Seized. Elizabeth Heiter

but he’d kept his voice so much softer than Butler’s. She still wasn’t sure what he’d said; her best guess was “Not yet.”

      She’d also heard them say something about April 19—a date a lot of antifederalists held in high regard. She couldn’t tell what they’d been saying about it. That had worried her, because violent believers had used April 19 as a battle date—it was when the raid on Waco had happened, when the Oklahoma City bombing had happened. But April was a long way off, and right now she had other problems.

      As she gazed out the window, she saw that the protesters were contained, although there were more of them than she’d expected. She could see the signs bouncing up and down, but there was no mad rush toward the compound.

      The sound of Adam Noonan’s voice made her jump, even though she’d heard him speaking all morning. She looked up at the sky, at the sun casting pink over the mountains. Was it evening already? The hours had blended together while she’d hunched in that closet, trying to create a strategy to stay alive.

      “Mr. Butler, let’s meet face-to-face.” Adam was pushing the same message Butler had ignored all day.

      To Evelyn’s surprise, Butler lifted his own bullhorn, one she hadn’t even realized he was carrying. “We have your agent. It’s within our rights, when someone trespasses on our land, to execute them.”

      Evelyn felt her whole body jerk, and instead of looking at Butler’s other hand, the one still holding that rifle, she looked past him, down the staircase. But it was empty. No Rolfe to talk Butler out of killing her. Was Butler’s plan to shoot her while her friends watched, too far away to do anything about it?

      “Let’s talk about what you want, Ward,” Adam said, and nothing in his tone revealed that he’d known her for the entire time she’d been at BAU—not quite two years. He sounded neutral, invested only in making peace between Butler and the government.

      That was his job, but it still left a sour feeling in Evelyn’s gut. She studied the distance to the protesters now, the distance to any police presence, and knew for certain that HRT would never be able to storm the compound. Not before she was killed.