The older cop nodded. “This is Fiona Ratcliff, the hostage negotiator.”

Fiona Ratcliff didn’t talk in pleasantries. “You’re Mary’s current significant other.”

The word current took him aback. “Yes.”

“Tell us everything you know about her home. Does she have weapons? Where are the phones? What can you tell us about her relationship with Kent Duvall?”

Glen stood staring at the home. “No weapons. She was picking up a shotgun on Monday. She might have a stun gun, she said she was going to get one, but I don’t know if she did.” He pictured her home. “There’s a phone in her kitchen. One in the living room . . . no, wait. That one was destroyed during her break-in and I don’t think she’s replaced it. Another in her bedroom and a handset in her office.” He leveled his eyes at Fiona. “And the only relationship she has with Mr. Duvall is in his head.”

“Two minutes, Ms. Ratcliff,” an officer standing one squad car away called out.

“You’re a guest, Mr. Fairchild. I don’t care what happens, you stay right there and wait like the rest of us. Got that?”

“I got it, I got it . . . I got it!” He was going to lose it was what he was going to do.

Ms. Ratcliff took a cell phone from her pocket and put it to her ear.

Glen heard her side of the conversation.

“How is everything in there?”

Glen placed his hands on the squad car to keep from running in.

“I just want to talk to you, Kent.”

Fiona listened for the next thirty seconds, then removed the phone from her ear in obvious frustration.

“What’s happening?” Glen yelled his question.

“The calls are aggravating him, and unless I can keep him on the line for more than two minutes, I’m unsure of how we’re going to talk him out.”

“We wait him out,” Officer Taylor said.

Fiona’s lips became a thin line with the scowl on her face. “I don’t think so. He’s taking his aggression out on the hostage.”

The hostage. “Mary, her fucking name is Mary.” Glen was getting tired of people talking about his lady as if she were an object.

Fiona lifted a hand in the air. “Mary,” she said for his comfort. “We need SWAT. If I can’t talk to him, I can’t get him to come out on his own,” she said to Taylor.

Taylor turned away and called the SWAT team in.

“How did she sound?” Glen asked Fiona.

“Tired . . . stressed. What she didn’t sound was scared or hysterical. Which is good. If she can keep herself together, all the better.”

“Mary’s a therapist. She won’t fall apart easily.”

After close to six hours of sitting in the same position, with her hands bound behind her back, her ankles shoved together with the same cord, Mary couldn’t feel her tailbone. The numbness was a relief compared to the pain throughout the rest of her body. There were times the silence actually had her closing her eyes, but then the phone would ring and the world came into grim focus.

“I took good care of you . . .” Kent stared at the wall above Mary’s head as he spoke.

“You did, Kent.”

“Just wanted to keep doing it.”

“I know. I’m not sure if this was the best way.”

He blinked repeatedly, as if his eyelid movement fueled his brain. “I do that.”

This was the calm Kent she met at the deli . . . Mary just hoped that she could keep him talking.

“You do what?”

“People say I hold on too tight and don’t let go.”

All borderlines do, she wanted to say but didn’t.

“But no matter how bad things got, you just kept pulling away. Why did you do that, Mary?” His eyes fluttered to hers briefly and then darted aside.

“I think it’s because I’m an orphan. I had to take care of myself for as long as I can remember. I’m not used to depending on someone else.”

Kent looked at her again, kept blinking. “I didn’t know that.”

She tried to smile. “Are your parents alive, Kent?” Keep him talking, keep him calm.

For a minute she wasn’t sure he was going to answer her. “My mom was sick. Smoked. I was a kid when she left me.”

“She died?”

He answered with one nod. “My stepdad trained me.”

Trained . . . what was he? A dog? “He hit you.”

Kent shrugged. “I didn’t listen. He trained me to listen.”

His troubled stare told her he was remembering dark times. “Do you have brothers or sisters?”

“Not anymore. My brother left after Mom . . .” He swallowed hard. “After. Ran away.”

“Your brother was older.”

Kent nodded.

“He abandoned you to your stepfather, who abused you.” And for a borderline personality, the effect had to be devastating.

“He trained me.”

“Your stepfather hurt you, Kent. You’re a smart man, you know what he did was wrong. You know trying to train me is wrong.”

His eyes traveled to hers, revealing physical pain. And in that moment, she felt sorry for the boy inside the man.

“How do you want this to end, Kent?”

“I want you to go away with me.”

She tried to look as empathetic as possible. “They will never let that happen. And I’m in love with someone else.” The confession, the realization of how deep her emotions for Glen were at that moment had tears in her eyes. “You need someone to love you and take away some of the pain inside.”