“Go for it,” her mother had said, engaged and invested in a way she rarely was where Blythe was concerned. And so, because she wanted to please her mother, to do the right thing in her mother’s eyes, she had. And now she is here.
Blythe looks over her shoulder to the desk, to where her package was dropped moments before everything went crazy. Could she get it back? She eyes Tommy again. He is intent on Nadine. She could slide over there and slip behind the counter. Pluck the package out quickly and get back to her place as if nothing ever happened. Would the others realize she is holding the package she already mailed? And if they did, what could they do about it?
She is concerned that retrieving the package would be breaking some sort of law. The mail is part of the government. They are in a federal building. She pressed the green button, after all, and that information went somewhere; the transaction was processed. But, she reasons, there should be an exception if one is taken hostage. One should be allowed to un-mail what one has mailed. She is, she thinks, already a different person than the one who walked into the post office holding the innocuous-looking package. She should be allowed to reverse course.
Blythe takes a sideways step, keeping her eyes on Tommy and Nadine. They are still talking, their voices low and rushed. She does not wonder what they are saying. She does not really care. She has relationship problems of her own. She takes another step. Then another. She is halfway there.
She looks down at her engagement ring, uses her thumb to make it rotate around her finger just once. Is an engagement a promise or merely a promise to make a promise? She’d toldherself she had not made the important promise yet. And yet she wanted to. She’d fully intended to until last night. Until her mother showed up and told her that to marry Aaron was to sell herself short. Until her mother pushed her to come here.
She takes several more steps before she hears Tommy call out, “What are you doing?”
She tries to swallow, but her mouth has gone bone-dry. “Nothing,” she says. “I was just stretching my legs.” Blythe likes to think she despises lying, but today the lies are coming easier and easier.
Tommy looks past her, takes in the other women. They all stare back at him. He opens his mouth, and for a moment Blythe thinks he is going to tell them to go, to set them free. But if he were to let them go, her package would stay behind. She is caught between wanting to be free and wanting to get to that package before the USPS carries it away. She was sent here on a fool’s errand. She let herself be cajoled into pleasing her mother instead of doing what her heart had told her to do. Now she must rectify it.
Tommy, however, does not say that he is letting them go. He just tells them to sit down, to be quiet, to let him think. He just, he says, needs time to think.
Chapter 13
Hank, the chief of police, is waiting in the lobby, standing right beside the receptionist’s desk, when Hope walks into the station. She does not realize that he is there waiting for her until he beckons for her to follow him to his office. He doesn’t even give her a chance to put down her things. Something is happening. Something that must involve her. She feels her heart pick up speed a little at the thought of a chance. But a chance to do what, she doesn’t know.
She pushes the thought out of her head as she follows Hank into his office, then pauses by the seat Hank indicates for her to take. The chair he has pointed at is full of odds and ends in a sloppy pile: file folders, books, a box marked “Evidence” with who knows what inside. In her short time as part of the Sunset Beach Police Department, she has learned that Hank is a fastidious cop but a messy human. It is a dichotomy she didn’t know could exist together. But Hank makes it work.
“Oh, just push it to the floor,” he tells her. So she does, hoping the evidence—whatever it is—isn’t compromised by its encounter with the cold, hard floor. That done, she doesn’t so much sit as perch on the chair.
Hank dispenses with preamble, which she appreciates. “We’re getting calls from over at the post office. Looks like there’s a situation there. A barricade.”
“Hostages?” she asks. Without warning the little zing of a challenge being presented whizzes through her body, her muscle memory activated. For a moment she forgets that challenges can bring heartbreak and devastation. She forgets why she is here, in this police station, and not the one in Philadelphia she came from. It all comes rushing back, but she doesn’t let herself dwell on whether that is good or bad.
“Might be too early to say for sure,” Hank answers, measuring his words. “But they’ve taken several calls from witnesses and...” Hank pauses for a bit before finishing with, “It’s looking that way.”
Hope’s body inclines toward Hank, whether a reflex or an impulse, she can’t discern. Something is happening, and ready or not, she is going to be part of it. She thinks of what she said to Alex as she walked to work:“Nothing ever happens here.”
“What do you need from me?” she asks.
Hank pauses, a frown turning down the edges of his mouth as he studies her. “We haven’t talked about this because there wasn’t a reason to, but I know you’ve got experience with this type of thing.” He takes a deep breath. “And I know that experience is part of why you’re here. I, um, talked to your supervisor up there when I hired you.”
Hope nods. She appreciates that he is choosing his words carefully and that he refrains from mentioning her sudden departure back in PA. Though she had the blessing of her superiors and team, she doesn’t like to spend too much time reflecting on her decision.
Hank presses his palms down on his desk and continues. “Protocol says I need to call in the county. And since it’s a federal building, possibly the FBI.” He shrugs. “I’m gonna let the two figure that out between themselves. Either way it’ll take some time to mobilize everyone, and I fear it’s not time we have sincethis is already in progress. So”—he moves his hands to press his fingertips together—“because you’ve got more experience than anyone here with this type of thing, I’d like you to head things up over there.”
He leans back, crosses his arms across his ample midsection, and continues before she can answer. “I mean, I can do it, but I’m gonna be tangled up in bureaucratic red tape for a while, I’m afraid. It’d be nice if I could be working over here until I’ve figured it all out. My best bet is getting the county team here. But they’ve gotta get the team pulled together from out in the field, the equipment, SWAT, you know the drill.” He looks at her and she thinks she sees compassion in his eyes. He knows that this will not be easy for her, that this is the last thing she expected. “Think you can do it?” he asks.
She looks down at the floor, at the evidence box turned on its side. The box’s lid has stayed on. She blinks at it a few times. She does not know if she can do what Hank is asking her to do. But there are hostages in a post office not far from where she now sits who need her to try. She looks up, meets his eyes, and nods.
He claps his hands together and grins for the first time since she walked into the building. “That’s what I wanted to hear! I’ve already sent everyone who’s available; plus the emergency personnel are there too. They’re all in the parking lot, getting sorted out. You’ll see when you get there. I’ll let them know you’re coming.”
She nods again, stands.
From his seat Hank looks up at her. “This sounds like a domestic situation that has escalated. I’m sure you’ve seen it all before.”
“Yes,” Hope says. In her mind’s eye she sees another man in another place. She sees the gun, hears his voice, his wife’s, and smaller voices besides. She pushes away the threat of her memories. That man is not the man in the post office right now. This is not that.
“We don’t have too many facts except what’s come from some witnesses who didn’t stick around long enough to ask questions.”
Hope takes this in. “And it’s just a gun?” she asks.
Hank purses his lips. “We don’t know. So far reports are just a gun.”
