“I’ll do it.” Cisco offered immediately.

He was tired of waiting, and chances were, with him being from Orono, the hostage-taker would be unfamiliar with his face. “You have any civvies that will fit me?”

“On the bus,” Mason grunted. “Come suit up.”

And by suit up, Mason would try to get him to wear a vest under his plain-clothes, but it being summer, any bank robber with a brain in their head would see the bulk, so Cisco was going to decline. All he needed was a camera…and an excuse to get near the guy.

Ten minutes later, dressed in a white, short-sleeve button down shirt and chinos, Cisco hefted the professional news camera Mason had procured from the local TV station, onto his shoulder.

He was ready to roll.

“Your press badge is just about ready to print,” Opal told him with an amused look on her face as she stood by their copier, retrieved the item hot off the press, then ran it through the laminator.

Cisco didn’t have to wait long to see why she was snickering under her breath. When she handed him the tag, he read it. Peter Parkour.

“Funny.” He rolled his eyes while her partner in crime, Nolan, chuckled. Mason simply snorted, then picked up his phone and dialed the line he had into the bank. A few seconds later, the boss was all business.

“We have a reporter from WABI who’s just arrived. He’s agreed to video you, live,” Mase lied. “But you have to promise that he and the bank manager will both be safe.”

Yeah. Like the guy wouldn’t simply just agree to get his own way. But Mase clearly felt compelled to say something because the manager’s life hung in the balance, and yes, Cisco had eschewed any safety equipment.

“Right,” Mason continued, clearly having been given an affirmative answer. For what it was worth. “He’ll wait until you’re out of the building, then he’ll come toward you, slowly, where he’ll give you your interview.”

Mason must have heard what he wanted, because he hung up with a grunt, then addressed Cisco. “During the first few minutes of engagement, Units C and K will breach the back door to rescue the remaining hostages inside.”

“I’ll give them five,” Cisco agreed.

“That’ll work.” Mason gave Cisco the nod, and Cisco responded with grin and a thumbs up.

Piece of cake.

They had a plan, and Cisco knew what to do.

CHAPTER EIGHT

To say that Hilly was annoyed was an understatement. The nurse she’d hired, Debbie Gorner, had made excuses again, this time by text, saying that something else had come up and she wouldn’t be at the camp until Sunday evening. That was two days later than their agreement specified, which made steam come out of Hilly’s ears.

If Monday wasn’t the first day of camp, she would have told the woman to stuff it, and found someone else. But there was no time. Hilly would, however, put out feelers within the community to see if anyone knew of an available, certified RN, just in case the woman further disappointed her after her tardy arrival.

Luckily, an old friend, Buffy Minton, would be rolling in on Sunday morning. Buffy was Hilly’s roommate from college. She’d graduated with her degree in psychotherapy, and thought it would be an awesome opportunity to hang out at a camp all summer and see to the mental needs of Hilly’s kids.

Not only was it a score to get the woman who lived in Boston, between jobs, but Hilly was really looking forward to spending time with one of her dearest friends.

But now…paperwork.

The bane of Hilly’s existence.

She’d always been an action kind of person, her degree and employment—in the off season since inheriting the camp—being in event planning for a huge law firm. Of course, she’d routinely had to suss out specific needs for certain clients, which required a lot of writing, but after the initial bits of sit-down-planning, Hilly was all about hands-on. She never slowed down after that. Her real rush for the job came from running around putting things together, orchestrating the perfect affair.

Now, she was faced with a slogging task she’d been putting off; that of making sure every camper’s parent or guardian had properly filled in and signed all the requisite forms. If they hadn’t, she’d have to make sure she waylaid them amidst the chaos of drop-off to remedy any oversights.

The only good thing about her pen-pushing task today was that the hour of paperwork coincided with the time of day she always watched the local weather. Hilly never depended solely on her phone or computer app for accuracy with atmospheric conditions. She was in charge of the well-being of one hundred campers, and she needed to be sure if and when bad weather was about to move in.

Thunderstorms predicted? No water or outside play. A degree-day over ninety? No long hikes until the heat-wave was broken.

She’d learned during her first year on the job, that multiple sources were needed to glean Mother Nature’s true intentions.

Sitting at her desk, she eyeballed the pile in front of her and sighed.

Ignoring it for a few more seconds, she picked up her remote and switched on her small TV—the only cable-connected device at camp. The single other screen on premise was in the dining hall, but could only be used for preapproved movies checked out from the camp’s extensive DVD library.

Since it was a few minutes before weather-time, she’d mute the sound until she saw the radar blips come up.

She’d picked up the first camper application, when…

Breaking news flashed across the WABI crawl.

That was odd. Not much of note ever happened between here and Bangor. Maybe it was a pile-up on I-95? She unmuted her TV to listen.

“…just tuning in, we have a hostage situation here at the Bangor Five. SWAT is on site, as well as several local police and fire departments. All we’ve been told so far is that a man inside has taken several hostages, and negotiations with authorities are ongoing.”

A live stream of the outside of the bank showed up on screen in the distance, behind the reporter. The camera then panned around to reveal more law enforcement than Hilly had ever seen in one place. There were officers dressed in SWAT gear, and others in local uniforms from surrounding towns, all wearing vests and shielded helmets. There was a large, armored vehicle next to a bus, both with the lettering Downeast SWAT on the side, and her eyes widened. That was Cisco’s team.

With paperwork momentarily forgotten, Hilly turned up the volume on her TV and watched, rapt.

“We have movement at the command bus,” the reporter stated. “The door is opening. It looks like…” She put a finger to her ear, her eyes narrowing before she nodded. “I’m, uh, being told we have a reporter going in to do an exclusive interview with the hostage taker.”

Why did that sound like an untruth? Hilly hadn’t missed the momentary confusion on the reporter’s face.

“Yes,” the woman-on-the-street confirmed more definitively as Hilly pondered. “We see that our own…Peter Parkour is on scene.”

Yup. The lady had stumbled over the name. And…Peter Parkour? Seriously? Hilly let out a snicker. It sounded like someone had been pranked by his coworkers.

In the next minute, Hilly went from chuckling, to sucking in a breath.

No way! She leaned forward to get a better look. That couldn’t be…

Hell, yes it was. That was Cisco, not in his turn-out gear, but dressed in a white shirt and khaki’s, hefting a large, professional looking camera on his shoulder. What the hell was he doing?

“I’ve just been informed that the hostage-taker in the bank has requested to do an exclusive interview with WABI, which will take place shortly. In the meantime, we’ll keep you updated with a live feed from our remote camera.”

The camera she mentioned immediately zoomed in on Cisco as he walked past a line of police and behind the erected barriers, to stand just across the street from the bank, where he waited. He looked calm, as if he did this sort of thing every day.

Hilly, on the other hand, couldn’t stop her heart from beating overtime in her chest. What the hell was he doing, and why did it seem like he was going in alone?

“We have movement just inside the bank,” the reporter stated, bringing Hilly back to the action. The camera swung from Cisco to zoom in on the glass door as it opened outward. The bank manager was pushed through, a gun to his head as a man stood directly behind him, keeping their bodies close.