Free The Negotiator by Chris Taylor Page A

dress in her fist. With wild stabs, she attacked it, tearing and shredding the cloth. Moments later, the fog of rage cleared and she stared at the remains of the dress. It hung in tatters, destroyed beyond repair.
    The scissors fell from her hand and she slowly dropped to the floor. Sobs tore through her in agonizing waves. She gasped and curled her legs up to her chest and rocked against the pain. This was all because of Andy. It was his fault she was in such a bad way. He should have tried harder to love her. He should never have tossed her aside. They were meant to be together. She had to make him see…

CHAPTER SEVEN

    Detective Superintendent Patrick Redding strode out of his office, his face grim. “He’s back up there again, Andy.”
    “Excuse me?” Andy frowned and looked up from the pile of paperwork on his desk.
    “Wayne Tucker, your jumper from last week. He’s back up there,” Redding replied.
    “You’re kidding?”
    “I’m afraid not. I just took a call from the psychiatric unit of Royal North Shore Hospital. They discovered him missing about an hour ago. No one knows how he got out—or at least, no one’s saying—but he’s back up on a window ledge. This time it’s the ninth floor of the Nurses’ residence, about four hundred yards from the bed he’d been keeping warm in the psych unit.”
    Andy sucked in a breath. Adrenaline surged through him. He pushed his chair away from his desk and stood. Quickly and efficiently, he emptied his pockets of his wallet, cell phone and keys and prepared for what was to come. “Who’s at the scene?”
    “A couple of cars from St Leonards, a couple more from Artarmon. The State Protection Group’s on its way. They want you to lead the team, seeing as Tucker knows you and you managed to talk him down last time.”
    “Yeah.” Andy channeled his thoughts to the task ahead. He knew from other negotiators that a second attempt almost always spelled trouble. He strode toward the locker rooms. “Who’s riding with me?”
    “Craig Winters, Sandy Ashcroft and Hugh Power are already on their way. Tom Munro’s waiting for you downstairs.”
    A little of the mounting pressure inside Andy subsided. Despite the fact he was only in his late thirties, Tom Munro was a veteran and had been the primary negotiator in more than a hundred high-risk situations. He’d won more than he’d lost and Andy was glad to have him by his side.
    During his time at the North Sydney Police Station, Andy had come to know Tom and his family. His wife, Lily, was a primary school teacher and was as sweet and gracious as Andy fondly remembered his own primary school teachers were. Their two children, Cassie and Joe were cute, well-mannered teenagers. The Munro clan was the epitome of a wholesome Aussie family and Andy couldn’t help the stab of longing that went through him whenever he thought of them.
    He pushed the thoughts aside. Now wasn’t the time to wish things were different. A man’s life was at stake and Andy was responsible for saving him. Depositing his phone and other personal items on the shelf, he stripped down to his underwear and pulled on the navy SPG overalls he kept in his locker.
    One of the first things he’d learned in his training was how to ensure there was nothing on his person that could distract the jumper and possibly cause a disastrous ending. A flash of sunlight on a watch face or the sudden ringing of a cell phone could mean the difference between life and death. It was an understatement to say the people he dealt with were not exactly stable.
    Threading his gun belt through the loops on his overalls, he checked that his sidearm was primed and loaded. Not that he’d be using it at the scene. It was standard operating procedure to hand in his gun to the supervisor at the scene. It was the intention of the negotiator to build a rapport with the subject and gain their trust. A sidearm, in full view of the subject, tended to jeopardize those kinds of