Morrow thinks about the moment she saw her daughter for the first time, when she held the tiny, swaddled bundle of her, how beautiful she was. Maya took her breath away. After struggling with secondary infertility, Morrow couldn’t believe she finally had her long-awaited second child, and a little girl at that. She absolutely loved her son, but she’d become especially enamored with her daughter once she finally had her, filling her empty arms.
“I am,” she says.
“Let’s get something to eat,” Sylvie says, gently tugging on Morrow’s elbow. “She’ll be okay until you get out of here.”
Morrow allows herself to be led away from the windows and steered toward the pizza because there is nothing she can do now. And she is hungry. The scent of oregano and tomatoes and yeasty dough fills the enclosed space and makes her stomach growl. She thinks being held hostage is a good enough reason to abandon her diet, just this once. For now she knows Maya is safe, she is aware of what’s happening, and she has shown up for her. For now that is enough.
Chapter 29
Inside the post office the hostages and their captor sit in a circle to eat their pizza and drink their waters. They make polite conversation between bites, unaware that outside the post office chaos reigns. Just as the police completed Operation Pizza Delivery, a family member of one of the hostages saw her chance and made a mad dash for the building. (Though what she thought she was going to do once she got there, Hope has no idea.) They intercepted the kid before anything could come of it, but no sooner did they handle that situation than the county team showed up.
Now, in the parking lot of the building next to the post office, the NOC is being set up, SWAT is mobilizing and scoping out the building for access points, and Hope is being asked a barrage of questions before she hands over the reins and leaves them to it.
It is for the best that a team that does this regularly is taking over. Hope stepped in when she was needed; she did what she could. And nothing awful happened on her watch. That, she tells herself, is a good day’s work. And yet she has a nagging feeling that she is abandoning these people, leaving them in the hands of strangers.
Two team members take charge: Adam and Chris. Chris sees the concern on her face and tells her that he will take good care of the hostages, that he will work toward a peaceful surrender withno one harmed. Though they both know he can’t promise that, she goes along with it because at least he has the intent. In the background the other team members are getting all the technology up and running with a no-nonsense efficiency.
When the hostages’ voices, coming from inside the post office, fill the command center through the speaker box, Hope has to resist the urge to applaud. This is what they’ve needed the whole time. The ability to eavesdrop will bring intel, give them an advantage, and hopefully bring this day to an end soon.
Hope looks around for Bo, but he has slipped away. She wonders if he, too, feels that his work here is done. She’s sure it’s been exciting for him to come out of retirement for a few hours. In a way, she feels like she has done the same.
“Excuse me,” she says to the members of the team. “I just need to go find my... partner. He might have more to add.” They nod, turning back to the frenzy around them.
Hope steps out of the NOC, which is a huge semitruck with an RV-like setup inside. The quarters are tight in there and the interior dark in contrast to the sunshine she steps into. She shields her eyes as she scans the area but doesn’t see Bo anywhere. She checks to make sure his car is still there, and it is. She didn’t think he’d leave without saying goodbye. She walks across the parking lot to the place where the witnesses smoked cigarettes and told their story when she arrived hours ago. She stops there to scan the perimeter again but still doesn’t see Bo.
She keeps walking and looking, walking and looking, until she finds him. When she finally spots him, he’s hunkered down, his lanky body like a collapsed folding chair, as he speaks to the kid they’d dragged away from the post office. The girl is sitting on the curb out by a mailbox near the main road, put there for customers who just need to drop their mail and go. Hope draws closer yet stays back, not wanting to interrupt whatever he issaying to the girl. Hope watches as Bo comforts her, handing her a paper napkin to dry her tears. A man stands off to the side, also watching the two of them, his brows knit together and his mouth a grim line. He must be the girl’s father, the husband of one of the hostages.Morrow, Hope thinks, recalling the brief report she read early on.This is Morrow’s family.
Bo sees her, stands, and gives her a smile. He points to the girl on the curb. “This is Maya. Her mom is inside. She and I were just talking.”
Hope steps toward the girl but doesn’t sit on the curb beside her like Bo had. She needs to get back to the NOC and facilitate the transition. “Nice to meet you, Maya,” she says.
Bo points to Hope. “This is...” He stands still for a moment, searching her face, his own blank. Then he says, “Faith. She’s a negotiator. She’s the one who’s been talking with the man who’s inside so he’ll start to feel good about coming out.”
Maya peers up at Hope, keeping her from processing what Bo just said. He had forgotten her name, then called her by a different one. “Are you going to get my mom out of there?” Hope hears the hope in her voice.
There is no sense explaining that a new team has come to relieve them and that she and Bo will soon be going home. The only thing, the right thing, is to tell this girl yes. Yes, for sure she is going to get her mom, and the other women, out of there safely. The sooner the better. Maya has nothing to worry about.
Maya seems placated with the platitudes, and Hope decides not to correct Bo about her name, chalking up his gaffe to the stress of the day. She is not the only one who needs a break. Hope and Bo excuse themselves, waving goodbye to Morrow’s family, falling into step as they head back to the NOC.
“You will, you know,” says Bo.
“I will what?”
“Get them out of there safely. You just need lady luck on your side.”
“Lady luck?” she asks. She thinks of the old Frank Sinatra song. She and Alex used to go to an Italian restaurant in Philly where they played nothing but Sinatra. It was one of their favorites. Homesickness and longing swell inside of her, unbidden and, at the moment, inconvenient.
“Something to happen that will open him up even more,” he says. “Something that connects you, something you can’t plan or manipulate. It just happens. I’ve seen it many times.” He gives her a wink. “You’ll see.”
But she won’t see. Because she is going home. And so should he. “I came to find you because I thought you’d like to take part in the debrief before we turn things over to the experts,” she says to him.
He gives her a look. “Turn things over?”
“Yes,” she says. Doesn’t he understand that the county is the relief team, that they’re dismissed? “We can go,” she explains.
He keeps shaking his head. “No, we can’t. I mean, I could leave and no one would miss me. But I’m not going to.” He shakes his finger at her like a schoolmarm. “And neither should you. You’ve built rapport with Tommy. And that’s not nothing.”
“Someone else can build rapport with him. And besides, I don’t think they want us here. They want to handle it,” she says. “It’s their job.” She feels a tremble in her throat and swallows against it. It’s ridiculous to let emotions in over this. She’s completed her assignment; now she gets to go home. Rufus will need to go outside. Rufus! As she thinks of her dog, she realizes she has forgotten to mention Tommy’s request.
