Standoff

She shook her head firmly, checking Gully's protest before it was out. Continuing to backtrack and widen the distance between them, she said, "We'll be waiting for your decision, Mr. Galloway."

CHAPTER 14

TIEL stood facing the door of the store for a full ninety seconds before she heard the bolt being released. As she reentered, Ronnie eyed her warily.

She dispelled his suspicion. "I'm not carrying a concealed weapon, Ronnie."

"What did Galloway say?"

"He's thinking it over. He said he has to make some phone calls."

"To who? What for?"

"I gather he doesn't have the authority to grant you clemency."

Ronnie gnawed his lower lip, which had already been so brutalized it was raw. "Okay. But why'd you come back?"

"To let you know that Katherine is in excellent hands."

She told him about Dr. Emily Garrett.

"Tell Sabra. She'll want to know that."

The young mother's eyes were half closed. Her breathing was shallow. Tiel wasn't sure she was completely aware and listening, but after describing to her the neonatal specialist, Sabra whispered, "Is she nice?"

"Very. When you meet her, you'll see." Tiel glanced over at Doc, but he was taking Sabra's blood pressure, his eyebrows pulled together in the steep frown she'd come to recognize. "There's another very nice doctor waiting to take care of you. His name is Dr. Giles. You're not afraid to fly in helicopters, are you?"

"I did once. With my dad. It was okay."

"Dr. Giles is standing by to whisk you off to the hospital in Midland. Katherine will be glad to see you when you get there. She'll probably be hungry."

Sabra smiled, then her eyes closed.

By tacit agreement, Tiel and Doc retreated to their familiar posts. Seated on the floor with their backs propped against the freezer chest, legs extended in front of them, watching the second hand on the clock tick off the time limit Ronnie had imposed, it was the ideal moment for Doc to ask the question that Tiel expected from him.

"Why'd you come back?"

Even assuming that he would ask, she had no clear-cut answer prepared.

Several moments elapsed. His jaw was dark with stubble, she noticed, but it must be going on twenty-four hours since his last shave. The webwork around his eyes seemed more defined now than earlier, a distinct sign of fatigue.

His clothes, like hers, were grimy and bloodstained.

Blood was a cohesive agent, she realized. It wasn't necessarily the comingling of blood from two individuals that formed an irrevocable, almost mystical, bond between them. It could be anyone's shed blood that united people.

Consider survivors of plane crashes, train wrecks, natural disasters, and terrorist attacks, who had developed lasting friendships because of the trauma they had shared.

Veterans of the same war spoke a language among themselves that was incomprehensible to those who hadn't been there and experienced similar horrors. Bloodshed at the explosion in Oklahoma City, the public school shootings, and other unthinkable events had soldered former strangers together so solidly that the relationships would never be severed.

Survivors shared a common ground. Their connection was rare and unique, sometimes misinterpreted and misunderstood, but almost always unexplainable to those who hadn't encountered identical fears.

Tiel had taken so long to answer that Doc repeated his question. "Why'd you come back?"

"For Sabra," she replied. "I was the only woman left. I thought she might need me. And…"

He raised his knees, propped his forearms on them and looked at her, waiting patiently for her to complete her thought.

"And I hate to start something and not finish it. I was here when it started, so I figured I should stick around until it's over."