Dennis raced to the French doors in the dark beyond the kitchen. He couldn't see the cops past the blinding outside lights, but he knew they were there, and he knew they were coming.
Dennis fired two shots into the darkness, not even thinking about it, just pulling the trigger, bam bam. Two glass panes in the French doors shattered.
'The fuckin' cops are comin'! Talley, that fuck! That lying fuck!'
Dennis thought his world was about to explode: They would fire tear gas, then crash through the doors. They were probably rushing the house right now with battering rams.
'Mars! Kev, we gotta get those kids!'
Dennis ran for the stairs, Kevin shouting behind him.
'What're we gonna do with the kids?'
Dennis didn't answer. He hit the stairs three at a time, going up.
Three minutes before Dennis Rooney saw the SWAT officers and fired two rounds, Thomas lowered himself through the ceiling into the laundry room. It was so dark that he cupped his hand over the flashlight and risked turning on the light, using the dim red glow through his fingers to pick his footing. He let himself down onto the top of the hot-water heater, felt with his toe to find the washing machine, then slid to the floor.
He held still, listening to Kevin and Dennis. The laundry room turned a corner where it opened onto the kitchen; the pantry was off that little hall. He could hear them talking, though he couldn't understand what they were saying, and then the voices stopped.
Thomas crept through the laundry room to his father's tiny hobby room at the end opposite the kitchen. Both rooms were at the rear of the garage, though you could only get to the garage through the laundry. That's how everyone came into the house from their cars: Through the laundry room and into the kitchen.
When Thomas reached the hobby room, he eased the door closed, then once more turned on his flashlight. His father's hobby was building plastic models of rocket ships from the early days of the space program. He bought the kits off eBay, built and painted them at a little workbench, then put them on shelves above the bench. His father also had a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol in a metal box on the top shelf. He had heard his mom and dad fighting about it: His dad used to keep it under the front seat of the Jaguar, but his mom raised such a stink that his father had taken it out of the car and put it in the box.
On the top shelf.
A long way up.
His hand cupped over the bell of the flashlight, Thomas spread his fingers enough to let out a shaft of light. He figured that he could use the stool to climb onto the bench, and, from there, he could probably reach the box.
He climbed. It was so quiet that every creak from the bench sounded like an earthquake. He turned on the flashlight again for a moment to fix the box in his mind's eye, then reached for it, but the box was too high. He stretched up onto his toes. His fingers grazed the box just enough for him to work it toward the edge of the shelf.
That's when he heard Dennis.
'THEY'RE COMING!!! KEV, MARS!!! THEY'RE COMING!'
Thomas didn't waste a moment thinking about the gun; he had come so close, but now he didn't have time. His only thought was to get back to his room before they discovered him. He jumped down from the bench and ran to the laundry as two fast gunshots exploded in the house, so loud that they made his ears ring.
He wasn't thinking about Jennifer's purse. It was on the folding table by the door to the garage, that convenient place where everyone in the family dropped their stuff when they came in from the garage. Jennifer's purse was there, a Kate Spade like every other girl in her high school owned. Thomas grabbed it.
He scrambled up onto the washing machine, from there to the top of the hot-water heater, then through the access hatch into the crawl space. The last thing that he heard before closing the hatch was Dennis shouting that they had to get the kids.
Handing off the role of primary negotiator was never easy. Talley had already forged a bond with Rooney, and now would pull away, replacing himself with Maddox. Rooney might resist, but the subject was never given a choice. Having a choice was having power, and the subject was never given power.
Talley brought Maddox and Ellison into the cul-de-sac where they hunkered behind their car. Talley wanted to go over his earlier conversations with Rooney in greater detail so that Maddox would have something with which to work, but they didn't have time. The gunshots from the house cracked through the summer air like a car backfiring in a distant canyon: poppop.
Almost instantly, a storm of transmissions crackled over their radios:
'Shots fired! Shots fired! We are under fire from the house, west rear at the wall! Advise on response!'
All three of them knew what had happened the instant they heard the calls.
'Damnit, she moved in too close! Rooney thinks he's being breached!'
Ellison said, 'We're fucked.'
