Page 22 of Save Her Life

Garrison stood. “I think we should all take two steps back.” He turned to Patrick. “I need to know everything that took place during that conversation between the officer and the girlfriend.”

Patrick glanced at Bowen but responded to the team leader, “I’ll find out the exact details of their conversation, sir,” and picked up his phone.

“Make sure someone goes and sits with her too,” Bowen wedged in. “I don’t want this screwup happening again.”

“Yes, LT,” Patrick told him.

Sandra was watching all this unfold, feeling the situation fall through her fingers. She typically would have cautioned about this exact thing when telling Patrick to get an officer over to talk to the girlfriend, but as far as they knew Gavin didn’t have a phone. Leaving the hostage situation to the negotiator was what worked.

She turned to Bowen. “We don’t know exactly where Gavin is currently holed up. It’s likely near the hostages, but there were times I spoke to him there was silence in the background. You want to secure Gavin, without hurting anyone, we can’t afford to go in blind.”

“Likely near? He’s probably not wasting a bullet on the ceiling,” Bowen protested.

“There’s no way to know. Let me try contacting Gavin again and see if I can find out what’s going on in there.”

Garrison looked at Bowen, who waved his hand. “Give it a go, Vos,” Garrison said.

Sandra put the call through, and the line rang repeatedly. She sat back.

“Let me guess. No answer?” Bowen said. “Surprise, surprise, he’s not talking now. He knows he just screwed up his chances of getting out of there.”

After the long day and night Sandra had, this guy was testing her last nerve. “You can’t know exactly what he’s thinking.”

“I can’t, but you apparently can,” Bowen kicked back. “And we can’t just ignore the fact that a gun was fired.” He drilled Sandra with a glare.

“No one is,” she said.

Patrick cleared his throat and cut in. “I spoke to the officer who talked with the girlfriend. He never saw her call but said she excused herself to use the washroom in the back of the house.”

“Did he get McConnell’s number?” Garrison asked.

“Yeah, and I’ll make sure the service is cut.”

“What else?” Sandra asked Patrick. “He must have learned something from her we can use.”

“McConnell doesn’t have any savings. In fact, the opposite, he’s in debt for twenty grand. He was let go from his factory job Monday of last week,” Patrick said, referring to his notepad. “Replaced by AI.”

“It’s going to replace all of us one day,” Richie put in. “The rise of the machines is more real than you might think.”

She wasn’t touching that comment and no one else seemed to want to either. “And the health insurance? Did the officer ask the girlfriend about that?” she asked Patrick.

“Oh, yeah. The girl became blue swearing. She said Gavin told her they’d have medical insurance until the end of the month. Guess she kicked him out last week, but he asked for a chance to make things right. The girl’s got a chest infection that’s in danger of turning into pneumonia. He told his girlfriend to stay with the girl while he got the meds.”

None of this was good. No job, canceled insurance, a broken relationship, one chance to prove himself a good father and it blows up in his face… Receiving a call from Karen would have been the cherry on top. It would have emphasized his feelings of hopelessness, reducing the chances of ending this peacefully. “Patrick, could you reach out to Gavin’s former employer?”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Bowen chimed in.

“Does that matter right now, because I don’t think it does,” she countered. She picked up speaking to Patrick. “I’d like to know what happened with the insurance.”

Patrick glanced at Garrison, who nodded, then he got on the phone.

“Please, just a bit longer,” she said, appealing to Bowen. “Let me see if I can establish contact with Gavin again.” She didn’t wait for a response but put the call through.Answer, answer, she mentally coached. If she didn’t get through to Gavin, she wasn’t sure she could stop the powers that be from tromping in there.

Gavin answered. He said nothing, but he was breathing heavily.

“Gavin, I need you to talk to me. Tell me, is anyone hurt?” She balanced diplomacy with the goal of her job, toeing that fineline of being the shot caller and Gavin respecting her enough to relent to her position.

“No one is?—”

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