Page 58 of All He Takes
Schmitt handed him the megaphone, and Ken faced the garage. Every officer on the scene was pale and tense, Ken included. One wrong move could mean the death of a baby and an innocent woman.
Ken could not--would not--have that blood on his hands.
"Harold, are you in there?" Ken said into the megaphone.
A moment of silence, and Harold's voice sounded through the garage door. "Agent Walker, I'm here," he said. "Where is Agent Lyons? I need her here too."
"She's on her way, I promise," Ken said, a blatant lie, but he just needed to talk Harold down. "Talk to me, Harold. What's going on here?"
"It's... it's my Adaline..."
Ken frowned. The woman Harold was cheating with?
"When you called her to confirm my alibi, she... she told her husband everything, and then, and then..." A choking sound. "She left me, damn it! It's over between us, and she left me with this--this woman, and this stupid child I don't even want!"
A woman's cry came out from the other side of the garage, along with the disgruntled coo of the baby, JJ.
"Oh God, Harold," the woman said. "What are you doing?"
"Get off me!" Harold's voice was louder now.
"Harold, please, don't do this. It's not worth it," she said, her voice cracking. "I love you. I want to fix this. We can get through this together."
Harold laughed, hollow and cruel. "I don't want you, Maggie, I want Adaline, but because of these stupid FBI agents, I'll never have her!"
Ken saw where this was going. Harold blamed Ken and Nicky for his affair going south, and now he was lashing out. This was a highly volatile, dangerous man, and Ken wished Nicky was here to use her compassionate side to get through to him--but this was on Ken now. He had to talk Harold down.
"C'mon, Harold, you don't mean that," Ken said. "You have a wife, and she's in there with you. You don't want to hurt Maggie and JJ, Harold. They're innocent. If you want to hurt me and Agent Lyons, well, I guess I understand that, but you don't have to hurt the others. They had nothing to do with this."
"I want Agent Lyons here, now," Harold said. "She's the reason Adaline left me, and I want to make her pay."
"You're right, Harold," Ken said. "I'm sorry--that's our fault, and we'll do everything we can to fix it. But if you hurt Maggie, you'll never get Adaline back. We both know that."
"I don't care!" Harold's voice echoed through the garage.
"It's too late for that now, Agent Walker. And I can't let them go. I can't let them ruin my life. I'm going to kill them all."
Ken's veins ran cold. This was not going well.
"Harold, you can't kill your wife," Ken said, trying to keep his voice calm and even. "Think about JJ. He's innocent here, Harold--you're his father. You don't want to kill your own son."
"I don't care about that stupid kid!" Harold snarled. "I don't care about any of them! If I can't have Adaline, I don't want anyone!"
"If you kill them, Harold, it'll destroy you," Ken said. "You'll destroy you, and you'll destroy your family."
"It will be their own damn fault for destroying my life!" Harold yelled. "I won't let them do this to me. I won't let you do this to me. I'm going to kill them all!"
Ken looked up at the tense police officers around him, and then back at the garage door.
"Harold, I know you're confused," he said. "But I just want you to know that no one's gonna judge you if you just walk out of that door right now. Open the garage, Harold. Come on out and talk. We'll get Adaline over here too. We can work this out. No one has to die."
"No!" Harold's voice grew louder. "No, you want to take away the one thing I want in life! You want me to take a vow of chastity and raise some kid I don't even want? No, I won't do that! The FBI can't force me to do that! And if they try, they'll have to answer to me!"
Ken's heart was pounding. "Harold, please, don't do this," he said. "Just walk out of there now. No one has to die here."
"I'm going to kill you, Agent Walker," Harold said. "Then I'll kill Agent Lyons, and I'll kill Maggie and JJ, and then I'll kill myself, and I'll be with Adaline in hell! And no one will be able to stop me!"
"Harold, please, don't do this," Ken said. "Don't let this happen. You wanna kill me? Fine, go ahead! Come out and fucking kill me, man, but leave Maggie and the baby out of it!"
