Negotiating Point by Adrienne Giordano Read Free Book Online

head might disintegrate from the pulverizing pressure.
    Dammit.
    Fucking tactical guys always wanting to engage. Always wanting to go to guns. Always wanting a better shot.
    “Stand down! Nobody fires until I get him on the phone.”
    Vic stood, arms crossed, waiting, and probably hoping this would be the event that would allow him to go tactical. Keep waiting, pal.
    “Who the hell was it that moved?”
    “Jessup,” Vic said.
    “Jessup!” Of all the fucking people he didn’t expect to screw up, it was Peter “Monk” Jessup, by far the most reasonable of Vic’s knuckle-draggers. That could only be classified as shocking. Jesus.
    Vic grabbed a headset so he could listen in on Gavin’s call to Joe. “One more shot from that house and we’re going in.”
    The fuck we are. Gavin grabbed his headset. “Relax. Jessup shouldn’t have been in motion.” And then something inside him blew and the pressure behind his eyes butchered him. “I’m trying to build trust with this guy and your team has already shot that to hell.”
    “Hey!”
    “Shut up!” Gavin roared just before Joe picked up the call. “Joe? What the hell happened? Who’s firing?”
    “Tell your men to back off!”
    The squealing panic in Joe’s voice? Not a good sign. Gavin breathed in, lowered himself to his chair. He had to repair the fractured trust. “Joe, let’s calm down, okay? Nobody is going anywhere. Our guy wasn’t trying to move on you. He was just shifting around. Okay? You see that? Nobody is moving.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Take a minute and go look.”
    “Yeah. So someone can shoot me. No way. You fucking federal guys are all the same.”
    “Joe, nobody is moving. My guy screwed up. He knows that.”
    “Yeah, he screwed up all right. Maybe I’ll shoot this lady right now. How would that work? Maybe then you people will take us seriously.”
    Gavin ignored Vic standing beside him, shaking his head. Just what he needed. A tense, emotional tactical guy. At the very least, he had to minimize the damage.
    “Joe, you don’t wanna do that. Right now, you haven’t done anything all that wrong. I mean, yes, maybe you grabbed Mrs. Taylor, but you haven’t hurt her, right? So, as long as nobody is hurt, we’ve got a shot at resolving this situation. The police aren’t involved, so you could walk away from this. If someone gets hurt, then we have problems. Some jackass innocent bystander might be driving down the road and hear a gunshot. Before you know it, the cops are banging on your door. Am I right, Joe?”
    Please say I’m right. No answer. Gavin took a moment to sort the chaos in his head into usable pieces. “Joe, listen to me, what you’ve done so far, it’s not that bad. We can work out of it.”
    “What about getting Mr. Spelling released? I want someone to call me and tell me what time he’ll be released.”
    Gavin took a breath. Back in business. “We’re working on that. You didn’t want the authorities involved so we need to go through back doors. It’s gonna take a little while to get a hold of the people we need to. That’s all. How is everything else? Anything you need?”
    “No.”
    “You sure, Joe? You’ve been holed up there a few hours. How about some food. You got food in there?”
    Silence. They’re hungry. The one thing about hostage takers, they always needed something. Not necessarily wanted, but needed. Whether it was food or smokes or water. They always needed something.
    “We could use some hot food.”
    “No problem. Anything in particular? Pizza? Sandwiches?”
    “Pizza. Three of them. Extra large.”
    Three? Gavin made a note and did a quick calculation in his head. On a good night he could put away a medium pizza on his own. But he’d have to be famished. Three extra-large pizzas meant at least, at least, three people. And that number probably didn’t include Roxann.
    “Sure,” Gavin said. “How about drinks? We’ll bring you some pops. What do you guys like?”
    “We