Alan had no idea how long he'd been holding Don, but his son seemed to be resting comfortably, all things considered. He didn't really feel up to talking with Barry, but he had promised Don that he would keep trying. Gently laying his son on the floor, Alan stood, stretched his limbs, and slowly made his way to the office door. He took a deep breath and steeled his nerves. "Barry?" he called.
"What did I tell you about leaving that room?" his captor's angry voice called back.
"No, no," Alan spoke quickly. "I'm not leaving, I promise. I just wanted... uh, to talk. Wondered if maybe you needed to talk?"
"To you?" Barry sneered. "No thanks. You don't have what I need."
"What is it that you're after?"
"Do you want me to shoot your son again?" the gunman yelled. "Quit bugging me, old man."
"I don't mean to," Alan replied, his instincts telling him to back down. He glanced at Don, lying on the floor, pale as a sheet, and sucked in a deep breath. "I'm lonely in here – nervous too, I guess. I just wanted to talk." Alan's only answer was silence. He held his breath and placed his ear against the door, straining to hear any sound from outside. "Barry?" The door suddenly burst open, knocking the older man into the wall.
"You're lonely?" the gunman inquired angrily, aiming his weapon at Don. "I can make you lonely real quick."
"No," Alan begged. "I just need to talk. And if you need any help in getting your demands, whatever, I want to help. I mean, the sooner you get what you want, the sooner I can get my son the help that he needs." His eyes held Barry's. "Please."
"Tell me something," their captor spoke, still keeping his gun trained on the injured agent. "What are you two doing out here in the middle of nowhere anyway?"
"We were camping and fishing. Just a little father-son vacation."
"Touching," Barry snorted in disgust. "So you care this much about him because he's your only child?"
Alan shook his head. "No. I have two sons. I'd never give up on either of them."
"Two sons?" Barry's eyes held an emotion that Alan couldn't quite decipher. "Where's the other one?"
Pausing only briefly before realizing that Barry couldn't very well get to Charlie, Alan answered, "He's at a math conference."
"Math?" Barry snorted. "Kind of girly, ain't he?"
"No, he's incredibly smart. In fact, he consults on cases for his brother. They work really well together."
"Brothers," Barry mumbled thoughtfully, his voice taking on a slightly gentler tone. He lowered the gun and gestured at Don with his other hand. "Older or younger?"
"Don is my oldest."
"He take care of your other son?"
"Always," Alan stated firmly. "No matter what the cost to himself."
"Their mother encourage that?"
"She did," Alan nodded as an expression of sadness appeared on his face. "She's... gone now."
"Gone as in dead?" Barry demanded, the anger creeping back into his voice.
"Yes. She died from can-"
"I should have known," he hissed as he pinned Alan against the wall. "You're all the same, aren't you?"
"What?" the older man asked in confusion. "I don't understand."
As their captor was about to place his gun to Alan's head, the store phone rang. "Saved by the bell, old man," he whispered menacingly. "But don't you dare try talking to me again. Got it?" Briefly casting Don an odd glance, Barry stormed from the office, slamming the door behind him.
Fully aware of how close he'd just come to dying, all Alan could do was slide down the wall as his knees gave out and pray that he hadn't made a mistake that would cost him and Don their lives.
--
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Megan couldn't help the grin that crossed her face as she watched Colby exit the rental office. He was quite obviously empty handed and kept his head down to avoid eye contact with Megan and David as he approached their SUV. Megan let out a small chuckle as she noticed David's eyes twinkling in amusement.
"No luck?" David called out from the back of the truck as Colby climbed into the passenger seat.
"No," Colby replied shortly, not wanting to discuss it any further.
"What about that Granger charm you were on and on about?" Megan teased.
"Well," Colby growled. "I assumed there would be at least one woman working in the office. Not five men!"
"You know what they say about assuming..." David trailed off as Colby gave him a withering look.
"Yeah, I know."
"So," Megan smiled as she held out her hand. "How about my twenty bucks?"
"You didn't win the bet," Colby argued.
"Did you get the info we wanted?" she challenged.
"No, but there were no women working there."
"David," Megan called liltingly. "Did the bet have any conditions about women employees?"
"Why no, it didn't." David smiled brightly at Colby. "Pay up, man."
"No way!"
Megan was going to argue but stopped short as her cell shrilled. "Reeves." David and Colby continued playfully bickering until Megan's next utterance. "Oh my God. Where?"
The two male agents grew serious as they studied her face, their stomachs knotting as her expression tensed.
"We'll be there as soon as we can. Tell them to wait and not to do anything rash." She flipped her phone shut and slammed her hand on the steering wheel. "They are out in Green Valley."
"And…" Colby prodded.
"There's a hostage situation in the gas station up there – a man is threatening to blow himself and two hostages up unless he gets in contact with someone in the media," Megan continued. "The rental truck parked in the station's lot is registered to Don Eppes. And the deputy that called this in reported visual confirmation of an older male hostage and a gunman."
"And Don?" David asked fearfully.
"The gunman has made contact with the sheriff once. Said he has a Federal agent as a hostage, but no one has actually seen him."
"No way Don would abandon his father," David insisted.
"I know," Megan agreed.
"So where's Don?" Colby asked. "And is he okay?"
"We're about to find out," Megan promised as she put the SUV in gear and sped out of the parking lot.
--
"Yeah."
"Now, Sheriff, is that anyway to answer your phone?" Rutherford's voice taunted.
"No reason not to," Morrison shot back. "You obviously know who I am."
"Still might want to at least try to sound professional."
"What do you want now?" the older man demanded.
"Just wondering where the media is? And what about those Feds? Awfully reckless not to meet those two small demands, considering the explosive potential of the situation."
"You don't have the cojones to kill yourself," Morrison challenged.
"Maybe," Rutherford said. "But you'd hate to be wrong, wouldn't you?" Chris swiftly changed the subject. "These two hostages I've got – they were on a father-son fishing trip. Isn't that sweet?" He listened in satisfaction as the sheriff made an uncomfortable noise in the back of his throat. "Yes, you remember our trips, don't you?" Both men remained silent as they thought back to a time long ago...
"Look, Dad!" ten year old Chris yelled excitedly. "I caught one!"
A young Roy Morrison walked to his son's side. "That's hardly a fish," he scoffed. "That's more like bait."
"It's not bad for his first one," another young boy, aged sixteen, argued.
"Boy, don't talk back to me," Morrison growled. "Go on into the woods and get us some firewood for tonight."
The teenager looked nervous, especially as he saw the expression of fear on Chris' face. "But-"
"I said go!" Roy thundered.
Chris watched as the sixteen year old reluctantly left, before meeting his father's expression.
"So, boy," Morrison drawled as he grabbed a beer out of his cooler. "You going to clean that puny excuse for a fish?"
"Yes, Dad." He carefully took his filleting knife from his tackle box and removed the sheath. As he was poised to begin, his father's angry voice stopped him.
"Give me that knife!" Roy yelled as he snatched it away from his son's hand. "Didn't I tell you to keep this thing sharpened?"
"Y-yes, D-dad."
"You call this sharpened?" he challenged as he leaned into the boy's face.
"I forgot," Chris whispered.
"That's no excuse," Morrison hissed as he seized his son's arm. "Gotta be taught a lesson."
"No!" Chris panicked. "I won't do it again! I promise, Dad!" As his father drug him toward the dock, the young boy desperately twisted within his grasp. "Please!" he tearfully begged.
"Shut up and take it like a man!" With that being said, Morrison pinned his arm to the dock and slowly sliced the knife across the boy's forearm, ignoring his son's cries of pain. He methodically continued the process until Chris' arm was marked with six bleeding cuts. "Doesn't feel so good when the knife is too dull, does it boy?"
"Please stop," Chris sobbed.
"Damn wimp!" Morrison roared as he backhanded his son hard enough that he tumbled to the ground. "I see I'm going to have to toughen you up some more." As he reached down to grab the boy's arm again, a large rock slammed into his back. Roy whipped around and found that the teenager had returned, just in time to interrupt Chris' discipline session. "You're asking for it, Gerald," Morrison threatened as he descended on the sixteen year old.
"Yeah, well at least I have a chance against you!"
"That what you think?" the older man sneered as he grabbed the boy with relative ease and began a brutal beating, his fury increasing at his prey's refusal to cry. Morrison was only vaguely aware of Chris sobbing his brother's name in the background as the beating continued long into the darkness of night...
"Yeah, you remember, father." Chris' tone had turned ice cold. "And soon the world is going to know about that, and everything else."
"You're some crazy loon with a bomb," Morrison pointed out. "No one's going to believe you."
"No, probably not," Chris agreed. "But they will believe you."
"You think I'm going to confess to a bunch of crap I didn't do?"
"You will confess your sins – that's a promise." Chris moved closer to the store window, looking directly into the squad car and meeting Morrison's eyes. "And now, dear father, I think it's time that you learned a lesson. You should have taken my demands seriously, and you didn't."
"You going to come out here and teach me?" the sheriff spat. "I'd welcome the chance to kick your-"
"No," Chris cut him off in a perfectly even tone of voice. "But you do need to be punished." Rutherford turned and looked back toward the rental truck, smirking as the deputy dug through the interior. "Marshall – that's his name, right?"
Morrison swallowed nervously and frantically waved his arms, trying to catch the young deputy's attention.
"Say, Sheriff, is he like a son to you? Because you'll love this next part..."
A second passed. A second in which Morrison became painfully aware of several details- that Chris had always had a knack for hunting and setting traps, that his son had a lot of experience handling explosives, and that there was a sinister looking brown box under the rental truck that could have easily been slid beneath it while the driver was pumping gas. Roy held his breath in a sort of morbid anticipation of what was about to happen...
The explosion was loud, but not earth shattering. Chris had no doubt intended for it to be that way, knowing that the force of the blast could damage the store windows and therefore set off the larger bomb as well. So he had carefully crafted a smaller, quieter, yet fatal bomb and wired it to detonate by remote. All of these thoughts continued to swirl through the sheriff's shocked mind as he stared at the spot where Marshall had just died.
TBC