurt him."

"No one's going to hurt him. No one's going to get hurt today." When they came out, what struck Phoebe right to the bone was the sound of the little girl crying for her daddy.

In what had become his workroom, he drank cold, sweet tea with a small sprig of fresh mint and watched the media coverage of the crisis in Gordonston.

He hoped they'd all die.

He didn't care about the Brinkers-they meant nothing to him one way or the other. But if that whining college guy put bullets in his family, then himself, Phoebe would take a hell of a hit.

That would be worth the airtime.

Then again, if she took too hard a hit, he might not get the chance to pay her back, his way.

Bitch would probably slide out of it anyway, even if she fucked up and the idiot put a bullet in the brain of the fat-cheeked toddler whose picture they'd shown on screen half a dozen times already.

She wouldn't take the blame for it, no matter how much she'd earned it.

With the tea, he sat down at his workbench. He'd heard the call come through on his police scanner while he was finishing up breakfast. It had given him a hell of a lift. Guy, wife, three kids. A bloodbath like that would get lots of attention.

He'd been right, and on his workroom TV, he watched while the local station preempted the Today show with live at-the-scene coverage.

And he'd seen Phoebe stride by the cameras, ignoring reporters in that superior, I'm-so-fucking-important way of hers.

He'd thought about putting a bullet in her brain. Oh, he'd thought about it, even dreamed about it, just the way he figured Mr. College Professor was thinking about putting one into his whole stupid family. But that was too easy. That was too quick. Bang! And it's over.

He had a much better plan.

He kept the TV on while he worked. Usually, he had the spare scanner on down here, and maybe the radio. Television was too distracting when he was working. But he considered this an exception.

His lips thinned as the reporter on screen announced the Brinker family had come out, safe and sound, that the asshole surrendered peacefully.

"Pulled that one off, didn't you?" he muttered to himself as he turned screws. "Yeah, that one was easy. Didn't have to break a sweat, did you? Nice family, nice neighborhood. Just some stupid shit looking for some attention. You got them out just fine, didn't you? Phoebe. " He had to stop, put his tools down, because the anger, the rage, made his hands shake. He wanted a cigarette. Actually yearned for one. But he'd made himself quit. It was a matter of willpower, and practicality. He didn't need crutches. He couldn't afford to need crutches. He couldn't even afford the rage. Cold blood, he reminded himself. Cool head. When payback came, he'd need those, and a strong body, a clear purpose.

So he closed his eyes and willed everything inside him to slow, to still.

It was her voice that had his eyes opening again, had them burning toward the TV.

"Stuart Brinker surrendered peacefully. His wife and their children weren't harmed."

"Lieutenant MacNamara, as hostage negotiator, how did you convince Professor Brinker to surrender to the police?"

"I listened."

The glass flew across the room, shattered against the set before he realized it had left his hand. Amber rain dripped down over Phoebe's face.

Have to work on that, he told himself. Have to work on that control. Won't get the job done flying off the handle. No sir. But he smiled as the rivulets of tea slid down Phoebe's face. He imagined them red, long thin rivers of blood.

Because it pleased him, he was able to pick up his tools again with a steady hand.

He went back to work on the timer.

"It got to me. Some of them do, more than others."

After shift, Phoebe sat with Liz over a couple of glasses of wine in Swifty's. It was too early for music, so the booth was a quiet corner, an island to sink into and unwind.

"How so?"

Phoebe started to speak, then shook her head. "I didn't mean to talk shop. We should talk shoes or something."

"I bought this pair a couple weeks ago? Pumps, leopard-skin design.

I don't know what I was thinking. Where am I going to wear leopardskin pumps? Anyway, we'll get to that. Tell me about the incident. I know how it is," Liz went on. "I talk to a lot of rape victims, to a lot of kids who've been sexually abused. And sometimes it gets to you more than others. You get it out, or it roots. So?"

"The kids. You have to try not to think about them as kids. Just hostages. But..."

"They're kids."

"Yeah. And in this case, part of the key to talking him down. He loved them. You could hear it."

"And the question is, how do you hold what you love at gunpoint?"

"Because you're broken. Something was broken inside him. He wasn't mad, there wasn't any rage in him. It wasn't payback or punishment. It can be more volatile when it's not about payback. Maybe that's part of what got to me, too. I hear this guy, I hear him standing on the edge of an abyss. And he doesn't believe he can come back from it-that he deserves to."

"Why take the family, too?"

"He's nothing without them. They're essential to who he is. He doesn't want to die without them. So..." She lifted her wine. "Altogether now." She drank, blew out a breath. "He's been depressed for more than a year, and things have been slipping away from him. Career, marriage, both on pretty shaky ground. Wife wants a bigger house, oldest daughter wants a car of her own, he gets thumbs-down on the full professorship. Stuff you handle or fight about. But he just sank down, and kept sinking. The wife's so busy taking care of the kids and the house because he's barely able to get out of bed. She gets fed up, kicks him out. 'Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.' He couldn't hold it."

"You gave them a chance to try again."

"Yeah. Well. Nobody died. You listen good."

"Part of what we both do is listen." Liz tapped her glass to Phoebe's. "And we'd better be good."

"Did you always want to be a cop?"

"I wanted to be a rock-and-roll star."

"Who didn't?"

Liz laughed. "I was actually in a band for a couple of years when I was in college."

"No kidding? What did you do?"

"I got pipes, sister." Liz wagged her thumb at her throat. "And I was crazy in love with the lead guitar. We had plans. The kind you make at twenty and aren't ever going anywhere. Big, splashy plans. Which we made when we weren't screwing like bunnies."

"College." Phoebe sighed. "Those were the days. What happened to Lead Guitar?"

"He dumped me. No, that's not fair, or accurate. He backed away, rapidly. I got raped."

"I'm sorry."

"My turn to make the beer run. There was a place just a couple blocks from where we were living. Party time, all the time. You know?"

"Yeah, I know."

"I was in the parking lot when they jumped me. Two of them, laughing like loons. Seriously high. They dragged me into the back of a van, took turns with me while a third one drove. Then they switched off so he could have a go. I don't know how many times, because I zoned out after the first round. Then they just tossed me out on the side of the road. Cruiser picked me up. I was just stumbling along, clothes torn and bloody, in shock, hysterical. The whole ball. And the cops spotted me." She drank to wet her throat. "Well. They got them, all three of them. I paid attention, until I had to go under. I paid attention. I had descriptions, and I made all three of those motherfuckers in lineup. Hardest thing I ever did, to stand there and look at them through that glass. And Lead Guitar? He couldn't handle it. Couldn't look at me, couldn't touch me, couldn't be with me. Too much for his head, he said. I didn't want to be a rock-and-roll star anymore."

"How long they get? The motherfuckers?"

"They're still in." Liz smiled for the first time. "Stupid bastards took me across the state line into South Carolina. Raped me in two states, had coke in the van, all three had sheets, two were on parole. Anyway, I gave up the band and turned to the glamorous world of law enforcement."

"Music's loss, our gain."

"Okay, shop's closed. Tell me about the guy with the great ass. You two an item?"

"We seem to be something, but I'm not sure what." Thoughtfully, Phoebe propped an elbow on the table, nested her chin in her palm. "I'm out of practice. Kid, job, raw spots from failed marriage. He's so damn cute."

"I noticed. How's the sex?"

Phoebe snorted out a surprised laugh. "You get right to it."

"Healthy sex is one of life's great entertainments. Take it from somebody who sees too much of the other kind. But if you don't want to share-"

"Actually." She hadn't made time for a female friend of her own age in too long. Now, Phoebe leaned forward, lowered her voice. "The other n i g h't..."

She gave a condensed version of her visit to Duncan's house.

"He stopped? You're about to go for the gold right out on the veranda-which, let me insert, is very sexy-and he stops?"

"Thirty seconds more, that's all it would've taken." Phoebe did a test roll of her bad shoulder. "If I hadn't moved the wrong way... what?"

"Romantic and sexy. I mean, God, how many guys are going to shut it down at that point?"

"I'm going to need a note from my sister-in-law to close the deal. Private duty nurse."

"Can I have him when you're done? No, seriously, Phoebe, when you two get that next thirty seconds, it's going to be memorable."

"I'm thinking. Listen, I've got to get home. My kid. But the next time, we'll explore your sex life."

"At the moment, we could do that over a bag of peanuts in the break room. Maybe Cute Guy has a friend."

"I'll ask."

"I'm available."

Phoebe got out of the car just as Lorelei Tiffany clipped up with her incredibly silly dog. Tonight's leash was candy pink, to coordinate with

Mrs. Tiffany's ensemble-heels, pillbox hat, waist-cinching jacket and thigh-gripping capris.

"Evening, Miz Tiffany. How are you and Maximillian Dufree?"

"We're going to have ourselves a nice stroll in the park." Mrs. Tiffany tipped down her rhinestone-studded glasses to peer at Phoebe. "You just getting home?"

"Yes, ma'am. I'm running a little later than usual today."

"Got your car back, I see."

"I did. For now. I'm afraid I'm going to have to give it a decent burial soon."

"My uncle Lucius once buried an entire Cadillac DeVille, complete with passengers, in a soybean field outside of Macon. So they say."

"Hmmm, that must've been some job."

"That was Uncle Lucius for you. He never quibbled about getting his hands dirty. I saw you on TV today."

"Oh? There was some trouble over in Gordonston."

"Crazy man going to murder his whole family in a three-bedroom bungalow. I saw it. You're going to be on TV, honey, you need to dress for it. Bright colors do the trick, and more blusher. You don't want to look all washed-out and dull on the TV, now do you?"

Oddly, Phoebe felt washed-out and dull standing there on the wide sidewalk while Maximillian Dufree peed lavishly on the trunk of the near live oak. "I guess not, but I wasn't expecting to be on TV."

"Expect the unexpected." Mrs. Tiffany wagged her elaborately ringed index finger. "You remember that, and always carry your blusher, you'll do fine. You get yourself on TV like that, you might just catch yourself a husband. A man likes a woman with pink in her cheeks. And a nice, soft bosom."

"I'll keep that in mind. You and Maximillian Dufree have a nice walk now."

As Phoebe started up the walk to what she considered the relative sanity of home, she heard Mrs. Tiffany trill out with a "And good evening to you!"

She glanced back, saw the man strolling by. He tapped the brim of his ball cap toward Mrs. Tiffany. He wore a camera strapped crossways over his dark windbreaker and resting at his hip. A tourist, Phoebe thought idly, though there was something vaguely familiar about him. Since he was a man, Mrs. Tiffany had to put her flirt on.

Amused, Phoebe continued up the steps. She didn't see him pivot, raise the camera, frame her in. When something tickled at the base of her spine, she glanced back. But he was strolling casually away. She could hear him whistle as he walked, something slow and sad and as vaguely familiar as he'd been himself.

She couldn't say why the sound of it gave her a chill.

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