Free Hunted by Karen Robards Page A

you know, I’m holding you personally responsible for that kid’s welfare.”
    Dixon took the receiver from Caroline and spoke into it. His harsh expression was at complete odds with his voice, which was placating. “We’re getting ready to have somebody escort him in to you right now. You’re getting everything you want, so no need to go on making threats.”
    Ware said, “For everybody’s sake I hope that’s what happens. Caroline, you there?”
    Dixon gave her back the phone.
    “Yes.” Caroline’s throat felt tight as she watched Bayard being hustled out of the van.
    “This is all going to be over very shortly,” Ware said. “You’ve been doing great.”
    Ordinarily the praise would have warmed her, but thethought that everything really was going to be all over very shortly sent an icy slither of dread coursing down her spine. What were the chances that everybody would still be alive in, say, half an hour? What were the chances that Ware would be?
    She felt sick thinking about it.
    “Surrendering is in your best interest,” Caroline told him. She was all too conscious of Dixon listening beside her: she couldn’t do what she really wanted to do and drop all pretense of professionalism and outright beg. Still, her voice took on an urgent note. “Reed, think for a minute. No harm will come to you or Hollis Bayard or anyone else if you give up now. Just walk out with your hands up.”
    The look Dixon gave her was unreadable. He gestured to Caroline to indicate that he wanted to say something, and she held the receiver out so that he could speak into it.
    “That’s right,” he said to Ware. “You do that, you walk out with your hands up, you’ll make everybody happy.”
    Ware laughed, a brief, harsh sound. “I just bet I would.” Then his tone changed. “Caroline, I want you to bring Hollis Bayard in to me.” His voice hardened. “You hear that, Dixon? I want her to escort the kid, and it’s not negotiable. She’s the only one of you assholes I’m letting near me.”
    “I hear you.” Dixon’s face was grim as he looked at Caroline. “You game for this, Wallace?”
    Caroline hesitated. Hostage negotiators had a saying: no cop ever got killed on the far end of a phone. She was supremely conscious of the risk of ordinary police work: her first stepfather, her mother’s second husband (her mother was now on husband number three), had been shot and killed while pulling over a guyfor speeding. A friend had been badly wounded responding to a convenience store robbery. Another had caught a stray bullet in the leg working crowd control at Mardi Gras. That was the reason she was so conscientious about always wearing a flak vest: in her line of work, when things went wrong they tended to go wrong bad and fast. Escorting Bayard inside the mansion would constitute putting herself in harm’s way. If the situation went south—and the situation was inevitably going to go south—she could get caught in the crossfire. She could get shot. She could get blown up. She could die.
    “Yes.” Even as she said it, she knew that the driving force behind her decision was her hope that in the brief time that she could talk to Ware face-to-face, she would get him to see how hopeless his situation was and surrender. If she was forced to choose, the lives of the hostages had to come first, but she was going to do everything in her power to keep Ware alive, too. Not that she meant to let any hint of her intentions show in her face or her manner. She might be prepared to pull out all the stops and plead with Ware on the basis of their long-ago—what, friendship? flirtation?—but she wasn’t prepared to share the fact that she meant to do so with Dixon or anyone else.
    “If I do this . . .” she directed her words down the phone line to Ware. Her tone made what she said to him next a challenge. “If I bring Bayard inside, you owe me three hostages.”
    “Minute I set eyes on you and Bayard, I’ll let three of