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or the bad guy. Either way it seemed more scary than comforting. She glanced up at Jason, whose proud smile turned sheepish.
    “Officer Patrick told me about your fiancé, and…I just thought you might want to see that Chris has a lot of credentials. He knows what he’s doing.”
    “Thank you.” She didn’t know what else to say and told herself that if Chris Cavanaugh was savvy enough to get published, he would be savvy enough to get Paul out alive. He would be.
    Jason returned to the electrical cords, and she opened to a page at random. Chapter 11 began, “The hostage taker will agree to surrender only if he trusts you, trusts you more than his mother or his best friend or even himself. The quickest way to get him to this level of trust is to give him something he didn’t think anyone could give him. This will be different for everyone. It can be as small as a compliment, as average as a perfectly baked pizza, or as unique as the cremains of his childhood buddy’s pet dog. Do this and you might as well call your wife and tell her to start dinner.”
    Humph. No mention of calling your husband and telling him to start dinner.
    She closed the book and went to set it on the table. The librarian followed its progress the way an Audubon Society member watched even a garden-variety warbler, so Theresa handed it to her. Like teachers, librarians were a profession one wanted to stay on the good side of. “I’m sorry we had to take over your offices.”
    “That’s all right.”
    Theresa glanced around at the faded book covers and the ornate paint job. “What’s heraldry?”
    “The study of armorial bearings.”
    “Like family crests?”
    “Yes, and other genealogical records. I’m Peggy Elliott, by the way.”
    Theresa introduced herself, and they shook hands, forming the instant bond that women do when surrounded by men. Peggy Elliott wore subtle blond highlights in her shoulder-length hair, nowedding ring, and a sympathetic expression. That was all Theresa took time to observe before hastening back to the telescope, suddenly panicked that she’d been away too long. Something might have happened. The bodies of the hostages might now lie scattered over the tile. Including Paul’s body.
    But the tableau had not visibly changed.
    Beside her, via his Nextel, Frank pushed an unseen officer to track down Ludlow’s next of kin, to see if they might have a clue as to where Ludlow’s wife and child had gone—and to pull his financial information ASAP. He snapped the phone shut and said, “I’d like to know if this guy couldn’t make his cable payment. He winds up dead, and an hour later the bank he worked at gets robbed? Tell me that’s a coincidence. What’s happening?”
    “Nothing.” One of the hostage takers strolled into view. She could see only the back of his torso. He wore a dark Windbreaker and jeans and carried a very big gun, but his stance conveyed total calm, a commander reviewing the troops. “Why can’t we just shoot him?”
    “Because there’s two hims,” Frank told her. “There’s only that one window, and they’re never both in it at the same time. So supposing we got a clear shot and took out the first guy…”
    “…there’d still be his partner left to kill people.” And even if they did stand together, they’d be directly in front of their innocent captives. “Can’t we gas them? I don’t mean tear gas, I mean some kind of nitrous gas that would put everyone to sleep, including the robbers.”
    “The room’s too big. There would be no way to disperse it evenly, so some people might pass out before others.”
    “And one of the robbers might panic and fire.” The man in thetelescope’s sight stopped and turned, glanced up at the library windows as if he felt her scrutiny. She began to pull away from the scope, realized how ridiculous that was, and returned to the eyepiece. The man still stared in her direction.
    He had a slender frame, high cheekbones, and light black