“Who?”
“Gabe.”
“You sent the biggest pacifist in the Western Hemisphere into a hostage situation?”
“We had no one else. This Neudorfer kid said no cops. Somehow he got access to the PD’s human resources database. Gabe was the only other option.”
“What’s he going to do? Sit on Neudorfer?”
“We put a wire on him and hid a gun in a carton of Chinese food.”
“Are you trying to get him killed?”
“Look, just get your ass into that studio and get everyone out before that countdown clock starts running.”
“Fuck.” Nick disconnected the call and banged his forehead off the duct a few times.
“Keep it down back there,” Mrs. Penny grumbled. “I’m trying to eavesdrop.”
A gunshot rang out beneath them.
He froze, mid-head bang.
“Well, that wasn’t good,” Mrs. Penny announced.
41
12:11 p.m., Tuesday, August 18
It was amazing the damper a bomb could put on a regular Tuesday. The hostages had gone from grumpy complainers to shivering, sobbing messes. Well, that last part was mostly Griffin.
Riley was inundated with the thoughts of people realizing that they could be facing the last few minutes of their life. It wasn’t pretty. But it was poignant, mostly.
“I can’t believe the last thing I said to my daughter was ‘You’re grounded for failing calculus.’ Everyone fails calculus! I failed calculus!”
“Great. My last communication with my husband is going to be a passive-aggressive note on the way he folds bath towels.”
“I thought I had more time to be a better person.”
“I can’t believe I’m going to die with all of these assholes.”
Riley dodged her way through the incoming thoughts and asked her spirit guides to help push out a message.
“Grandmother, I could really use your help right now,” Riley said, sending the message into the clouds.
“You will solve this problem yourself.” Elanora’s reply echoed off the cotton candy clouds in Riley’s head. “The only way you will learn is to do for yourself.”
“I appreciate the sink or swim technique, but I’m telling you a lot of people are going to die if I sink.”
“Then you have no choice but to swim,” Elanora said. “Use your gifts and your tools and fix the situation. You must do what you have no desire to do in order to live.”
“Are you serious right now?”
There was no response.
Riley fell out of the clouds with a pop and landed back in her own body.
“Do you need a tissue?”
