The Life Engineered Read Online Free

on another’s experience. For the first time in years, I felt my age or even younger. Maybe it was the adrenaline, but I wasn’t tired anymore.
    “Eddy?” I called out, wishing I’d spent more time studying negotiation techniques. “Eddy, it’s Officer Paulson. Do you remember me?”
    “Yeah, I remember you!” he yelled back. His voice was deep for such an emaciated frame, but it was trembling on the precipice of panic. “You arrested me last year!”
    Off to a great start, but at least I had him talking instead of shooting. He was clearly high on some kind of drug—which wasn’t out of the ordinary—but there was obviously something else wrong with him. Roach was a user, a seller, and a thief, but he had never been violent before.
    “You deserved it, and I won’t lie to you, Ed. I’m about to arrest you again.”
    “No!” His answer brimmed with fear.
    “Eddy, I have a gun pointed at your head. You put down your weapon right now, and no one else needs to get hurt, but you—”
    He shot at me. My first thought was how rude he was being for cutting me off, which felt like a strange concern under the circumstances. Only after a second did I think to duck and make sure I wasn’t hit. As I did, I could hear the distant squeak of hinges and an electronic door chime go off.
    “Shit! He’s going in the laundromat!”
    I peeked up over the hood of the SUV to confirm my fears. Indeed, Roach had gone back inside the store, stirring the terrified occupants into a screaming panic. Anthony ran from car to car, making his way up to the front of the laundromat. With a sigh, I followed his lead, catching up to him just as he reached the closest vehicle to the storefront.
    Then we heard the fourth gunshot, muffled from inside the building. It was immediately followed by screams.
    “Anthony . . .”
    It was too late. He was off, and I surprised myself by following his footsteps.
    We both stormed into the store, spreading to the sides, each finding cover behind a row of quarter-operated washing machines. Every step of the way, as we acted like action movie heroes instead of trained professionals, a voice trapped deep inside my heart was begging for me to stop, to wait for backup to arrive—but I ignored it.
    The storefront was empty. Half-folded laundry and boxes of generic-brand detergent were left abandoned here and there. A large dryer was still going through its cycle with an uneven hum. Eddy had herded his hostages to the back of the store.
    “Roach!” Anthony called out. His tone was stern and uncompromising. There wasn’t a hint of diplomacy in his voice. He was too confrontational. This was going to be a disaster. “Come out with your hands where we can see them!”
    There was a moment, a heartbeat frozen in time where I thought and believed that my partner’s foolhardy actions had actually paid off. I could imagine him arguing with Captain Hutchcroft that he valued life more than regulations and results more than procedures.
    As Eddy Roach stepped out from behind a large industrial dryer, I imagined that Anthony Blain had become the action hero he’d always dreamed of being and that, through sheer courage and confidence, he had saved the day.
    That moment melted away as my heart sank to my heels. Roach came out of hiding all right, but as he did so, his left, shaking hand was closed on the shoulder of a petrified and trembling boy roughly my son’s age. His other hand held his gun at the child’s head. It took a moment to register, but I noticed that the boy’s shirt and face were stained with a mist of blood.
    “Back off, Anthony,” I said in as even a tone as I could manage. My partner shot me a look that told me the situation had suddenly escalated beyond what he was ready to cope with. He glanced back and forth between me and Roach, his confidence evaporating with each turn of his neck.
    Meanwhile, Eddy was slowly inching forward, making his way to the front door. As he got close to Anthony and