Chapter 46: Jake

I pressed myself up against the cold, damp wall of the apartment complex, feeling the crumbling brick poke into my back. On the other side of the wall, the sound of a man’s restless feet back and forth across the tile floor reached my ears. He was mumbling to himself, speaking in irritated tones. Every couple of seconds, he would laugh bitterly, and the echo of his fist hitting the wall would taint the silence in the air. Then, the pacing would resume.

“Charles,” I called, glancing down at the small pad of notes in my lap. “Can you hear me all right, pal?”

“I’m not your pal,” the man snarled from the other side of the wall, his footsteps ceasing for a long, tense moment. I glanced over my shoulder at my team, who were also pressed against the same wall I was, guns drawn and ready to use, holding bated breaths as they waited for a signal to move in.

“Apologies, Charles,” I said, closing my eyes to compose my nerves. “I try to make friends with everyone I meet. My girlfriend says it’s my most annoying trait.” I paused again, listening to his footsteps resume. “Women are so fucking naggy, aren’t they?”

Footsteps paused again, and the man chuckled.

“Naggy,” he repeated. “Yeah, man, they fucking are. Naggy as hell.” He laughed again, a cold, strange laugh that sent a chill down my spine.

“Fucking women,” I called. “Can’t live with ‘em—”

“Can’t live without ‘em,” he finished, laughing again. The pacing resumed, but I could tell we were headed in the right direction.

“Tell me about your girl, Charles,” I said, peeking at the notepad again. “What’s her name? Charlotte?”

“Fucking Charlotte.” The sound of Charles slamming the wall with his fist reverberated again. “That fucking, goddamn useless whore!”

“They all are, aren’t they?” I agreed with a chuckle, raising my eyes to the ceiling as I silently begged Renee to forgive me for the horrors coming from my lips. It was all part of the job, but some days it didn’t make it any easier. “Is that why you have Charlotte locked up in the bedroom?” I called to Charles. “Because she’s a whore?” I paused, then added quickly, “Not that I can blame you. That’s where whores belong, right? In the bedroom.”

Charles laughed again. He was eating out of the palm of my hand.

“She’s a cheating piece of shit,” he snarled, and I heard the rifle in his hands cock. “And cheaters deserve to burn in hell!”

In the microphone in my ear, my commander’s voice spoke softly. “Sniper can’t get a clear shot.”

“Then don’t try anything yet,” I murmured back. “If he gets pissed off, he’s bound to take her out.”

“Things are escalating. We’re running out of time.”

I glanced over my shoulder once more at my team. My partner, Bruce Hale, caught my eye and shook his head. Ignoring him, I spoke again into my earpiece.

“I’m going to go in.”

“I wouldn’t suggest it,” Commander Laurus said, but that wasn’t a direct order, and we all knew it.

“Charles,” I called, focusing my attention back on the man on the other side of the door. “I’m coming in, okay? I just want to chat.”

A brief pause, and then, “The fuck you are.”

“It’s just me,” I told him. “We’ve been talking for a good forty-five minutes now, man. I wanna put a face to the name. Is that alright? I’m unarmed, by the way. Not even a goddamn toothpick on me.”

Another pause and the pacing resumed. There was no answer, but I knew this was my only chance.

“God dammit, Denny,” Hale breathed. “You stupid ass motherfucker.”

“That’s what they say,” I muttered, climbing slowly to my feet. My knees and hands felt like jelly as I cautiously approached the door, standing to the side, then opened it, calling to Charles as I did so.

“It’s just me,” I said again, stepping through the entrance with my hands up. Charles stopped pacing, aiming his rifle at my chest, and I stopped where I was just inside the door, hands still up.

“Shut it,” he snarled, and I kicked the door shut behind me, using my peripheral vision to take a look around the room as my hands stayed steadily in the air. It was a small, shabby area, similar to what a crack house might look like after a night of benders. The smell in here was rank, like old garbage and mildew, but I kept any sort of expression off my face and continued to look at Charles, feigning daft ignorance.

“Thanks for inviting me in,” I said, briefly catching sight of the living room window I’d familiarized myself with earlier in the day. Our snipers, unbeknownst to him, were planted across the street, ready to take him out the second they had the opportunity. But the hostage—we had to find and protect the hostage first. “Nice place you’ve got here. Do I get the grand tour?”

Charles glared at me, rifle still pointed at my chest, but I could tell that our conversation had lowered his guard if just a little bit. I was the cool kid, the guy who wanted to be friends and who agreed that women were useless whores. He fucking loved it.

“Living room and kitchen,” he grunted. “Not much else to see.” Disheveled, graying brown hair was balding in multiple places, and missing teeth told me that my crackhouse thoughts probably hadn’t been too far off. He was a thin man, thin and tall and emaciated, but as long as he had the barrel of that rifle pointed at me, he was in charge despite his weak stature.

“Bedroom?” I asked innocently, and Charle’s eyes flashed with distrust.

“I’m always curious to see where the whores are kept,” I added quickly. Then laughed. “It gives me ideas for my own bitch, you know?”

Charles chuckled, shaking his head, then nodded in the direction of a closed-off room. “She’s in there,” he said, and it was all I could do not to pray out loud that Charlotte was still alive in that room. Cautiously, with my hands still in the air, I slowly crossed the floor and rested my hand on the knob, then turned. Inside, the room was dark and musty smelling, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark. When they did, I spotted a young woman huddling in the corner of the room on the cold, hardwood floor. She had her hands over her ears and was rocking back and forth, sobbing in fear. She looked up as I opened the door, her eyes going wide, but I stepped back before she could react fully, not wanting to set Charles off.

“Nice,” I said, turning back to Charles, who was glaring at her over my shoulder. “Kinky.”

He seemed to like this, and instead of shutting the door again, he brushed past me and went for the girl, yanking her off the ground and to her feet before dragging her with one hand out into the living room. Charlotte screamed, trying to fight him, and I stood back, feeling the anxiety gnaw in my chest. I was unarmed, and there was nothing I could do for her now except play along and hope our snipers could take Charles out before he decided to take us all out.

“Shut up, whore!” he shouted at her, drawing the young woman against his front like a shield. He turned back to me, rifle once again pointed at my abdomen. “You must think I’m stupid,” he said to me, face contorting in a tight snarl. “Coming in here like you’re my fucking friend and not like the dirty pig you really are.”

“Charles,” I started to say, but he cut me off, kneeing Charlotte in the back. She doubled over in pain and nearly fell to the floor, and it took everything I had in me not to move to her aid. With my hands in the air, I sidled to the left, towards the window, hoping I could position Charles in front of it for our snipers. My gut twisted when he followed, bringing Charlotte with him. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew to use her as a shield.

“Where are they?” he demanded, yanking the woman to her feet. “Your men with guns. Where the fuck are they?”

“There are no men,” I said steadily. “There’s just me. Like I told you.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me!”

I caught Charlotte’s gaze, wishing she could hear my thoughts, but the young woman’s uncontrolled sobs told me she was in no position to help.

“Charles,” I said quietly, but my eyes were still on Charlotte. “I want you to drop the gun. Can you do that?”

“Why the fuck would I do that?” he roared. He was standing in front of the window now with his back to the pane, gun at me, and it would have been a perfect shot if not for the fact that he was still holding Charlotte directly in front of him. If the bullet hit him at this angle, it would more than likely hit her, too.

And we couldn’t have that.

“I just need you to drop the gun,” I said again, and Charlotte finally met my gaze. “In three seconds, I need you to drop the gun.”

“Three seconds, eh?” snarled Charles. “How about in three seconds, I just shoot you, then her, then my fucking self?”

“Three seconds,” I repeated, my eyes never wavering from Charlotte’s face. I raised three fingers in the air, and Charles bellowed in rage.

I put one finger down.

And then the other.

“Down,” I said again, eyes locked with Charlotte’s as my index finger collapsed.

Everything next seemed to happen in slow motion. Charlotte dropped like dead weight as the word left my lips, and the slight, almost eerily silent sound of shattering glass reached my ears as the back of Charles’s head exploded. He fell to the floor on top of the young woman in a heap, dead on impact, and in one quick flurry of motion, my team burst through the front door, weapons raised as they swarmed the room, heading straight for Charles and Charlotte.

A heavy breath of air escaped from my lungs as I fell back against the wall, shaky and numb. I closed my eyes, sucking in air between my teeth as the feeling gradually returned to my extremities.

“God damn, Denny,” said Hale, lowering his gun as he stopped to stand in front of me, one hand out and squeezing my shoulder. “You’re a god damn lucky sonofabitch, you know that? That could have gone sour in a fucking snap.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it,” I said, straightening up as two of the SWAT members escorted Charlotte past me. She was shaking, crying still, but otherwise alive. And as they guided her past me out the door, her eyes met mine. She didn’t have to say anything. Neither of us did.

Today, we were alive. And that’s all anybody could have hoped for.