IT WAS THE MODERN-DAY EQUIVALENTof the trolley problem, that old ethics conundrum. There’s a trolley whose brakes have failed barreling down a track. Ahead are five people who are unable to move, and the trolley is going to hit them. You have the ability to pull a lever and swing the trolley to an alternate track. However, on that track is a single person who is similarly unable to move. Do you let the trolley stay on course and kill five people? Or do you pull the lever and kill one person who would otherwise have been safe?
Until today, Hugh would have said that the lesser of two evils would be the loss of a single life, rather than five lives. But things changed when you had your hand on that lever and the doomed person on the alternate track was someone you loved.
It was as if Bex was on one track and Wren on another. What if trying to engage the shooter via negotiation took so much time that Bex, injured, didn’t survive? What if he attempted to get Bex help quickly, disarming the situation via force, and wound up putting Wren in the line of fire?
Hugh dialed the number of the Center and listened to it ring, and ring, and ring. He knew, thanks to Wren, that the lack of response was not because everyone inside had been killed, including the gunman. So he hung up, and waited a moment before dialing again.
When Wren was born, Hugh had been sure there was something wrong with him. He just couldn’t get excited about a drooling, pooping bundle of flesh. Even when people came over to exclaim at her big blue eyes or her thick head of hair, he smiled and nodded and secretly thought she looked like a tiny alien. Of course he adored her. He would have laid down his life for her. He understood the duty that came with being a parent, but not the visceral pull he’d heard others describe.
Just you wait,Bex had told him, and like always, she was right.
That miracle had happened when Wren was three and her nursery school teacher casually mentioned how cute it was that she and a little boy named Saheed played house together.Who’s Saheed?he had asked that day, driving her home.Oh,Wren had said.My boyfriend.
The first time he had seen Wren on the playground, holding hands with Saheed, Hugh had very clearly felt the world shift. That was the moment he realized that Wren did not belong to him. In fact, Hugh belonged toher.
One day, she would not need him to help her decide if she should wear leggings with candy corn on them, or penguins. One day, she would remember all the words to “Bohemian Rhapsody” without him filling in the gaps as they sang along in the car. One day she wouldn’t ask him to get the Goldfish crackers from a shelf she could not reach. One day she would not need him anymore.
Sometimes you can’t tell how consuming love is until you can see its absence. Sometimes you can’t recognize love because it’s changed you, like a chimera, so slowly that you didn’t witness the transformation.
As Hugh watched Saheed following Wren like a loyal subject, he thought of all the crap he had pulled when he was trying to get a girl’s attention, and he vowed never to let any guy treat her the way he had treated girls in high school. But he also knew that he couldn’t protect her. That she would be heartbroken one day, and he would have to see her cry.
Thatwas fatherhood. Fatherhood was wanting to put his daughter in a bubble where she could never be hurt, while knowing that he had hurt someone else’s daughter, once. Fatherhood was plotting the future murder of a sweet kid named Saheed because he had the wisdom to see that nobody else in the world was as awesome as Wren.
Now, Hugh scrolled through forgotten conversations in his mind. In any of them, had Wren mentioned a boy?
Wren had said she was here with Bex. But this was an abortion clinic. Bex was too old to need one. Maybe his sister had come here for another reason, but why would she have taken Wren out of school to accompany her?
Unless…
He couldn’t even finish that sentence in his mind.
He decided that after he saved Wren’s life, he would find out who the boy was. And then maybe kill him.
Hugh dialed the phone number of the Center again. This time, on the third ring, a woman answered. Not Wren.
But he had made first contact.Now,he thought.Go.
“This is Lieutenant McElroy with the Jackson Police. Am I on speakerphone?”
“No.”
“Who am I speaking with?”
“Um, my name is Izzy…”
“Izzy,” Hugh said, “I’m here to help you. Can I talk to the person who might be able to resolve this situation?”
He heard her say to someone: “It’s the police and they want you.”
And then: “Yeah?”
The voice of the shooter rumbled like a stick drawn across fence posts. Just that one syllable opened a cave Hugh could peer into. The word was deep, boiling, wary. But it was also one word, rather than a barrage of them. Which meant he was listening.
“This is Detective Hugh McElroy of the Jackson Police Department. I’m with the hostage negotiation unit. I’m here to talk to you and ensure the safety of you and everyone else in the building.”
“I have nothing to talk about,” the shooter said. “These people are murderers.”
“Okay,” Hugh replied, no judgment. An acknowledgment. “What’s your name, sir?” he asked, although he already knew. “What would you like to be called?”
