“What kid?” Hugh said.
George let the phone fall in his hand, holding it against his thigh, as the girl managed to increase the volume even with her hands bound.
“… given that Goddard was in fact dishonorably discharged for killing civilians during his service in Bosnia.”
The screen cut to a studio anchor. “So we can say that there’s a historical pattern of violence …”
“Turn it off,” George breathed.
He couldn’t even see the screen. His vision was blurred, and all he could imagine was Lil listening to this utter bullshit. “That isn’t what happened,” he muttered.
He could feel the phone vibrating against his thigh, emitting sounds.
Suddenly it was 2001 and he was in Bosnia and he was doing his job and everyone was out to get him.
He thought of Lil, hearing that bullshit. He thought of how, when she was little, she would always play the princess and he had to be the prince who saved her from the ogre or the quicksand or the evil queen. She had never seen him as anything but a hero. And now?
He reached for the nearest piece of furniture—a lamp—and hurled it against the wall.
The women screamed.
He could hear the cop yelling, trying to get his attention.
He hung up the phone.
Well, fuck. They had his attention now.
—
HUGH HELD THE PHONE IN his hand, the line dead. He had heard two critical things in the background during this last phone conversation: Wren’s voice, and the television report on George’s military service.
He sank down onto a chair and speared his hands through his hair, making it stand on end. When he was young, Bex was forever smoothing down his cowlicks. That’s what it really came down to, wasn’t it? Looking presentable to the world, no matter who you were when the cameras weren’t rolling and the door was closed.
When push came to shove, was he a hostage negotiator, or a father?
When the two came into conflict, which triumphed?
He looked up, beckoning over a SWAT team member. “Where’s Quandt?” he asked.
“I can get him for you, Lieutenant.” The man hurried off and Hugh stared down at his makeshift desk, weighing his options.
George Goddard was losing control.
Hugh had heard Wren’s voice.
She was still alive.
And this might be his only chance to keep her that way.
A shadow fell over him, and Hugh glanced up to see Quandt standing with his arms crossed. “I can only assume that the reason you want to see me is because you’ve come to your senses and you’re ready for my men to move in,” he said.
“No,” Hugh replied. “I want you to cut communications.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t want any comms in that building that don’t come directly from us. I want the phone lines cut, except for the hard line to the clinic that connects to me. No TV signal, no Wi-Fi, nothing. I can’t risk him seeing anything else on TV that will send him over the edge.”
“What if a hostage tries to communicate with us? Say one of them tries to use her cell—”
“I know what I’m doing,” Hugh said firmly.
He recognized the risks. But he also realized this decision would isolate George, so that the only information the shooter got was directly from Hugh himself.
Quandt looked at him for a long moment, and then nodded. He walked off, shouting orders to his men, who would reach out to the cellular companies and cable company and effectively make the clinic an island.
Hugh picked up his phone and texted Wren one more time, just in case she saw it.
Trust me, he typed.
—
OLIVE HAD BEEN A PROFESSOR for thirty-five years before she retired. Her course was on the workings of the brain, and it always had a waiting list. She started each semester by showing a random student a photo of himself or herself at an event or in a certain geographical place. After a few questions, the student was able to remember that moment, and to fill in details. The catch? The student had been Photoshopped into the picture, and had never actually been there.
Olive would explain to her students that the brain is constantly telling us lies. It simply can’t record every detail that our eyes see, so instead, the occipital lobe adds what it assumes is there. The brain isn’t a video recording—it’s more like a photo album, and in between those pictures it fills in the blanks. The result is that false memories can be created more easily than any of us want to believe. There will be incidents you swear on your mother’s grave happened a certain way … but didn’t.
She wondered what she would remember of this incident. She hoped, very little. With any luck she would be granted a wondrous and selective amnesia. She hoped the same for all the others who were huddled in the waiting room, watching George fight with his own demons.
And what of George, the shooter? What had his brain pieced together inaccurately, she wondered, to bring him here today?
She raised her hand to her brow, surprised to see it come away bloody. When George had thrown the lamp against the wall, it had shattered, and ceramic and glass shards had gone everywhere. Including, apparently, her temple.
“Let me,” the nurse said—Izzy, that was her name. She pressed a piece of gauze against Olive’s forehead, though they both knew it was nothing more than a scratch. “We have to get out of here,” Izzy murmured. “He’s losing it.”
Olive nodded. “Oh, George,” she said, pasting a wide, dizzy smile on her face. “I hate to be a bother … but … George?” She waited until he looked up. “I’m afraid that my age is getting the best of me. Some parts don’t work as well as they used to.”
He blinked at her, confused.
“I have to pee, dear,” she stated.
At that Izzy turned. “If Olive is going to the restroom then Joy has to go, too. It’s for medical reasons.”
“I have an idea,” Olive said. “Why don’t we all go now? If we get it out of the way, then we won’t be any more trouble.”
At that, George snorted.
A Hobson’s choice, that was what she had to offer George—a choice that wasn’t really a choice at all—like the executioner asking if you’d prefer to have your head severed from your body, or your body from your head. Olive smiled at George. “Would you like me to go first, or Miss Joy?”
George took a step forward. “You think I’m an idiot?” he said. “I’m not letting you go into the bathroom by yourself.”
“Well, I hardly think you’d care to watch,” she replied. She got to her feet. “I don’t really think I can wait much longer for you to decide, dear. The muscles in the urinary tract just aren’t what they used to be—”
“For God’s sake,” George cut her off. He stepped forward, grabbing her arm. “Come on.”
There was a small single-person restroom off the waiting room where they were all sitting. George dragged her toward it and turned on the light, then gave her a rough pat down. “Go,” he said, but when Olive tried to close the door, he pushed it back open. “If you don’t want to do it this way, you don’t get to do it at all.”
Olive considered arguing with him, but in the end she just nudged the door closed a bit. It remained open for all intents and purposes, but she was mostly shielded from the view of everyone.
Think, Olive. Think. She did not have a lot of time. She couldn’t stand on the toilet and try to send a signal through the small window. George would hear her scrambling, and could poke his head in at any time. She pulled up her skirt, wriggled her underpants down, and sat on the toilet seat.
Beside it was a small cart with specimen bottles and labels and a Sharpie, so that you could write your name on the plastic.
Olive grabbed the pen and unspooled the toilet paper.
There are six of us and one of him, she wrote across three of the squares. We need a plan. Thoughts?