He hops down and walks over to the phone, picking it up before another jarring ring can split the silence. “Did you find my dad?” he asks without bothering with a hello.
Hope counters with, “Did you think about your promise?” Tommy has been yanking her around, and she doesn’t appreciate it.
“I haven’t had a moment’s peace to think,” Tommy complains. “These women have been in here gabbing my ear off the whole time.”
Hope wonders if this is true. She’d like to have eyes on the situation beyond spying on them through the windows with binoculars. She hopes the team from county will arrive soon so she can have access to the resources they will bring with them. She wonders if, by the time they arrive, she will be ready to hand off the negotiation to someone new, someone who can establish a better rapport with this suspect. At the moment the thought is appealing. Tommy has just strung her along, and she is angry with him and angry with herself for falling for it.
“Tommy,” Hope says. “I think you know what I’m going to say. I think the request you made was just a way to buy time.”
Tommy argues, “No, it wasn’t. It was the truth. I do want to talk to my dad.”
She pauses, chooses her next words carefully. “But you know you can’t do that.”
When he responds his voice is thick, and Hope thinks he is trying not to cry. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want to. You asked me what I wanted, and I told you.”
Hope, seeing the futility of continuing to argue, says, “I’m sorry for your loss.” She pauses to let Tommy speak, but he doesn’t. So she asks a question. “When did he die?”
There is a pause before Tommy says, “Last year.”
“Your mom said it was a hunting accident,” Hope says.
“She’s my stepmom. Not my mom,” Tommy corrects her.
“I apologize, your stepmom,” Hope says. “She said she’d be willing to come here. Or maybe she could record a message for you that you could listen to. Would you like that?”
Tommy snorts. “I don’t need to hear from her.”
“She said she could bring Covey. Said she’d let us bring him right up to the windows so you could see him if you’d like.”
“Covey?” he asks, and there is something like awe in his voice. “She’d bring him here? Now?”
“That’s what she said.” Hope already knows the answer to this, but she wants to hear it from Tommy, in his own words. “Who is Covey?”
There is a long pause. Hope wonders if he is going to answer, but she sits with his silence. She waits. “He’s my dad’s hunting dog,” he finally says. “He was with him when he died.” He goes quiet again, but Hope hears what he isn’t saying: The dog was with him, but Tommy wasn’t. Hope understands this. She understands more than he knows. But Tommy doesn’t care about Hope’s feelings. He has no reason to.
“Would you like to see Covey?” she asks.
This time his answer is quick, immediate. “Yes.”
“You never made me a promise, though. I’ll need that from you if I’m going to be able to bring Covey here.”
“Fine,” Tommy says. “I promise.”
“Okay,” Hope says and turns to look at Bo, who is folded in the front seat of Brower’s car where they are both sitting, the car serving as a de facto NOC for the time being. He nods his assent to the decision to bring the dog to the scene. It’s unconventional, but it makes a certain sort of sense. A big drawback is that the stepmother lives two and a half hours away in New Bern, North Carolina. They just extended the length of time for this to be resolved. But, Hope thinks, if she can convince Tommy to comeoutside, bait him with the opportunity to put his arms around this animal that clearly means a lot to him, then maybe she can also convince him that, once he’s outside, he can surrender. A seamless, peaceful solution. It won’t be that easy. It never is. Still, it’s good to see a way forward.
Chapter 23
Inside the post office, the women are waiting again. Now they are bringing in Tommy’s dad’s dog so Tommy can see him. Blythe doesn’t know how this will help anything, but she is not a negotiator, so she assumes there is a purpose in it, a plan that will lead to them all being freed. She gets that he wants to see the dog. He obviously has some emotional attachment to it, which she understands more than anyone in the room. She would do just about anything to see Murphy one more time. She feels tears prick the corners of her eyes and blinks them back. She will not think of Murphy now.
Her eyes stray to the counter where Tommy is hovering, using his fingers to drum out a beat. He is keeping away from the windows but still monitors law enforcement’s movements from afar, occasionally peering over the partition behind him to make sure no one is attempting to access the back. Tommy stops drumming, stares at the poster of the USPS logo for a moment. She watches him looking at the poster and wonders what he is thinking. Is he thinking that his wife knew more about that logo than anyone else in the room? Is he thinking that he hasn’t given her enough credit? Is he thinking about how that eagle is looking forward, but because of what he has done today, he doesn’t have much to look forward to? Is he even capable of such deep thoughts? Blythe doubts it.
When he looks away from the poster, his eyes flicker across her, but she pretends not to notice, looking down at the fabric of her jeans, focusing on how many different variations of blue are woven together. She pretends to be absorbed in her jeans when really what she wants is to get her phone back and see if Bryan has texted her again, even though she should not care. Bryan is not Aaron. Aaron is her fiancé. If she’s thinking of anyone, it should be Aaron. She decides not to think about either of them until she gets out of here. She heard a long time ago never to make a big decision when you’re hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. Right now she is all of the above.
She looks up to see that Tommy has gone back to rummaging through the mail, the things other people carried in here today, dropped off, and left behind without a moment’s thought, never appreciating how close they came to being held captive. If Blythe had run her errands in a different order, if she’d left instead of waiting in line when it was taking too long, if she’d never let her mom plant this crazy idea in her head in the first place... She decides not to think of the what-ifs. It is what it is. She is here; she is trapped. She looks around at her fellow hostages. They all are.
All of a sudden Tommy lets out a whoop and stands up, holding the bottle of liquor aloft, his eyes dancing as he unscrews the cap with a flourish and tilts it to his lips. The four women watch him, their faces impassive. To react, they all seem to understand, would only be to fuel him further.
Not getting the attention he wants, Tommy makes a big smacking sound with his lips. “That hits the spot right there!” he says.
