Chapter 35
Here we all are now, thinks Sylvie.Here we all are, together. Still.
Once Hope, her guard, and Covey are safely inside the room, the women climb back on their stools with a resignation that makes their shoulders droop. Hope drifts into the center of their little circle and stays there as she takes in her new surroundings. Then she goes to each woman, doing the physical version of what she’d done on the phone hours ago, making sure they are okay, that they have no urgent needs. When she gets to Sylvie, the older woman tells her, “My only urgent need is to get out of here by suppertime. I have a husband who will be waiting for me.” Sylvie does not add that he is waiting just outside. She’s betting Hope doesn’t know that.
Hope gives her a thumbs-up sign. “I approve of this plan,” she says and smiles. It might be unorthodox for a negotiator to go in with the hostages, Sylvie thinks, but having Hope with them makes things just a little bit better. Or maybe it’s the dog in the room. Dogs make everything better.
Sylvie and Robert always had dogs. When one died, they observed a mourning period but inevitably went out and got a new dog. Through the years they had big dogs and little dogs, female dogs and male dogs, mixed breeds from the pound and purebreds they paid far too much money for. Dogs that were afraid of the rain, dogs that barked at anything that moved, dogs thatchewed up furniture, dogs that slept with them, dogs that slept with their son. Each one still holds a place in her heart.
But when their last one died, they did the math. If a dog lives an average of thirteen years, they had reached the ages where the dog could outlive at least one of them. It was the most depressing calculation she’d ever done. So they did what they felt was the reasonable thing and remained dogless, yet another insult of old age.
Sylvie looks over at Tommy in the far corner of the room. He is on the floor beside the dog with his arms encircling him, his face buried in his fur. Seeing him curled around the dog the way he is makes Sylvie think of a Latin phrase:incurvatusin se, which means “curved inward on oneself.” She cannot remember where she heard it. Just one of those tidbits she’s filed away through the years. As she recalls, it basically means your only concern is yourself.
She thinks of another phrase, not Latin, but applicable: “He who lies down with dogs gets up with fleas.” She bites back a smile and turns to Hope.
“How long are you going to leave him over there?” Sylvie points at Tommy.
Hope shrugs, then gestures at the officers outside. “I told them to give me some time. I’d like to convince him to surrender and walk out of here on his own, let it be his decision to let you guys go. But they’re not going to wait forever.”
Sylvie nods her approval as an understanding dawns on her. There is no way this ends without them being released, without Tommy surrendering. In that way, appeasing Tommy was also ending his siege.
“Gutsy move,” Sylvie says. “Bringing the dog in here yourself.”
Hope shrugs again. “Well, it came down to this being the bestway to handle it. And since I’ve been the one talking to him all day, I was the most obvious choice. He at least sorta trusts me.”
“I could only hear half of the conversation, but it seems like you really made a connection with him,” Sylvie says.
Hope pauses before speaking, choosing her words. When she thought about coming in here, she thought about dealing with Tommy. She hadn’t really given much thought to dealing with the hostages too.Oh well, she thinks,I’m here now. The only way out is through.
“We both lost a parent recently,” Hope says.
Sylvie nods. “I thought that might be it. I heard his side and thought you must’ve been mirroring his feelings.”
Mirroring, Hope thinks.That’s an odd choice of words, a negotiation term.But she doesn’t comment on that. “Well, it actually wasn’t hard, or even intentional. We’ve gone through some things that are... eerily similar. Similar regrets, similar timing.”
Sylvie keeps nodding along as her eyes stray from Hope and toward the windows that face the parking lot. A smile crosses her face. “Lady luck,” Sylvie says.
“What’d you say?” Hope asks, her heart rate rising as, in her head, she hears Bo’s voice saying the exact same thing.
“Nothing,” says Sylvie, waving her hand. “Just something I heard once.” But her cheeks are bright red.
“Where’d you hear it?” Hope asks. She notices the other three hostages lean forward on their stools.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Sylvie says. “Probably on some cop show or something. I watch a lot ofLaw and Order.”
No, you don’t, Hope thinks. But she doesn’t say it. Instead, she says, “What did you mean by ‘lady luck’?”
Sylvie holds her breath for a moment, then exhales it all outin a whoosh. “It just means that sometimes in life you find common ground in unexpected ways. There’s some similarity that you hit upon with a total stranger that you couldn’t possibly have orchestrated apart from—”
“Lady luck,” Hope finishes. She gives Sylvie a one-sided grin, and Sylvie looks away. “You know, that’s the second time today that I’ve heard that.” She says this to Sylvie’s profile. She waits a moment, but Sylvie doesn’t respond. “I’ve never heard it before,” she continues. “And now I’ve heard it twice in one day.” There is a teasing quality to her voice as she adds, “Do you think that’s also lady luck? A coincidence? Or is there someone out there we both know who has said it to both of us?” She waits again for Sylvie to respond. When she doesn’t, Hope says, “Bo?”
At the sound of the name, Sylvie turns to face Hope, dispensing with further pretense. “Actually, it’s Robert,” she says. “Bo was an old nickname from when he was a rookie. He used it so he could be here today without you guys figuring out the connection.”
Hope shakes her head as she recalls all the moments when, if she’d been paying closer attention, he gave clues. The concern in his voice whenever he spoke of the hostages, the way he reached out to the station and offered to come over, his constant walking over to see what was going on inside the post office, his volunteering to deliver the pizzas and even suggesting that “the old lady” be the one to receive them. He’d said it was because they would be seen as less of a threat, but it was just because he’d wanted to lay eyes on his wife. A senior citizen has fooled them all.
Good for him, Hope thinks. She gives Sylvie a reassuring smile.Good for them.He came as soon as he heard. He did what he could to look out for his wife. He couldn’t bear to be separated from her, especially when she needed him.
She thinks of Alex, of how long they’ve been separated, achoice she made apart from him. Steeped in grief and regret, she’d fled to Sunset Beach, but in doing so, she’d left her husband behind. Then when he offered to join her, she’d told him to stay behind. At some point he stopped asking why she doesn’t want him there. He knows the answer will be the same one she always gives: “I don’t know what I want.”
