Hostage

Mike Welch found himself flat on his back in the front yard. He sat up, then realized that he'd been shot and fell over again. He heard more shots, but he couldn't get up or duck or run for cover. He pulled his gun and fired toward the house without thinking who he might be hitting. His only thought was to survive.

He heard more shots, and screaming, but then he could no longer hold his gun. It was all he could do to key his shoulder mike.

'Officer down. Officer down. Jesus, I've been shot.'

'Say again? Mike? Mike, what's going on?'

Mike Welch stared at the sky, but could not answer.

CHAPTER 2

Friday, 3:24 P.M.

JEFF TALLEY

Two-point-one miles from York Estates, Jeff Talley was parked in an avocado orchard, talking to his daughter on his cell phone, his command radio tuned to a whisper. He often left his office in the afternoon and came to this orchard, which he had discovered not long after he had taken the job as the chief of Bristo Camino's fourteen-member police department. Rows of trees, each tree the same as the last, each a measured distance from the next, standing without motion in the clean desert air like a chorus of silent witnesses. He found peace in the sameness of it.

His daughter, Amanda, now fourteen, broke that peace.

'Why can't I bring Derek with me? At least I would have someone to hang with.'

Her voice reeked of coldness. He had called Amanda because today was Friday, she would be coming up for the weekend.

'I thought we would go to a movie together.'

'We go to a movie every time I come up there. We can still go to the movies. We'll just bring Derek.'

'Maybe another time.'

'When?'

'Maybe next time. I don't know.'

She made an exaggerated sigh that left him feeling defensive.

'Mandy? It's okay if you bring friends. But I enjoy our alone time, too. I want us to talk about things.'

'Mom wants to talk to you.'

'I love you.'

She didn't answer.

'I love you, Amanda.'

'You always say you want to talk, but then we go sit in a movie so we can't talk. Here's Mom.'

Jane Talley came on the line. They had separated five months after he resigned from the Los Angeles Police Department, took up residence on their couch, and stared at the television for twenty hours a day until neither of them could take it anymore and he had moved out. That was two years ago.

'Hey, Chief. She's not in the greatest mood.'

'I know.'

'How you doing?'

Talley thought about it.

'She's not liking me very much.'

'It's hard for her right now. She's fourteen.'

'I know.'

'She's still trying to understand. Sometimes she's fine with it, but other times everything sweeps over her.'

'I try to talk to her.'

He could hear the frustration in Jane's voice, and his own.

'Jeffrey, you've been trying to talk for two years, but nothing comes out. Just like that, you left and started a new life and we weren't a part of it. Now you have this new life up there and she's making a new life down here. You understand that, don't you?'

Talley didn't say anything, because he didn't know what to say. Every day since he moved to Bristo Camino he told himself that he would ask them to join him but he hadn't been able to do it. He knew that Jane had spent the past two years waiting for him. He thought that if he asked right now she would come to him, but all he managed to do was stare at the silent, immobile trees.

Finally, Jane had had enough of the silence.

'I don't want to go on like this anymore, just being separated. You and Mandy aren't the only ones who need to make a life.'

'I know. I understand.'

'I'm not asking you to understand. I don't care if you understand.'

Her voice came out sharp and hurt, then both of them were silent. Talley thought of her on the day they were married; against the white country wedding gown, her skin had been golden.

Jane finally broke the silence, her voice resigned. She would learn no more today than yesterday; her husband would offer nothing new. Talley felt embarrassed and guilty.

'Do you want me to drop her at your house or at the office?'

'The house would be fine.'

'Six o'clock?'

'Six. We can have dinner, maybe.'

'I won't be staying.'