I need leverage. I need to get in Raymond’s safe.
My hands curl around the box. Along with the gun, two other things are inside it: the burner cell my sister uses to contact me. And a knife.
Raymond’s safe is biometric. It needs a fingerprint. My sister is supposed to get me a kit to take the print. But I’ve fucked everything up and now I’m here, with too many bruises and too little time and absolutely no fucking calm, because I shot him. I shot him and I knocked him out, so there’s no taking it back and I’ve got a metal lunch box with a knife in it, and we all know where this is going, right?
There’s no taking it back. There’s only moving forward.
I need in his safe.
So I set the lunch box down on the ground and I get the knife.
— 58 —
Transcript: Lee Ann O’Malley + Deputy Jessica Reynolds Pursue the Hostage Taker
August 8, 12:30 p.m.
Deputy Reynolds: Go! Go!
O’Malley: Do you see him?
Deputy Reynolds: This is Deputy Reynolds. I need someone to get the hospital chopper or the fire chopper on Highway 3, heading north and looking for a white four-door. We need to set up roadblocks on the 3 and the 5 immediately.
[Recording cuts out for 3 minutes, 56 seconds. Please refer to Sheriff’s Report Part 3A for the dispatch transcript.]
Deputy Reynolds: We’ve got the hospital chopper scanning the area.
O’Malley: They need to hurry.
[4-minute, 21-second silence]
[Voices over police radio, indiscernible]
Deputy Reynolds: Okay! Okay. I need all available officers in the area. This is Deputy Reynolds. The white sedan we’re in pursuit of has been spotted at the abandoned Williams Farm, 1723 Castella Road. Hostage taker is armed and dangerous. He has two teenage girls as hostages. Proceed with extreme caution.
O’Malley: Go.
Deputy Reynolds: Lee, we need to talk about what happens when we get there.
O’Malley: You uncuffed me.
Deputy Reynolds: You punched me.
O’Malley: If I say I’m sorry, will you give me a damn gun and let me have your back?
Deputy Reynolds: Are you gonna follow my orders?
O’Malley: I’ll have your back.
Deputy Reynolds: That’s not an answer, Lee.
[Distortion for 2 minutes, 16 seconds]
[Car door slamming]
[Transcript ends]
— 59 —
12:32 p.m. （200 minutes captive）
2 safe-deposit keys, 1 hunting knife
Plan #6: Don’t die.
I ran from Duane’s car. Now it’s time to hide.
I dart through the barn doors and slam them shut. But there’s nothing I can see that’ll block the doors from the inside, and I don’t want him to lose interest and go back to Iris. I watch him walking toward the building through the slats in the door, my blood screaming at me to keep running. He’s not moving fast; the stab wound’s still bothering him, even if the initial pain’s faded. He’ll want to be careful. He needs to be in the best shape he can, to get me across the country. He can’t put me on a plane, and he might be the kind of guy who knows someone with a boat who’ll smuggle me, but does he have that kind of money?
My gut tells me no. Because he pulled this shitshow of a job with Red Cap. Duane’s desperate and broke and he’s going to try to hang on to me, risky as it is, because it’s the best payday he has now.
The barn’s dark, there are tarp-covered machines in the stalls that used to house horses. I tilt my head up; there’s a loft and a ladder, but the ladder’s wood and heavy. I wouldn’t be able to pull it up.
But I might be able to trap him up there. I just need to draw this out long enough for the car to be found. That’s all.
I’m trying to fool myself. It’s not working. But I keep going. I bend down and grab a handful of dirt from the ground before I clamber up the ladder. The hayloft is large, flat and wide across half of the barn, looking out over the stalls and the entryway, sunlight streaming in from a big window in the back.
I look around, desperate for some kind of long-range weapon. I’ve got very little hope against him with a knife, as I know too well. I’ll get one good stab in and then he’ll grab me. I need something bigger. A rake or shovel or something farmer-y and lethal.
The barn door creaks open, and I freeze in the loft.
It’s completely silent. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t taunt. I think it’d be better with his bullshit chatter, because I’ve gotten used to it, and the silence is . . .
Scary. Really fucking scary.
It’s just his footsteps and my heartbeat and the knowledge that I’m probably a couple of breaths from something painful. That’s what he wants. He wants me to rot in it.