Chapter One
Ordinary Time
July
When she saw the glint of the revolver barrel through the broken glass in the window, Hadley Knox thought, Im going to die for sixteen bucks an hour. Sixteen bucks an hour, medical, and dental. She dove behind her squad car as the thing went off, a monstrous thunderclap that rolled on and on across green- gold fields of hay. The bullet smacked into the maple tree she had parked under with a meaty thud, showering her in wet, raw splinters.
She could smell the stink of her own fear, a mixture of sweat trapped beneath her uniform and the bitter edge of cordite floating across the farm house yard.
The man shooting at her turned away from the porch-shaded window and yelled something to someone screaming inside. Hadley wrenched the cruiser door open, banging the edge into the tree. She grabbed for the mic. "Dispatch! Harlene? This bastards shooting at me!" Some part of her knew that wasnt the right way to report an officer under fire, but she didnt care. If she lived to walk away from this, she was turning in her badge and her gun and going to work at the Dairy Queen.
The radio crackled. "Hadley? Is your eighty still the Christie place?"
She could barely hear the dispatcher over the shouting and swearing from the farm house. She thought she made out two masculine voices. "Yes," she yelled, getting a squeal of feedback from the mic. She tried again, forcing herself to speak in something like a normal tone. "Hes got a .357 Magnum." She had recognized the sidearm. Hot damn. "There may be more than one of them. Men, I mean. Not guns. Although there may be more guns." She could hear herself, close to hysteria. "For Gods sake, send help!"
There was a pause. The hell with this, she thought. The hell with it. Ive got two kids at home who need me. As if invoking Hudson and Genny cleared her head, she suddenly realized the highest- pitched shrieking wasnt coming from a woman. Oh, my God. Oh, shit. She squeezed the mic again. "Dispatch, its not just the sister and the caseworker. The kids are in there, too."
This time, Harlenes reply was instant. "Weve got cars on the way and the state sharpshooter team is scrambling. See if you can keep him talking until backup gets there."
Hadley stared at the mic. "Keep him talking? About what? Jesus H. Christ, Im not a negotiator! I havent even finished the Police Basic course yet!"
"You talked to angry guys in prison, didnt you? Think of something. Dispatch out."
Talk to angry cons? Hell, yeah. The difference was, they were behind bars, weaponless, powerless, while she walked around free, armed with baton and taser. Cons didnt shoot at you from a house full of hostages.
The kids were screeching, a woman sobbing, the man swearing. Think of something. Think of something. Hadley slithered out of the squad car and crouched behind the open door. She raised herself up until she could see out the window. "Hey!" she yelled. "Hey! You!"
The end of the .357 Magnum swung out of the farm house window, knocking a few more shards of glass onto the front porch. Goddamn, that thing looked as big as a cannon. She inhaled. The July sun beat down on the dirt drive, throwing up waves of heat. It was like breathing in an oven. "How bout you let me take those kids off your hands?"
"How bout you come up here and" He launched into a graphic description of what he wanted her to do for him and what he was going to do to her. She hoped to God the children didnt understand.
"Let the kids go and we can talk about it," she shouted. "You want money? You want a ride outa here?"
"I want whats mine!" the shadowy figure with the gun yelled. "Its got nothing to do with you, bitch. Leave me alone and nobody will get hurt!" Something from the interior of the house caught his attention. He swiveled around. Yelled something she couldnt make out. Then the gun went off again.
Hadley was up and moving without thinking, running toward the house, her Glock 9 mm awkward and slippery in her hand. If she had any plan at all, it was to get past the end of the porch to the corner of the house, where he couldnt see her without opening a window and leaning out. He turned back toward her. She could see the outlines of his face now, his eyes glittering in the dimness of the front room. He brought up the .357. She heard the breath sawing in and out of her chest, the howling of women and children, the susurration of tires on dirt and gravel, and she knew she wasnt going to make the shelter of the house in time.
Oh God oh God oh God oh God she heard the shot, higher and keener than the last two, and dove toward the hewn stone foundation, rolling hard into its cool dampness. The blow stunned her, numbed her, and she beat against herself with one hand while trying to raise her gun to a defensive position with the other, all the while wondering, Where is it? Where am I hit?
Then her head steadied and she looked back across the dooryard. A big red pickup straddled the drivedefensively sideways, not head- on like her cruiser. Russ Van Alstyne, the Millers Kill chief of police, had his arms braced on the hood of the truck, his Glock .40 tight in a two- handed grip, pointing at the porch. The gun, she realized, that she had just heard discharging.
"You okay, Knox?" Van Alstyne didnt take his eyes off the window.
"Yeah." She struggled to sit up. "I mean, yes, sir."
"Stay right there. Dont move." She glanced up. Some four or five feet above her, a closed window reflected the maple facing it. Hadley squeezed against the edge of the house, drawing her knees in close, doing her best to disappear.
"You shoot one more time and I swear Ill cap one of em here," the man screamed. "Ill blow one of these bitches heads off!"
The chief raised one hand, showing it was empty, and carefully placed his sidearm on the hood of the truck with the other. Hadley heard the crunch of more tires. Another squad car pulled in, flanking the chiefs. The door popped open on the far side. She caught the glint of bright red hair and then a bristle brush of gray. Kevin Flynn and Deputy Chief MacAuley. MacAuley and the chief had a short and inaudible conversation.
"Whats going on?" the gunman demanded.
The chief had a way of making his voice big without yelling. "My deputy here says the state SWAT team is on the way. Theyre not interested in talking to you. But I am."
"Screw you!" the man yelled. His voice, so near, made Hadleys skin crawl.
"Cmon, man, talk to me." The chief sounded like he was about to buy the shooter a beer. "Whaddaya gonna do, shoot one of them? Shoot one of us? Theyll send you up to Clinton, life with no chance of parole. For what? Is one of those bitches worth the