I heard Pullman’s voice on the other end. “We’re at Tommy’s house,” he said firmly. “Your brother has barricaded himself inside with the children. I understand you’ve been through a lot in the last hour, but I need you to come here, all right? Tommy is refusing to communicate with us, and there are weapons in there.”
“Weapons?” I asked, my first words in probably hours.
“The home has two firearms, registered to Thomas and Suzannah Dearling.” I felt even more dismay. I didn’t know Tommy and Suzannah had guns. How the fuck had that never come up?
“My colleagues are going to bring you here,” Pullman repeated.
The officer turned on the cruiser’s lights and we sped through the dirt-packed back roads toward Royal Palm Beach, where Tommy and Suzannah lived. The drive normally took ten minutes, but we made it there in five.
Their place was a starter home. A small red ranch-style set back from the road on a quiet street. I’d never been there in person, but I’d seen countless photos and videos of it. The street was packed with cop cars, various cities and counties scrawled across their sides. Officers were standing all over the yard, treading on Suzannah’s perfectly planted flower gardens.
I could see several vans with sliding doors left open, cops funneling in and out of them. I stiffened when I noticed the wordSWATwritten across one of them. These cops were dressed like they were going to war.
This couldn’t all be for Tommy, could it? And then I remembered why we were here. What Pullman had said to me on the phone. These people were here to catch a murderer, whatever it took. I shuddered.
An officer opened the door of the car for me, taking me by the shoulder and leading me through the circus.
Detective Pullman met us halfway. “That’s close enough to the house,” he said, holding up a hand to stop us. He looked too young for this crisis situation. He was barely older than me.
“Are you all right?” he asked me, his expression full of pity. There was no way to answer him.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“We’ve got a hostage negotiator coming,” Pullman said, gesturing at a megaphone on a folding table. “Tommy’s not answering our regular outreach.”
My mother suddenly approached and put her arms around me. It was an unfamiliar gesture. She hadn’t hugged me in years. I didn’t even care thatwe normally couldn’t stand each other. I let my head drop onto her shoulder, letting myself feel little again.
“I can’t believe this,” I said to her. “How can this be happening?”
“I’ve been looking into him as a suspect for days,” Pullman continued. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about last night. The more you insisted on Will’s innocence, the more I considered it. It seemed glaring that no one had ever taken a close look at Tommy. He was right there, you know? And we all suspected that whoever took Hazel must’ve been close to her. Once you told me that Hazel had been looking into this, I realized he’d have motive to keep her quiet too. And when I found out where he lived …” Pullman stopped. “I just needed more evidence.”
I felt blindsided. How could the cops, of all people, have been so far ahead of me on this?
I noticed the curtain flutter in the window of Tommy’s house, shortly followed by a shrill ringing: my phone. The name displayed on the front of the screen was his.
“Wait a second,” Pullman hissed. He pulled out his cell phone and turned on audio recording. “We haven’t got your carrier’s permission to record yet,” he said gruffly. “Answer and put it on speaker.”
My hand was shaking as I clicked the button, my gaze drifting up to the window. “Tommy,” I said.
“I need to talk to you alone,” he said. I could hear the kids in the background and something on the TV. “I have to explain it to you, Rosie.”
“I’m here.”
“No, in person.” Tommy didn’t sound like himself. He sounded like someone I had never met.
“I don’t think I can.”
Detective Newbury and a member of the SWAT team were by our side now. Pullman had motioned them over with a gesture of his hand.
“I’m not talking to anyone but you,” Tommy insisted.
There was silence as Pullman and Newbury exchanged a look.
“Tommy,” Newbury said, taking the phone from my hand. “This is Detective Newbury. I know you want to talk to your sister. We’re going to see if we can make that happen, okay?”
“Okay,” Tommy said after a moment.
“All right,” Newbury said easily. “That’s good, Tommy. Really good. I’m going to put us on mute. Don’t hang up.”
