Vanish

“You asked us to retain the witnesses.”

“Yes, but not roast them alive.” He opened the door. “Just about anywhere else is going to be more comfortable than in here.”

They stepped out, and Maura took in deep breaths, grateful to be out of that stifling box. Here, at least, there was a breeze. During the time she’d been sequestered, Albany Street had transformed into a sea of police vehicles. The driveway to the medical examiner’s building across the street was now hemmed in, and she didn’t know how she was going to get her car out of that parking lot. In the distance, beyond the police barricades, she saw satellite dishes, like blossoms perched on tall stalks above the news vans. She wondered if the TV crews were just as hot and miserable, sitting inside their vehicles, as she had been inside the command trailer. She hoped so.

“Thank you for waiting,” said Stillman.

“I was hardly given a choice.”

“I know it’s an inconvenience, but we have to hold on to witnesses until we can debrief them. Now the situation’s contained, and I need intelligence. We don’t know her motives. We don’t know how many people might be in there with her. I need to know who we’re dealing with, so I can choose the right approach when she starts talking to us.”

“She hasn’t yet?”

“No. We’ve isolated the three phone lines into the hospital wing where she’s barricaded, so we control all her outgoing communications. We’ve tried calling in half a dozen times, but she keeps hanging up on us. Eventually, though, she’s going to want to communicate. They almost always do.”

“You seem to think she’s like every other hostage taker.”

“People who do this tend to behave in similar ways.”

“And how many hostage takers are women?”

“It’s unusual, I have to admit.”

“Have you ever dealt with a female hostage taker?”

He hesitated. “The truth is,” he said, “this is a first for me. A first for all of us. We’re confronting the rare exception here. Women just don’t take hostages.”

“This one did.”

He nodded. “And until I know more, I have to approach it the way I would any other hostage crisis. Before I negotiate with her, I need to know as much about her as possible. Who she is, and why she’s doing this.”

Maura shook her head. “I don’t know that I can help you with that.”

“You’re the last person who had any contact with her. Tell me everything you can remember. Every word she spoke, every twitch.”

“I was alone with her for such a short time. Only a few minutes.”

“Did you two talk?”

“I tried to.”

“What did you say to her?”

Maura felt her palms go slick again as she remembered that ride in the elevator. How the woman’s hand had trembled as she gripped the weapon. “I tried to calm her down, tried to reason with her. I told her I only wanted to help.”

“How did she respond?”

“She didn’t say anything. She was completely silent. That was the most frightening part.” She looked at Stillman. “Her absolute silence.”

He frowned. “Did she react to your words in any way? Are you sure she could hear you?”

“She’s not deaf. She reacted to sounds. I know she heard the police sirens.”

“Yet she didn’t say a single word?” He shook his head. “This is bizarre. Are we dealing with a language barrier? This will make it tough to negotiate.”

“She didn’t strike me as the negotiating type anyway.”

“Start from the begi

“I’ve gone over all this with Captain Hayder. Asking me the same questions again and again isn’t going to get you any more answers.”

“I know you’re repeating yourself. But something you remember could be the vital detail. The one thing I can use.”

“She was pointing a gun at my head. It was hard to focus on anything else but staying alive.”

“You were with her. You know her most recent state of mind. Do you have any idea why she took these actions? Whether she’s likely to harm any hostages she’s holding?”

“She’s already killed one man. Shouldn’t that tell you something?”

“But we’ve heard no gunshots since then, so we’ve gotten past the critical first thirty minutes, which is the most dangerous period. The time when the shooter’s still scared and most likely to kill a captive. It’s been almost an hour now, and she’s made no other moves. Hurt no one else, as far as we know.”

“Then what is she doing in there?”

“We have no idea. We’re still scrambling for background information. The homicide unit is checking into how she ended up at the morgue, and we’ve lifted what we think are her fingerprints from the hospital room. As long as no one’s getting hurt, time is our friend. The longer this goes on, the more information we’ll have on her. And the more likely we’ll settle it without bloodshed, without heroics.” He glanced toward the hospital. “See those cops over there? They’re probably champing at the bit to rush the building. If it comes to that, then I’ve failed. My rule of thumb for hostage incidents is simple: Slow things down. We’ve got her contained in a wing with no windows, no exits, so she can’t escape. She can’t go mobile. So we let her sit and think about her situation. And she’ll realize that she’s got no other choice but to surrender.”

“If she’s rational enough to understand that.”

He regarded her for a moment. A look that gently probed the significance of what she just said. “Do you think she’s rational?”

“I think she’s terrified,” Maura said. “When we were alone in that elevator, I saw the look in her eyes. The panic.”

“Is that why she fired the gun?”

“She must have felt threatened. There were three of us crowding around her bed, trying to restrain her.”

“Three of you? The nurse I spoke to said that when she stepped into the room, she saw only you and the guard.”

“There was a doctor as well. A young man, blond.”

“The nurse didn’t see him.”

“Oh, he ran. After that gun went off, he was out of there like a rabbit.” She paused, still bitter about the abandonment. “I was the one trapped in the room.”

“Why do you think the patient shot only the guard? If there were three of you standing around the bed?”

“He was bending toward her. He was closest.”

“Or was it his uniform?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Think about it. A uniform is a symbol of authority. She could have thought he was a policeman. It makes me wonder if she has a criminal record.”

“A lot of people are afraid of the police. You don’t have to be a criminal.”

“Why didn’t she shoot the doctor?”

“I told you, he ran. He was out of there.”

“She didn’t shoot you, either.”

“Because she needed a hostage. I was the closest warm body.”

“Do you think she would have killed you? Given the chance?”

Maura met his gaze. “I think that woman will do anything to stay alive.”

The trailer door suddenly swung open. Captain Hayder stuck his head out and said to Stillman: “You’d better come in and listen to this, Leroy.”

“What is it?”

“It just aired on the radio.”

Maura followed Stillman back into the trailer, which had grown even more stifling in just the short time they had been standing outside.

“Replay the broadcast,” Hayder said to Emerton.

Over the speaker came a man’s excited voice. “… you’re listening to KBUR, and this is Rob Roy, your host on this very weird afternoon. We’ve got a bee-zarre situation here, folks. There’s a lady caller on the line right now who claims she’s the one holding our local SWAT team at bay over at the medical center. Now, I didn’t believe her at first, but our producer’s been talking to her. We think she’s the real deal…”

“What the hell is this?” said Stillman. “It’s got to be a hoax. We have those phone lines isolated.”

“Just listen,” said Hayder.

“… so hello, miss?” said the DJ. “Talk to us. Tell us your name.”