The Girls I've Been(7)

There’s a split second where he hesitates. I see how his fingers curl around the receiver like he wants it to be a neck, and his shoulders tense like he wants to slam the phone down on the counter.

But then his shoulders straighten, and instead of breaking the phone, he raises it to his ear.

“You have twenty seconds.”





— 9 —


    Phone Transcript, Lee Ann O’Malley Engages Hostage Taker #1 (HT1)


August 8, 9:33 a.m.




HT1: You have twenty seconds.

O’Malley: I’ll get to the point, then, since I already introduced myself. What’s your name?

HT1: My name doesn’t matter. Ten seconds.

O’Malley: What do you want?

HT1: I have seven hostages. I want Theodore Frayn. Get him here. Now. Or I start shooting.

[Call disconnected]





— 10 —


9:34 a.m. (22 minutes captive)

1 lighter, no plan



“Get them up,” Gray Cap orders as soon as he hangs up like a big drama king instead of actually talking to Lee. He said he knew the playbook, but he’s not acting like he does. He just played his cards, tossing them out to Lee without holding anything back.

“Up! You, the boy—grab the guard.” Red Cap jabs his handgun at us, and we already know how trigger-happy he is, so we scramble to obey. I go over to help Wes with the guard, and together we shuffle him down the hall as Red Cap herds us into the back of the bank, where the offices are.

“Kids in this one,” Gray Cap orders, pointing to the room on the left. “Adults in that one.” He points to the office across from ours.

“The kids—” Olivia, the teller, starts, her eyes widening as she looks at us.

“No arguments. Put him in the room with them,” he tells Wes and me.

We lower the guard to the carpet in the office, and then Wes grabs my hand and tugs me toward the room across the hall.

“Kids, it’s gonna be okay,” Olivia says to all four of us, but she’s so damn scared that it sounds like more of a shaky question than a reassurance, and then Gray Cap closes the door behind him and he’s alone in the room with them and we can’t do anything but let Red Cap herd us into our own, separate office. He rips the phone off the desk and tucks it under his arm.

Iris shifts every time he moves, sliding her body in front of the little girl.

“Stay quiet,” Red Cap says. Then he leaves the room, closing the door behind him, followed by a scraping noise—he’s dragging something to block it.

There’s no lock, and I don’t try to push it. Not yet. Red Cap might still be outside. I press my ear against it, and I think I hear the snick of the door across the hall opening, but I’m not sure. They might both be out there, and if they see the doorknob turning . . .

Iris lets out a shaky breath. The kid stifles a sob. Wes’s eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them.

“We need to focus,” I say, and the words seem to snap the scared silence that’s taken over us. “We can’t fall apart.” I’m not saying it to them, I’m saying it to myself, but it seems to do the same thing for me as it does for them, because the three of us take a breath. We’re older and we need to be okay, because God, the kid is small and scared. Was I that small when I was that scared?

“You’re right,” Iris says briskly, her shoulders straightening like she’s wearing armor instead of splashes of watercolor on cotton over tulle.

I turn around, scanning the room. No windows. No doors. A desk.

“I’ll distract the kid,” Wes mutters.

“We’ve got the desk,” Iris replies.

Wes goes over to crouch next to the little girl, talking in a low voice as Iris and I turn to the desk. The phone is out, obviously, but maybe there’s something inside that could help us.

“Check for weapons.” I hurry over to it and Iris follows me, taking the left drawers as I take the right.

“They cut the cameras,” Iris says in a low voice. “And they’re already shooting the ones who pose the most threat.”

I pause midpull. I can see sticky notes and pens in the first drawer, a stapler I suppose I could use as a club in a pinch. But for a second, all I can hear are her words.

“I know,” I say, just as quiet.

She reaches out, her fingers closing over my wrist long enough to squeeze. It’s not an It’ll be okay touch, because she’s just spoken the words that say it’s not. It’s an I’m here touch, and it’s enough. It has to be. Because it’s all we have.

She pulls away, turning back to her side of the desk, rummaging through the drawer.

“Booze,” Iris reports, holding up three airplane-sized bottles of cheap vodka.

“Fire starter?”

“Possibly.” She tucks them into the pocket of her dress.

Asset #2: 3 bottles of vodka

I bend back down and yank open the second drawer. It’s just files, but I rake through them in case there’s something hidden between the stacks of papers. There isn’t.

“Scissors!” I grab them from the last drawer, but they’re the big kind, and there’s no way they’re going to fit in Iris’s pocket. Her dress is not Mary Poppins’s handbag, unfortunately.