The Negotiation. Tyler Anne Snell

leaves to his truck in the parking lot. Dane watched as he drove away. Riker County was nothing short of surprising, no matter the season. It might only house one large city, but the trouble that found its way into its borders never ceased to amaze Dane. If it wasn’t a new criminal organization trying to take over, it was kidnapped children, manhunts and enough gunshots traded between the bad guys and their department to last him a few lifetimes.

      Dane left the bench in an attempt to exit his current road of thought.

      Even before the recent uptick in chaos around his home, there had been only one night that had burned its way into his soul.

      The night he’d made a decision.

      The wrong one.

      Dane hopped into his truck and pointed it toward the department in the heart of Carpenter, Alabama. He had too much on his plate to fight with his past again. Now wasn’t the time.

      He turned the volume up on the radio, let a crooning song croon, and was about to write off Chance’s gut when his phone vibrated in his pocket.

      “I need a vacation,” he told the cab of his truck, fishing out the ringing phone. “One where I just don’t answer this blasted phone.” Hell, he’d needed one for years now. No time like the present, right?

      Dane didn’t recognize the number but unlocked his phone all the same. As the captain of the Investigative Bureau at the Riker County’s Sheriff’s Department, he had to be always ready for the unknown. Not to ignore it just because it was easy. Life wasn’t easy. There was no reason to suspect work would be, either.

      He turned down the radio and cleared his throat. “Captain Jones, here.”

      “Dane!” The sound of a bad connection was almost as loud as the woman’s scream. On reflex he held the phone away from his ear for a moment. “Dane! There are men at the school trying to take us!”

      All at once Dane’s body and mind synced. No sighing. No thoughts of vacations. No molasses on the gears.

      That wasn’t just any woman.

      It was the widow he’d helped make seven years ago.

      “Rachel?”

      “There are three of them! One in a van and two—two are chasing us!”

      A shout sounded in the background. Dane tightened his hold on the steering wheel, knuckles going white. The rustling noise wasn’t a bad connection. It was movement. It was running.

      “Rachel, where are you?”

      There was more rustling and the sound of something slamming shut before she answered.

      “We’re in—we’re inside Darby Middle,” she said, out of breath. “Only four of us here when they—when they showed up.”

      Dane cut the wheel hard, turning in the opposite direction. Another shout sounded in the background.

      This time the shout was closer.

      “We gotta hide,” came a small voice, much closer to the phone. A student at school on a Saturday? Rachel didn’t get a chance to respond before someone else was yelling.

      “Rach—” Dane started. She cut him off.

      “Dane, there’re children here,” she stressed. Something made a scrapping noise.

      The fear in her voice was unmistakably true and poignant. It stirred something inside Dane’s chest he didn’t have time to investigate.

      “Dane, please hurry!”

      Dane pressed his gas pedal to the floor. Any more force and it felt like it would have gone through the floorboard.

      “I’m coming,” he promised, voice rising to show he meant it. “Just stay on the—”

      A series of crashes cut him off again. There was another wave of rustling. This time it sounded violent.

      On cue Rachel cried out.

      “Rachel,” Dane yelled into the receiver.

      “Ms. Roberts!”

      “Run, Lonnie,” she yelled in response. But it wasn’t to him. Instead Dane felt like he was under water, unable to break the surface to get to her.

      “Run!”

      Dane heard a new voice. It belonged to a man. An angry one at that.

      “Oh no, you don’t,” he yelled.

      Dane held the phone away from his ear again as a loud crash reverberated out of it. “Rachel!”

      But it was too late. The call dropped.

      And then Dane was left alone with nothing but silence.

      * * *

      THE FINGERS THAT threaded into her long hair were angry. They wasted little time in pulling her backward in one violent motion. The change in Rachel’s momentum was jarring. She yelled out as she fell into the man in overalls, feet coming out from under her.

      There was a moment of pause when her terrified mind let her know that she could give up right then. It would be easier to let the men take her, especially since one had her by the hair. Like trying to hold your breath under water as long as you could but having to surface and breathe in air when you couldn’t stay down any longer.

      “Rachel!”

      Dane’s voice coming through her dropped phone was small compared to that of the man at her back, but it heralded in her good sense. She wasn’t going to let terror seize her body; she wasn’t going to let the men, either. With both hands, she did something David had once showed her. Cupping both hands, she threw them up and behind her with all the force she could muster at this awkward angle. Her head burned where he was pulling her hair, but her hands slapped over the man’s ears with surprising precision.

      He howled in response. The pain at her roots lessened as he let go.

      However he wasn’t the only man in the room. No sooner had she scrambled to her feet than the sandy-haired man lunged at her. Rachel didn’t have time to ready to fend him off. Luckily she didn’t have to. A large-bristled broom swung so close to her head she felt the wind off it seconds before it connected with her attacker’s face. Instead of swinging it around again, the broom’s wielder used it like a batting ram, charging forward enough that it sent the surprised man on his backside.

      Lonnie let get of the handle when she was clear. Rachel didn’t have time to thank the boy for saving her. The men behind her were a tangle of limbs but neither was hurt enough to be down for too long. She and Lonnie had to get away.

      She grabbed his hand again and ran toward the second doorway leading out of the classroom. While she was seeking safety, Rachel had run in the opposite direction of the front office. She didn’t know where Jude was and didn’t want to chance having him walk out in the middle of the men.

      “You bitch,” one of the men yelled from the other room. The sound of desks overturning followed. Rachel tightened her grip on Lonnie’s arm and skidded around the hallway corner. They’d been lucky that the study hall room had been open. The rest of the classrooms were not. If she’d needed any open for decorating, she was supposed to go to Gaven to unlock them.

      Now?

      Now she was doing the fastest recall she’d ever attempted, trying to remember which doors might be open while adrenaline had her heart thumping a mile a minute, trying to drill itself out of her chest.

      Heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway they’d just left.

      Rachel didn’t want to admit it, but they were running out of time and out of distance.

      She just hoped they weren’t also running out of luck.

       Chapter Three

      The