“I’ll go talk to the guy in charge.”
She went back to the car. Roger was sitting up in back, drinking from a bottle of water. Sandy and Wish sat in fold-out beach chairs behind the car.
“Better?” she said.
“I think I had an anxiety attack,” he said. “I felt dizzy, but I’m better now.”
“Good.” She went around the car.
“How’s it going?” Sandy asked. She was just sitting there, under an oak tree that hung over the street, looking comfortable with her legs up on the fender, a thermos on the ground and a cup in her hand. Wish read the Placerville want ads.
“No change. You look all right.”
“As long as it takes,” Sandy said.
“You should go home. I can get a lift with Sergeant Cheney later.”
“Listen to her,” Sandy said to Wish, shaking her head. “Thinks we’re going home.”
“He’s our client,” Wish said to Nina. “We can’t go home until he’s okay.”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
“We’re sitting with him,” Sandy said. “He’s in there, we’re out here, but we’re with him. He needs us.”
“You need us,” Wish said. He got up and made her sit in his chair. “Coffee,” he said. “Long night ahead, maybe.”
At the bottom of the hill where the police had stopped traffic, Nina could see many more lights and people. “Reporters,” she said. “I wonder what they know.” She drank the coffee gratefully.
Nothing happened for over an hour, except that the sun did a lot of things that must go on every evening, which she didn’t often notice: It sent sharp rays through the trees, it sparkled in the west on a neighbor’s chimney, it withdrew its warmth, it disappeared, leaving its radiant trail. The police grouped and regrouped, talked on their radios, moved their cars around. Now and then the officer with the bullhorn repeated his request that Flint pick up the phone. The Hanna house with its unkempt yard and old fruit tree became the focus of her world.
At seven Wish braved the reporters to bring back pizza. Roger huddled in a blanket in the car, and Nina and Sandy continued their vigil from the plastic chairs. It reminded Nina of a Fourth of July at Tahoe when she and Bob had sat on the beach at North Shore with a crowd of people waiting endlessly for the first burst of fireworks in the sky, but the mood was very different now.
They were waiting, helplessly, for a tragedy.
Cheney found them a few minutes later. He ambled up and leaned against the van. “It’s full dark now,” he said. “The talk is of trying tear gas. I mentioned your offer to the Crisis Negotiation Team. The officer in charge wasn’t interested an hour ago, but he just told me if you want to talk through the horn, just to ask if Flint wants to talk to you, he’ll allow that. He’ll be beside you to coach you if Flint responds. If nothing happens, things are going to get rough.”
“Right now?” Nina said.
“Right now.” He extended a hand and Nina took it.
“Hold the fort,” she told Sandy, an old joke between them.
“Good luck,” Wish said. Nina and Cheney moved carefully from car to car, until they came to two uniformed police directly across the street from the house, standing in the dirt of a neighbor’s flower bed. One of them held the bullhorn. “Officer Christian. Nina Reilly,” Cheney said.
“You’re the hostage’s lawyer?” Officer Christian said. He was a tired, square-jawed young man who barely looked at her.
“That’s right.”
“You say Flint has attempted to communicate with you?”
Nina explained.
“There has been zero action inside ever since our arrival. We’re about to quit this attempt. My concern is that you might say something that will set off an incident.”
“I know. I understand.”
“Here’s what you’ll say.” They rehearsed for a couple of minutes. Christian warned her about her tone, which he said would be more crucial than her words. The gravity of what she was about to do made her throat feel tight. All around her were silent police officers standing amid flashing red lights.
“Go.” He showed her how to hold the horn. A cord ran from it to the nearby police car. It was heavy and awkward and rusty. She held it up with both hands.
“Mr. Flint? Mr. Flint, are you there?” She waited a moment to allow the fact of her female voice to sink in inside the house, and to recover from the shock of hearing her voice amplified from, it seemed, Sacramento to Reno. “Mr. Flint, I’m Nina Reilly. I’d like to help. If you’d like to talk to me, all you have to do is pick up the phone. I’m calling you right now.” A uniformed woman nodded and dialed the Hanna number.
“Do you need anything? I’m right outside, and I can help.”
“It’s ringing,” the officer said.
“It won’t hurt just to talk for a minute,” Nina said through the horn.
The officer passed her the phone. Just like that. Nina dropped the horn and it made a loud protest. “Hello? Hello?”
“He says, nobody try anything.”
“Dave?” The voice was ragged, gasping, but recognizable. “It’s Hanna!” she mouthed, hand over the phone. They could all hear Dave’s voice on the monitor in the police car. Officer Christian was breathing fast, trying to tell her what to say, but it was hard, they were both so shocked that it was Hanna on the line, not Flint.
“Dave, are you all right?”
“Did you hear? Nobody try anything.”
“Nobody will try anything. Nobody.”
“He says he wants a helicopter and pilot. Two hundred fifty thousand in cash in the passenger seat. One hour.”
We can talk about that, Officer Christian mouthed. Nina said, “We can talk about that. Are you injured, Dave?”
“He says, shut up. He says listen. One hour.”
“Okay, there is discussion out here, Dave. Arrangements are being made.” Christian had nodded and told her to run with the demand.
“He says he’ll let me go. Please don’t let them try anything for a while, Nina.” This sounded like Dave’s own words, like he was very frightened that the police were about to enter the house forcibly.
“While they talk, Dave, do you or Mr. Flint need anything? Some food or water?”
A pause. “He says, shut up and listen. He says he wants you to know he killed Sarah. Shot her because she was watching.” This bald statement sent shock waves all through the assembled group. Nina thought of Roger.
“Okay,” she said. “I understand. He killed Sarah.”
“He says he killed Chelsi and the others to stop the lawsuit.”
“Okay.”
“He says you started it and made him finish it. He says it’s all your fault.”
Tears started up in Nina’s eyes. Hearing this was like being gouged by sharp beaks. I’m quitting law, she thought. I’m getting out.
“He says, time’s up. Do we have a deal?” Dave said.
She was swallowing, trying to control herself, but she couldn’t. She shook her head. Christian took the phone. Helpful hands supported her.
Sandy and Wish put her in the front passenger seat of the van. She was crying uncontrollably. Roger had disappeared. “It’s all right, all right,” Sandy said, patting her shoulders. Wish made her drink some water. “I think we should take her home now,” he told Sandy.
“He said I caused it.”
Sandy said grimly, “He caused all of it. If I get my hands on him-”
They heard a shot.
For a moment, the whole forest was quiet. Then the police sprang into action, taking up positions, guns drawn, yelling. From several hundred feet away Nina could see Officer Christian holding up his arm, raising it up and down as though to quiet them.
“Oh, God,” she said. “He shot Dave.”
A new, uneasy quiet descended. The police were close to storming the house, but Christian was making the signal No, no to them. He grabbed the bullhorn and said, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” The door to the house was opening.