Frank Farman defined himself by his career, by his uniform. More than a decade in law enforcement with a sterling record, he could have worked in any area he chose. He could have made detective. He could have worked narcotics. As straight an arrow as he was, he was tailor-made for the Bureau or even Secret Service. But Frank Farman chose to remain in a uniform because he was the uniform.

Vince had known plenty of Frank Farmans over the years, going back to his days in the Marine Corps. Rigid. By the book. Humorless. It wasn’t difficult for guys like that to grow a chip on their shoulder. It was almost inevitable that they became hyperfocused on every tiny aspect of the job, right down to the nuances of speech of their coworkers and superiors.

If the job was everything, then everything in their lives was about the job. And if the job was threatened, the sense of self was threatened, and guys like Frank Farman ended up in watchtowers with sniper rifles, or holding a gun to someone’s head.

In a matter of a few days, Frank Farman’s carefully structured world had begun to fall apart, and that buck stopped—in Farman’s mind—with his old friend, Cal Dixon.

They must have arrived one right after the other, coming in the side door down the hall from the war room—Dixon first, Farman behind him. Dixon, just returning from what had to have been a taxing few hours at the hospital with Jane Thomas and Karly Vickers’s mother, wouldn’t have been paying attention. He was tired, preoccupied. He wouldn’t have even glanced over his shoulder as he walked into the building, but Farman had to have been just a few steps behind him.

As Dixon opened the door to the conference room, Farman was on him—arm around his throat, gun to his head—pushing him into the room and getting a wall to his back.

That was how they stood now.

Vince had just called Anne back when it happened. Never taking his eyes off Farman, he disconnected the call, put the receiver down, and punched 911 on the keypad, just in case no one out in the hall had seen what happened.

The operator came on the line. “Nine-one-one. What is your emergency please?”

“Frank,” Vince said loudly. “This is a conference room. You don’t come to the sheriff’s office and bring a gun in a conference room. Why don’t you put the weapon down? We can talk.”

Farman looked right through him.

“Everybody up against that wall,” he said, indicating the wall with the only door in or out. He wanted to be able to see through the glass into the hall.

Vince stayed where he was—opposite the door. Hamilton and Hicks followed his lead and stayed where they were, spreading Farman’s attention over more of the room than he wanted to watch.