on. “This is Jill.”
“Jill!”
The sound of Dave’s voice bewildered me. I hurried into the workroom and turned away from Cade. I couldn’t utter a response. Dave’s voice came on again. “Is that you, really? I thought I was going to talk to Cade. Are you doing all right?”
Glancing back at Cade, I gauged his reaction, but he only stared at the wall in a passive way. “I don’t understand,” I replied carefully.
“They’ve had me talking to him for a couple hours now,” Dave explained. “I got your email and then I saw the news, and so I called the police. They said sometimes it helps if someone with a connection to the family tries to help broker a truce, so they put me on. I’m trying to get you out of there. Is the baby all right? Are you?”
“We’re both here. We’re not hurt. Cade’s trying to process whatever just happened.”
“Yeah. They say they need him to be clear on the fact that they don’t know what the situation is with Dodge Powell, and they’re investigating it, but they don’t believe it was one of their men. They say they’re not in a position to retrieve the body. Do you know the condition of the hostage?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve been up in the attic all this time.” At this Cade scowled at me. “What Cade wants…is to talk to a lawyer who will put together a good case for him.”
“Am I on speaker? Can he hear me?”
“No.”
“Good. What Cade really wants is for everybody to go home and forget this ever happened. In the end the choices are going to be that either he comes out or the SWAT team comes in. It’s a lot better for everyone, especially him, if he picks the first one. Tell me what it’s going to take to make that happen.”
I thought about the things Cade wanted. Not one of them sounded like anything that anyone could provide any longer. “I don’t know, Dave,” I replied. “If I did I’d tell you. He’s just tired.”
“Is that why he had you take the call? He’s still armed, though, right?”
“Yeah.” I looked at Cade again. “He could use some cigarettes. I think that’s what he wants.”
Cade gave me a listless thumbs-up.
Dave snorted with irritation. “Duly noted. Put him on the phone.”
I handed it to Cade, who clicked it off. Draping his arms loosely over his bent knees, he gazed up at the small round window, looking thoughtful and faraway. My stomach tightened with the fear that he was putting together how Dodge might have been shot just below that window. His back pressed against the door of the closet where the rifle still lay hidden.
He said, “Lay him down.”
“You mean TJ?”
“Yeah. He’s asleep anyway.”
I looked around the room as though seeking out a place to set him, but I was buying time, trying to discern Cade’s purpose. “I can’t,” I told him. “He’ll wake up if I take him off my back.”
Cade got up from the floor and, with gentle hands, braced TJ in the sling. I fumbled at the closure and loosened it enough that Cade could lift him. When he opened the closet door with his free hand, I caught my breath. But he pulled out a crocheted blanket from the shelf below the fabric bolts, shook it open and dropped it on the floor where he had just been sitting. Onto its folds he laid TJ, who didn’t stir. Then he stepped into the workroom, where I still stood, and closed the door so softly that the click of its latch made barely any sound.
“C’mere, Jill,” he said.
I didn’t move, but he came to me. He kissed me, working my shirt down over my shoulders as he unbuttoned it, letting his head drop to kiss my shoulder, my collarbone. I felt the warmth of his breath, the tip of his tongue, but as if from a great distance.
“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world,” he said, rasping a whisper. “I love you. And I love our son.”
His phone vibrated against the front of my thigh. He lifted me with one arm and set me on the worktable, then eased me onto my back. The worn wood pressed against the back of my skull and my tailbone, but that felt distant, too. From my neck to my thigh he ran his hands down my body, touching me as a blind man touches the face of a loved one, as if yearning to burn