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"I hear you. I know this is hard. But I need you to let her go, Stu."

"She's the one who did this. She took my kids. She took everything." His voice cracked. "I gave her everything and she left."

Behind him, the wife was crying. I could hear her through the transmission, a low, broken sound that never fully stopped.

"I know you're hurting, man. I can see that. But this isn't going to get your kids back. You know that. Just put the gun down and we'll figure this out."

"There's nothing to figure out. There's nothing left."

On the phone, the mother heard it too. She whispered, "Oh God. Oh God, please."

I muted her line so dispatch wouldn't bleed into the channel and sat with my hands flat on the desk. The officer kept talking. Stu stopped answering. The wife's crying was the only sound coming through the body cam, and then even that went quiet.

Then the gunshot.

One sharp crack that came through every open channel at once. My whole body locked. The radio went dead for two seconds.

"Unit 4 to dispatch. Shots fired by officers. Subject is down. Hostage is alive. Scene is secure."

I closed my eyes and let myself breathe.

"Copy, Unit 4. EMS, you are clear to approach 38 Hadley Street."

On the phone, the mother was screaming. I heard a door open, her voice calling her daughter's name. I stayed on the line until I heard her reach her daughter, until I heard the daughter's voice answer, and then I told her the paramedics were coming and disconnected.

I logged the disposition and closed the call.

I sat at my console for ten seconds and let my hands shake where nobody could see them. That was the part of this job that never got easier. The silence after a gunshot, when you don't know who's still standing. Two seconds where every voice you've been tracking goes quiet, and you sit in your chair five miles away and wait to find out not just if the people you were trying to save are still alive, but also if the people you sent to save them are too.

I straightened my headset. Took a breath. My hands were still going. I flagged my supervisor and asked for five minutes. He looked at my face, then leaned past me. "Karen, cover Curtis for a few."

Karen gave him a thumbs up from across the room.

The bathroom was empty. I locked the door behind me and leaned against the wall. I'd been a dispatcher for years. I'd talked a teenager through CPR on her own mother. I'd stayed on the line while a building came down with a crew still inside. I'd handled calls worse than this one.

But my hands wouldn't stop shaking.

I tried to figure out which part of the call had done it. The mother's voice, maybe. The way she didn't know what to do, just knew her daughter was behind a door with a man and a gun. Or the daughter's voice after the gunshot, that single broken sound when the officers reached her. Or Stu's slurred voice, saying he gave her everything and she left. A man who loved someone so much it turned into the most dangerous thing in the room.

Maybe I just didn't want to admit that the call hit too close to home. That a woman staying at her mother's house because she left a dangerous situation, a man who tracked her down, a family trying to hold themselves together while a threat moved closer was my fear playing out through someone else's life.

I inhaled. Held it. Let it go. Inhaled. Held it. Let it go.

Westbrook had said I was in a good position. Declan hadn't touched us because of my proximity to Alex, to the department, to the kind of people organized crime didn't want to provoke. We were safe. That was what I'd been told.

But the woman on Hadley Street had probably told herself she was safe too.

Again. I inhaled. Held it. Let it go. Inhaled. Held it. Let it go.

I opened my eyes and looked around the bathroom. The faucet. The sink. The fluorescent light humming above the mirror. The paper towel dispenser with the dent on the side. The tile floor. The crack in the grout by the door.

I turned on the faucet and pressed cold water to my face. Inhaled. Held it. Let it go. One more time. Inhaled. Held it. Let it go.

You're here. You're safe. There are people who need you. Time to get back out there.

I dried my face and walked back to my station.

The console was waiting. I put on my headset, thanked Karen, and settled in. A few calls came and went. Routine. I let the work pull me back to level.