109

Thirty minutes,” Windermere said. “Twenty, now. And then he kills one of the women.”

Behind Cronquist’s Crown Vic, Stevens and Windermere huddled with the Mountie. Tried to work out a strategy.

“The HRT guys hit a snag getting up here,” Stevens reported. “Last night’s snow is slowing everyone down. They’re still forty minutes out, minimum.”

“And my guys are the same,” Cronquist added. “I have plenty of corporals, pistols, and shotguns, but you want the big boys, we have to wait.”

“We don’t have time to wait,” Windermere told them. “We’re not letting those women die in there because we had to wait for a tactical team. We need to do something.”

She peered over the hood of the cruiser, looked across the yard at the house. “I need a plan of the house,” she told Stevens and Cronquist. “We need to know where this guy is, where the women are.”

“Might take more than twenty minutes to get those plans,” Cronquist said.

“Not acceptable. Get the other Fontaine girl down here to draw me a map with her crayons, if you have to. Just get me some kind of intelligence, okay?”

Cronquist pulled out her phone. Ducked away. Made a call.

Stevens met Windermere’s eyes. “You thinking of storming this place, partner?” he asked.

“We’re good at the cowboy stuff, aren’t we?” she replied. “But no. He sees us coming, he pulls the pin on this thing. And we fly home with three more bodies on our hands.”

“So what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I want to know what it looks like in there,” Windermere said. “And then—”

She stopped. Her phone had started to ring in her pocket. She checked the screen, cocked her head at Stevens.

“This is Hurley,” she said. “He’s twenty minutes early.”

—

Did you miss me?”

Leland Hurley sounded like every asshole Carla Windermere had ever fended off in some shitty bar, some house party, the break room at work. Smug, self-satisfied, convinced of his own unimpeachable awesomeness, looking for romance and willing to steamroll any obstacle to get it. Windermere rolled her eyes.

“Sure, Leland,” she told him. “I missed you. You were so charming the last time we spoke.”

“You don’t have to patronize me. I know what you’re doing. I know why they sent you to talk to me.”

“Why? What is it you think I’m doing?”

Hurley scoffed. “Please. Why else would they make me negotiate with a beautiful woman? You’re here to do the only thing you bitches do well: manipulate a man into doing what you want.”

“You called me, Leland. I’m not trying to manipulate anyone. I’m trying to figure out a way to end this thing peacefully.”

Hurley was quiet, but Windermere could hear him breathing. “You must have been pretty your whole life,” he said. “How was that for you? Did you enjoy the power?”

“You want the truth?” Windermere replied. “I was the ugly duckling in high school. Wasn’t until college that I came into my own.”

“And did you break hearts in college, Agent . . .”

“Windermere,” Windermere told him. “And I never broke a heart that didn’t have it coming.”

“Says you.” Hurley’s voice had an edge to it all of a sudden. “What gives you the right to decide who gets to be loved?”

Windermere would have laughed Hurley off the phone if the stakes weren’t so high. “I mean, I wasn’t trying to decide all that. But as far as who gets to be loved by me? Sure, I was picky. I think I deserve to be.”

“You think you deserve it. What about us? Don’t men deserve to be happy?”

“All due respect,” Windermere said, “but if you’re trying to tell me it’s on me to make you happy, you’re crazier than I thought, pal.”

Beside her, Stevens’s eyes goggled.

Hurley went quiet a beat. Breathing harder now. “You’re a stupid cow, just like the others. They all thought they were smart, but I showed them, didn’t I?”

“Leland,” Windermere said. “I’m just trying to get us out of this jam we’re in, know what I mean? I’m not trying to keep you from finding true love, or whatever.”

“You won’t beat me,” Hurley said. “You can try, but you’ll see, like they all did.”

“We don’t have to—”

“Fifteen minutes,” Hurley said. “Then I kill someone.”

Click.