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“Not today. I took it off to care for some personal matters. I did go for a nice long run this morning.”
“That might be why you look so tired. You should be home resting instead of here with me.”
“Here you go.” Dana came into the room with Sandra’s coffee, black, just the way she liked it, and a small plate of cheese and crackers.
“Thank you.” Sandra appreciatively took a sip. The brew was strong and smooth.Perfection.Next, she dug into the cheese.Somewhat surprisingly, the sharp salty edge married perfectly with the coffee.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Davenport?” Dana asked Margo.
She held a hand up and gave her a gentle shake of her head. “Not now.”
Dana left, and Margo looked at Sandra with a wink and a chuckle. “She can call me Mrs. Davenport.”
Sandra smiled at her. It was a crime that her brilliant mind was deteriorating. Adding to that injustice was women of Margo’s generation were very much oppressed. Their role in a marriage was birthing babies and caring for the home. It would have been devastating for Margo when she’d failed to produce an heir, but Bill had loved her more than life itself. “What book are you reading?”
“Pride and Prejudice.”
“Ah, it’s one of your favorites.”
“For good reason, but enough about me. How is my beautiful little chickadee?”
That was her pet name for Olivia. It really was a good night. “She’s doing well. She’s at a friend’s.”
“And her grades? She keeps those up?”
“She’s a bright girl and studies hard.” She drank more of her coffee, but her enjoyment was interrupted when her phone rang. The caller’s identity told her it was Elwood Rowe, aka her boss. Elwood was the assistant director of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group and oversaw the Crisis Negotiation Unit of which Sandra was a part. When she wasn’t in the field negotiating, she was applying her skill set to manhunts behind a desk at the Washington Field Office. “Excuse me a moment,” she said to Margo and stepped out of the room. She answered on the third ring, “Special Agent Vos.”
“I was just starting to wonder if you were going to pick up.”
“I saw your name, and I had to think about it,” she teased.
“Very funny.”
Thankfully, she had a great relationship with her superior unlike many people, but Elwood was a fair leader.
“I wouldn’t have called you today if I could have helped it. I know you had a personal matter to attend to. Speaking of, how did it go?”
Elwood knew exactly why she’d taken the day off, but she appreciated he didn’t put it in so many words. She also understood as part of the FBI’s CNU that the job didn’t have set hours. That was the cost of being available on-call to law enforcement seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. “I should hear by Friday, but you said you need me. What is it?”
“There’s a hostage situation in Woodbridge, and the locals have requested a negotiator. You’d relieve the primary and step up in their place. Guess he needs to leave for some personal reason. I’m asking you because I think you’re best suited for this one after handling similar situations in the past.”
“Sure. Just tell me where I need to go, and you can give me a recap while I’m on the way.”
THREE
Elwood had finished his briefing before Sandra made it to the end of the block. At four o’clock that afternoon, a 911 call came in from a woman lasting just long enough to communicate she and several others were being held at gunpoint. The dispatcher traced the call back to Corey’s Grocer but was unable to reestablish contact. It was believed that the hostage taker, or HT, had intervened. Her welfare and that of the others was still unknown as negotiators on scene had failed to make contact with the HT. With no idea who he was, or what he wanted, and almost four hours into this, it had the making of a long night ahead. For that reason, she made a quick stop for a barbecue sandwich with mumbo sauce and got back on the road. She’d like to get to Woodbridge as fast as possible, but the little bit of cheese and crackers she ate wouldn’t hold her. In this line of work, you ate when you could. After eating and getting behind the wheel again, she called Olivia.
“Mom?” Olivia’s voice came over the vehicle’s speakers. “Everything okay? I’m still at Avery’s.”
“That’s good. It might be best you spend the night there, if that’s okay with her parents.”
“Mom?”
“Nothing to worry about. I’ve just been called for an incident in Woodbridge, and I don’t know how long I’ll be.” Olivia was old enough to stay on her own, and the building they lived in had twenty-four-hour security, but Sandra still didn’t relish the thought of her teen daughter being alone if the incident dragged out all night.
“I’m sure they’ll be fine with it.”
“Please, just ask them. Or I could see if Eric could come to the penthouse and stay with you.” Eric Birch was a Metro PD detective, and the man Sandra had been seeing for the past few years after meeting him on a call. They had what could best be described as a relaxed, undefined, yet exclusive relationship.