He ran a hand through his hair. “I fucked this up.”

“You can unfuck it up.”

“How? How can I? You’ll never want to see me again. They’re going to throw me in jail.”

“They will and then you’ll have an evaluation.”

“I’m not crazy.”

She hesitated to say more. “I didn’t say you were. Maybe they can help you so you don’t mess up like you said you did this time. But you need to end this first without anyone getting hurt. You survived your stepfather, have learned to live your life with a respectable job. You can survive this. You work with lawyers, Kent. You know I’m right.”

Kent didn’t respond with words. He started tapping the back of his head to the wall behind him.

The fifteen minutes were up and the phone started to ring.

Kent ignored it.

Mary didn’t know police procedure, but she could guess that no communication would make the police think the worst. “Please, Kent. Answer the phone.”

He kept hitting his head, ignoring her and the ring.

“I don’t want them to hurt you.”

The ringing stopped for less than a minute and started again.

Kent slid the phone across the floor until it hit her legs. He followed with the knife in his hand.

Mary tried not to flinch as he twisted her around and sliced away the cord binding her hands. Blood rushed into her fingertips with such a force they were difficult to move.

“Answer it,” he told her before scrambling back to where he’d put the impression of his head into her wall.

Her fingers shook. “Hello?”

“How are you doing, Mary?”

“Good. Better.”

“We got a little worried when you didn’t answer the phone.”

“Kent was removing my restraints.”

“Wonderful. Perfect. Can I talk to him?”

Mary moved the phone toward him. “She wants to talk to you.”

He shook his head.

“He doesn’t want to. I’ll call you back when he has something to say.”

“I’m calling back in ten minutes.”

“Okay.”

Mary disconnected the call and rubbed her wrists. The red welts would eventually give in to purple bruises, much like the rest of her body . . . but she could deal with that.

“I can’t feel my toes,” she told him. “Can I take this off?”

He glanced at her, then returned his stare to the wall.

She took that as a yes and the hope that she’d actually walk out of the house without the need for gunfire looked more like a reality. Removing the knot he’d placed in the cords on her feet took five minutes and three broken fingernails. The swelling and pain in her right ankle made her wonder if she could walk on it.

The blank stare on Kent’s face told her he wasn’t really listening, but Mary spoke anyway. “I’m going to call her back, tell them I’m walking out.”

He turned his head and stared.

If she were being honest with herself, she would say she felt sorry for the man. Then the mental inventory of the pain shooting from all over her body reminded her that he’d done this to her. His twisted logic of training her.

Not his fault, not completely.

He pushed away from the wall. “I’ll walk you out.”

“No!”

He looked hurt.

“They have guns.”

The knife he’d held sat at his fingertips. They both looked at it.

Kent pushed the knife across the floor, out of reach, and rested his hands on his knees.

Mary picked up the phone.

“Mary?”

She hesitated.

Waited.

“I’m sorry.”

Chapter Thirty-One

When the sun started to rise, the magnitude of law enforcement standing by came into full view, and Glen started to panic.

The last phone call put everyone on edge.

SWAT surrounded the house from all angles. Their angry guns and full gear brought back every action movie he’d ever seen. Only this wasn’t something he was watching while eating popcorn and trying to move to second base with a woman.

No, the woman he wanted to run every base with for the rest of her life depended on these people to do their job and get her out safely. The inability to do anything but watch gutted him.

The phone in Fiona’s hand rang and they all stared.

Relief washed over the negotiator’s face. She placed a hand over the receiver and yelled to everyone listening, “The hostage is coming out.”

Every sense in Glen’s body stood at attention.

Fiona turned back to the phone. “Slowly and with your hands up.”

Glen inched his way to the front of the squad car.

Officer Taylor pulled him back. “Don’t panic now, Fairchild. Let us do our job.”

A hush went over the posse as everyone watched the front door as if their lives depended on it to open.

The door squeaked as Mary’s frame filled the doorway.

She had her hands up, like she was the criminal, and she walked as if every step was an effort. Once she walked out of the shadow of the house, Glen felt a knife in his chest.

Her face was swollen, bruised, with a big section of her hair matted to the side of her face with blood. She limped like a zombie from one of those apocalyptic movies. And she was crying.

He started to push his way past Taylor.

“No, you don’t.”

Glen resisted at the same time that one of the SWAT team members rushed to Mary’s side, grabbed her by the waist, and all but picked her up off her feet to bring her behind the police line.