Free Negotiating Point by Adrienne Giordano Page A

you close with her? Must be if you let her watch your son.”
    “Yeah. I’m pretty close with her. She takes great care of my son.”
    “It’s gotta be tough being a single dad. I give you credit. It’s good you have support from your mom. Jeez, Joe, you’ve got a great family.”
    “It’s a decent life.”
    Gavin sat forward and stared straight ahead. “Even more reason to think about what you’re doing here. I get that you feel Jackson Spelling is being persecuted, I do. Maybe I can help you with that after we get you out of there safely.”
    “You can get us out of here by getting our leader out of jail.”
    A click sounded on the other end of the phone line.
    * * *
    Gavin snatched his headset off and shot out of his chair to walk off some energy. He eyeballed the iPod on the desk, but decided against it. “Damn. Thought I had him.”
    “I thought you did too. It seemed like you were so close.”
    He held his hands out. “That’s how it goes sometimes. You think you have them and—poof—gone.” He checked his watch. Almost 7:00 p.m. Shit. “Anything on the son?”
    “Give me one second. I’m about to grab the mother’s cell number.”
    “Excellent.”
    This woman was amazing. Made his life so much easier. And she made him laugh. Not an easy thing to accomplish lately. He grinned at her, this cute pixie of a woman who was fearless in her job and did battle with men two and a half times her body weight. His chest expanded, a huge burst of something opening up inside him and filling him with respect and adoration for someone he had no business feeling that way about.
    It is what it is. If he was anything, he was a realist. By all indications after the gymnastic sex not half an hour ago, neither one of them would be interested in running away from said situation. Yes, he was an executive and she was support staff. No, she didn’t report to him. If they handled it carefully, it could work.
    He’d make it work.
    Janet handed him a slip of paper. “Here you go. The ex’s phone number. What are you going to do?”
    He stared down at the digits, contemplated the destruction they could cause. How Joe would react to seeing his son, Gavin couldn’t guess. The pressure, the emotional warfare, might be too much. Maybe he’d commit suicide. Maybe he’d drag the kid in as a hostage. Maybe he’d turn a gun on a pregnant Roxann Taylor.
    Who knew what drove people in these situations?
    Gavin ran a hand over his head. “It’s a hip-shot.” He stopped walking, looked at Janet and imagined how it would feel if she were the one chained to a bed. Rotting, foul sickness consumed him. Decision made. “I want the son here. This guy loves his son and the kid might slap some sense into him. Emotionally speaking.”
    “It’s getting late. You may not have time.”
    “Has Vic made contact?”
    “No, but they’ll be back soon.”
    Janet slid the headset off and set it down on the desk. She leveled her hand over it and tapped her fingers. This wouldn’t be good. “Go ahead. Say it.”
    She raised her gaze to him and their eyes held. That brief hesitation, the pinched tight lips, left no doubt she was struggling to find the right words.
    The ones that wouldn’t piss him off.
    “I think you need to prepare yourself. Vic held up his end, and he’ll come in here, literally, with guns blazing. The deal was nightfall and that time is approaching. I know him. Once it’s nightfall, there will be no debates.”
    “I’m not done yet. I almost had Joe. I felt it. That’s why he hung up.”
    “I realize that, but he— they— haven’t agreed to surrender.”
    Surrender. Not a word negotiators used. Hostage takers interpreted surrendering as a negative thing. Jail. Courtrooms. Either way, it meant failure.
    But Janet was right. He didn’t have the kind of time he would need to drag this guy out of there with words alone.
    Unless…
    He spun to the barn door. Janet had opened it and the waning sunlight splashed across