The Hero Next Time: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 4)

Chapter Fifty-Nine: Sunny, Monday

Sunny held the phone in front of him, paralyzed with indecision.

"Suuuuuuuunny," Naira nee Bains called slowly, as if she were looking for him in a haunted house. "I see you're thinking about it."

"We can just sit in here and make you come out," Naira suddenly said into the phone, pulling her gun out of her purse. "Your drones are still strafing us. It's not very welcoming."

Naira nee Bains sighed loudly, as if she were fed up with her namesake. "If we come out, we're killing all of you, and then we're mopping up and making like you all never existed. Do you want to be responsible for killing two more men along with you, bitch?"

"That's not very friendly," Joe said, to Sunny's surprise. "I thought you were police officers, isn't that illegal?"

"Oh! We hear from the stowaway at last!" Naira said, far too cheerily for the situation. Sunny had to wonder if she was a little mentally ill. "You're a big one! What's your name?"

"Joe DiTomaso," he said. "I know Sergeant Joanie Mara, the hero of the Battle of Barnet, if that makes a difference to your colleagues."

She paused for a second, as if she were actually discussing it with her colleagues. Then she said, "Your friend might be a hero, but my colleagues don't feel they owe her the courtesy of giving in to the three of you. They're only giving you a second chance to walk away. Right now."

"I'm not walking away. Your colleagues nearly killed my wife and son with that little car chase, and they need to answer for it."

"That was never intentional, you know. All they wanted to do was stop them and ask them what they knew about the device and why they took it. You guys weren't even on our radar until you took the device, and it wasn't even meant for you. If you never stuck your noses into this, you all would have been fine!"

"That's what I told them," Naira said, "and yet they continued to insist, so here we are." 

"Where you are is in a vice. We have the upper hand. We outnumber you, we have more weapons, and more importantly, we have the hostage."

"How do we know you have him?" Naira said. "We haven't been given proof of life the entire time we've talked to you."

"Oh, would you like to hear from him? Why didn't you say so?" Naira nee Bains' voice was manic, and suddenly Sunny knew she was about to do something terrible.

A scream rang out over the line. It sounded male, but at that animal level it was hard to tell. Naira squeezed her eyes shut, and tears ran down her cheeks. Joe's hands curled into fists, but his face was white.

Eventually the screaming stopped, and Naira nee Bains said, "How was that? Believe me now?"

"What did you do to him?" Sunny shouted.

"Oh, we just hooked him up to the generator we have in here, gave him a little taste," she said, sounding bored. "He's physically fine, but we can leave him hooked up for longer, and then he won't be as fine."

"You're sick," Naira said. "You're all sick. Is it really worth dehumanizing yourselves for this?"

Naira nee Bains laughed in what sounded like genuine delight. "That was nothing. That was just me getting a little of my own back for Birinder cheating on me with you. We haven't even begun to hurt him yet. So, the longer you take to make up your mind and get in here, the more often we'll hook him up, and for longer each time. How does that sound?"

Sunny felt panic settle in his gut like a stone, but Naira continued as if she hadn't heard the other woman's threat. "Isn't it a little ironic that you have police officers with you there, who haven't said a word, by the way, which I think is on purpose because they don't want to have themselves identified in a phone call; these police officers are acting like criminals now, just so they can continue using a technology that can help them catch criminals. Don't you guys have any shame at all? You killed the man I loved, for the crime of caring about my well-being, and you kidnapped the man I was married to for the crime of not wanting to go to prison for killing the man you killed! How does this make you any different from the criminals you want to catch?"