Page 33 of Captive Hearts
‘Can we get back to my interview?’ Rick demanded irritably.
‘I thought you seemed really sympathetic,’ said a young woman in chef whites. Anyone could have seen she was lying through her teeth—anyone except Rick. ‘You think so?’ he asked.
‘Yeah. That story about your son was… really, err… sad.’
‘Which bit?’ Rick pressed with slight desperation.
‘Err, the bit where…’ the chef started. Gina could see she was struggling and jumped in. ‘That you lost access through no fault of your own,’ she lied.
Rick nodded. ‘Yeah. It was sad. His mum’s a right bitch.’
Gina nodded with all the sympathy she could fake. ‘She sounds it.’
Rick looked down for a moment, seeming gloomy. Until he heard a sound outside that interested him. You couldn’t miss it. It was the sound of cars, a lot of them. ‘Go and have a look out of the window,’ Rick said to no one in particular.
‘Who?’ Ashley asked him.
‘I think you’ve just volunteered yourself,’ he said.
Ashley got up slowly and walked across the room, throwing a slightly worried glance at Gina. Gina knew what was concerning her. Rick had been prophesying that the second his head hovered into the crosshairs of a sniper’s gun… Bang. No more head. If that was true, what if another head appeared and the sniper acted without thinking? Gina found her own worry growing. ‘Hey, Rick, maybe we should stay away from the windows for now? Like you said?’
Rick snorted. ‘You worried about your girlfriend?’
‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ Ashley and Gina protested in perfect synchronicity.
‘It was just a joke, fucking hell,’ Rick retorted. ‘And no, she’s going. They won’t touch her, I’d bet big money.’
Gina gave an apologetic shrug to Ashley, now standing tensely at the blind. Ashley shook her head forgivingly as she took a ragged breath before twitching up a blind.
Gina squeezed her eyes shut. Nothing happened. She opened her eyes to see Ashley bracing herself as she looked out of the window. After a moment, whatever fear Ashley had been feeling had obviously evaporated. ‘Oh,’ she said.
‘What?’ Rick asked, on tenterhooks.
Ashley sighed. ‘The nationals. They’re here.’
Rick began to beam. ‘What? All the big stations? They’ve come to put me on?’
‘Yep,’ Ashley noted. ‘I can make them out at the end of the road, behind the barrier. A fleet of vans. I can just about see a couple of logos. One of them is definitely Channel Seven. Bastards.’
‘Why are they bastards?’ Rick asked.
‘They turned me down for an interview,’ Ashley told him.
Rick shook his head and grinned. ‘I don’t give a shit. They’re here, they’ve come. That copper’s got the eyes of the nation on ‘er now. She won’t dare make a move on me.’
Ashley dropped the blind and turned to Rick. ‘OK, well, might this be a good time to maybe…’
‘What?’ Rick asked.
‘Let some people go?’ Ashley asked.
The room turned as one to Rick. The hope in their eyes was shining. Rick saw it too. He heaved a large sigh. ‘I guess I could let two or three go,’ he said generously.
All the hostages began to smile at Rick, trying to make themselves look extra releasable. Rick cast his eye across them, biting the inside of his cheek. ‘Mmm. Let’s see.’
The middle-aged dad cleared his throat. ‘Can… can you let my daughter go?’
The girl was mortified. ‘Dad, don’t be so embarrassing.’
