The Negotiation. Tyler Anne Snell

though she was now safe. It was just dumb luck that the men had seen the broken window and believed what she had wanted them to. That she had run to the woods with Lonnie at her side. Once they’d seen the empty window, they’d run in the opposite direction, both swearing.

      It could easily have gone the other way.

      Now Rachel was sitting in the Riker County Sheriff’s Department, staring at a nameplate that read Captain Dane Jones and struggling to shake loose the added sorrow trying to creep in. Even without the morning she’d just had, being in the building was enough to turn her mood. Down the hall, years ago, she’d listened to Dane and his colleagues attempt to do their best to save her husband.

      She’d seen the way their bodies had been as tense as hers as they’d gone through each scenario with vigor. The way their determination had kept their brows furrowed and their lips thinned. The way they’d tried to assure her everything would be okay.

      However, perhaps the singular thing she remembered most from that day was just after the storm had broken outside and Dane had walked in. She’d been waiting for news, but the department had gone radio silent. Though, she realized later, the silence was for her. They were just waiting for Dane to come back. Waiting for him to tell her.

      And there he had been, walking through the hallway with rain clinging to his clothes and sliding off his hair. He wasn’t walking with purpose. He’d been walking on reflex.

      Rachel fisted her hand in her lap.

      She had known the moment their eyes had met that David was gone.

      That day had put a hole in her heart, one that had only grown as the year went on.

      Now?

      She looked down at the bandage on her arm and felt the dull ache of her swollen hand.

      Now, after more time had passed, it was less of a hole and more like a window. She could see the memories in the distance and occasionally, if she opened the window, she could feel their joy and sorrow they often brought.

      Rachel smiled to herself with no real mirth.

      She’d been a widow for years and yet always around the anniversary of David’s death she found herself revisiting the day when the word was still so foreign. After the day she’d had, though, she supposed she shouldn’t be too harsh on herself.

      The door behind her opened and Dane pushed through. He didn’t look at her as he put a file on his desk, along with his phone, and then settled into his chair. This had been par for the course between them after she gave her statement. He’d been avoiding her.

      Just as he’d been doing for years.

      An old anger started to weave itself around her chest again, making her hot.

      She cleared her voice.

      “Any luck finding the men?” she started, hopeful.

      Dane was already shaking his head before she finished.

      “No one has been able to pin down the men or their vehicle, but there’s an all-points bulletin out.” He met her gaze. His eyes were hard, dark. “We’re running your and Lonnie’s descriptions of the men through our database, seeing if anyone matches. Hopefully we’ll get a hit so we can make some moves.”

      “And if they aren’t in the database?”

      Dane’s expression softened, if only a little. “Don’t worry, we’ll find them. It’s not a matter of if, just a matter of when.” On cue, a knock sounded against the doorway. A man with a detective’s shield around his neck gave her a curt nod.

      “Rachel, this is one of our newest detectives, Caleb Foster. You might remember Detective Matt Walker, but currently he’s enjoying his honeymoon.” Dane’s tone changed, if only briefly, to humor. “But it pains me to admit this, Foster here is more than capable of getting to the bottom of this.”

      This time the detective chuckled. He extended his hand, which Rachel took with a smile.

      “If Dane has faith in you, you must have deserved it,” she responded truthfully. The detective nodded and then all humor was gone.

      “The chief is here and wants to talk to us ASAP. I tried to tell him you were busy, but—”

      “But the anxious chief of Darby PD waits for no woman or man when he’s ready to get some answers,” Dane finished.

      The detective nodded.

      “All right, tell him I’m coming.”

      Caleb said a quick goodbye to her and was gone as fast as it took Dane to get out of his chair. His brow was furrowed. He was already miles away from her.

      And that brought the anger back.

      “I’m going home,” she said before he could disappear on her again. “Unless there’s something else I need to do? Or there’s something else you need to say?”

      Dane paused midstep. For a moment Rachel thought he was going to actually talk to her about something, but he did what the Dane from the past few years had done perfectly.

      He took the easy way out and avoided her.

      “No, that’s all,” he said. “We’ll call you if we have any more questions or need to follow up.”

      “And how do I get back to my car?” she pressed.

      “I’ll send someone in to take you back.”

      Rachel knew her expression had hardened. She felt the anger tensing her up. Dane started to say something more but hesitated. She remembered a time when they’d had no problem talking.

      But now everything was different.

      “I’m glad you’re okay,” he finally said, though his eyes were already on the door.

      Rachel waited until he was gone to respond. “Thanks for picking up the phone.”

       Chapter Four

      Dane was a jackass, plain and true. He thought it the moment he left his office and he thought it through his meeting with Darby’s chief of police, Detective Foster, and Riker County’s sheriff, Billy Reed. A meeting that had gone over their limited facts and debated who would handle the case, seeing as it had happened outside the sheriff’s department’s jurisdiction.

      However, unlike Dane, Billy was a charmer. The people of Riker County loved their sheriff, and that included the chiefs of police from the towns and city that they encompassed. When Billy took office, he had worked hard to keep relations between all local law enforcement friendly, so when the time arose where they wanted to cash in some favors, it wasn’t frowned upon. At least, not for long.

      Dane grabbed a water from the break room afterwards and sat down at one of the tables, relieved the chief had agreed to let them take lead. He wondered if he would have been able to talk the man into it had he followed through and become sheriff when he’d had the opportunity. He had a familiar pang of regret at the question. He remembered his younger self, eyes wide and mind set on leading the sheriff’s department when Sheriff Rockwell had been around.

      But things had changed.

      Now he was just the jackass who had gotten their off-duty dispatcher to take Rachel back to the school instead of doing it himself.

      After all she had been through, there he was, still trying to put distance between them.

      Guilt, old and new, created tension in his shoulders. Dane rolled them back. It didn’t help.

      “So there I was, coming out of my doctor’s appointment, when I run into a very peculiar scene.” Dane turned to see the sheriff’s right-hand woman, Chief Deputy Suzy Simmons-Callahan, in the doorway of the break room, brow raised and hand on her pregnant belly. Even with a rounded stomach, Suzy was not to be taken lightly. “Chance