Hostage

'I don't know whose fuckin' dog it is. She lied about everything else, so she probably lied about the dog. She's a natural-born liar. Like you.'

'George, c'mon. I was wrong, but I didn't lie. I made a mistake. A liar wouldn't admit that, but I want to be straight with you. Now, I'm a dog guy myself. What kind of dog you got in there!'

'I don't believe you. You know right where she is, and unless you make her talk to me, I'm gonna shoot this dog.'

The depths to which people sank in the shadowed crevasses of desperation could crush a man as easily as the weight of water at the ocean floor. Talley had learned to hear the pressure building in people's voices, and he heard it now. Malik was being crushed.

'Don't give up, George. I'm sure that she'll talk to you.'

'Then why won't she open her mouth! Why won't the bitch just say something, that's all she's gotta do!'

'We'll work it out.'

'Say something, goddamnit!'

'I said we'll work it out.'

'Say something or I'm gonna shoot this damned dog!'

Talley took a breath, thinking. Malik's choice of words left him confused. Talley had spoken clearly, yet Malik acted as if he hadn't heard. Talley worried that Malik was dissociating or approaching a psychotic break.

'George, I can't see you. Come to the window so I can see you.'

'STOP LOOKING AT ME!'

'George, please come to the window!'

Talley saw Leifitz return to the rear of the vehicle. They were close, only a few feet apart, Leifitz under cover, Talley exposed.

Talley spoke under his breath.

'What's the dog's name!'

Leifitz shook his head.

'They say he doesn't have a dog.'

'OPEN YOUR GODDAMNED MOUTH RIGHT NOW OR I'M SHOOTING THIS DOG!'

Something hard pounded in the center of Talley's head, and his back felt wet. He suddenly realized that illusions worked both ways. The Rampart detectives hadn't found Malik's wife because Malik's wife was inside. The neighbors were wrong. She had been inside the entire time. The wife and the boy.

' Murray, launch the team!'

Talley shouted at Murray Leifitz just as a loud whip-crack echoed from the house. A second shot popped even as the tactical team breached the front door.

Talley ran forward, feeling weightless. Later, he would not remember jumping onto the porch or entering through the door. Malik's lifeless body was pinned to the floor, his hands being cuffed behind his back even though he was already dead. Malik's wife was sprawled on the living-room sofa where she had been dead for over fourteen hours. Two tac officers were trying to stop the geyser of arterial blood that spurted from the neck of Malik's nine-year-old son. One of them screamed for the paramedics. The boy's eyes were wide, searching the room as if trying to find a reason for all this. His mouth opened and closed; his skin was luminous as it drained of color. The boy's eyes found Talley, who knelt and rested a hand on the boy's leg. Talley never broke eye contact. He didn't allow himself to blink. He let Brendan Malik have that comfort as he watched the boy die.

After a while, Talley went out to sit on the porch. His head buzzed like he was drunk. Across the street, police officers milled by their cars. Talley lit a cigarette, then replayed the past eleven hours, looking for clues that should have told him what was real. He could not find them. Maybe there weren't any, but he didn't believe that. He had blown it. He had made mistakes. The boy had been here the entire time, curled at the feet of his murdered mother like a loyal and faithful dog.

Murray Leifitz put a hand on his shoulder and told him to go home.

Jeff Talley had been a Los Angeles SWAT officer for thirteen years, serving as a Crisis Response Team negotiator for six. Today was his third crisis call in five days.

He tried to recall the boy's eyes, but had already forgotten if they were brown or blue.

Talley crushed his cigarette, walked down the street to his car, and went home. He had an eleven-year-old daughter named Amanda. He wanted to check her eyes. He couldn't remember their color and was scared that he no longer cared.

PART ONE. THE AVOCADO ORCHARD

CHAPTER 1

Bristo Camino, California

Friday, 2:47 P.M.

DENNIS ROONEY

It was one of those high-desert days in the suburban communities north of Los Angeles with the air so dry it was like breathing sand; the sun licked their skin with fire. They were eating hamburgers from the In-N-out, riding along in Dennis's truck, a red Nissan pickup that he'd bought for six hundred dollars from a Bolivian he'd met working construction two weeks before he had been arrested; Dennis Rooney driving, twenty-two years old and eleven days out of the Antelope Valley Correctional Facility, what the inmates called the Ant Farm; his younger brother, Kevin, wedged in the middle; and a guy named Mars filling the shotgun seat. Dennis had known Mars for only four days.