“He’s not well,” Bobby said to David Eisen. “He’s had some serious health problems that have damaged his body and brain. I hope you’ll respect that fact and keep all this off the record. Out of decency. He’s just a fragile, dying old man who doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

“Don’t talk to me like that, boy!” Travis bellowed.

He stood up from his wheelchair, which was something that had been deemed medically impossible in his condition. To Roy, it didn’t seem that Travis’s legs were supporting him at all. He appeared to be empowered by a pure, undiluted rage. His face was flushed purple, and outsized veins in his neck were throbbing as he pointed a crooked finger at his son.

“You respect me, understand? You show me some respect!”

Before any of the others could reach for him, Travis Brayer toppled hard onto his side and slid headfirst down the veranda stairs to the gravel driveway below. He gave a groan as his head hit and the rest of his body piled after, like a Slinky made of worn-out old man.

Lyn knew people who crossed themselves or folded their hands in prayer whenever they heard the sound of ambulance sirens. For most of her adult life, she’d felt resentful toward them for doing this. The fact that whoever was injured was being rushed to the hospital and tended to seemed like prize enough. The prayers were just rubbing in how privileged they were. No sirens had raced to her husband and daughter, and no strangers had prayed for them, as far as she knew. To her, ambulance sirens were an elusive luxury.

Even when her daughter, Jiminy, had split her leg open on a tractor blade, no one besides Lyn, Edward, and Henry had rushed to care for her. The receptionist at Fayeville Hospital had claimed they didn’t have the time to treat her, and recommended they give the veterinarian’s office a try instead. Henry had stormed past the desk and made a direct appeal to the doctor, who’d agreed to stitch Jiminy up. Lyn looked across at that doctor now, sitting with Jean, both of them dozing off. She’d heard others claim that Walton Trawler was a decent man now, but he certainly hadn’t started out that way. In her experience, very few had.

By the time the sirens had pulled to a stop outside the Fayeville Hospital door, Lyn could tell that they were louder than normal. The crescendo sounded as though it was being caused by a whole fleet of ambulances. Before she could stand to look out the window, assuming she had any inclination to investigate what emergencies others might be facing, the doors opened and a crowd poured in. She saw state troopers and cameramen and Roy Tomlins. And an ambulance gurney that was whisked past, shielded by EMTs hunched over, hard at work. Lyn stayed right where she was sitting, observing it all.

She watched as the frantic EMTs tried to push open the far door into the inner sanctum of Fayeville Hospital just as the magazine orderly was pushing a large rolling trash can back the other direction. The result was gridlock, and in the confusion that followed, the gurney was left briefly unattended. For the first time in many years, Lyn looked straight into the eyes of Travis Brayer.

He was on his back, but his neck was turned toward her and his eyes were open. His limbs were folded at odd angles and a gash on his head had bled down the side of his face. For a moment, Lyn thought he might even be dead, and she felt nothing but numbness. But then he blinked, and she realized he was still alive. Though she couldn’t be sure just how conscious he actually was of what was happening.

Partly to test him and partly to amuse herself, she made her fingers into an imaginary gun and shot it in his direction. He closed his eyes, perhaps to protect himself from invisible bullets.

“You stay with us, Trav!” Roy Tomlins yelled.

Roy had struggled to keep up with all the commotion. He wasn’t young or limber enough, but his concern for his friend infused him with adrenaline.

“Who’s in charge here?” a younger, taller, broad-shouldered man asked in a loud, authoritative voice. “My dad needs care.”

Bobby Brayer, Lyn realized. Everyone knew him from his campaign posters, but Lyn had also known him since he was a baby, when she’d worked at Brayer Plantation. She’d changed Bobby Brayer’s diapers. And now here he was before her, a big man, running for governor and making a scene in a room that had just become too small.

The roadblock was sorted out, with the trash lady apologizing profusely in Spanish and flattening herself against the wall in a kind of prostrated position of penance to let them pass. With his eyes still sealed shut, Travis Brayer was rushed to the back, followed by his son and Roy Tomlins and one of the state troopers. Another of them stood guard at the door, glaring at the trash lady and putting up a hand to stop anyone else from trespassing where they shouldn’t.

Lyn watched a curly-haired man in glasses try to talk his way past, to no avail. He took out his wallet and showed some laminated badges, but the state trooper seemed completely unmoved. Lyn watched the man accept defeat and seat himself near the door, where he was soon absorbed in leafing through his notebook, making occasional marks with his pen.

The hubbub had woken Jean and Walton, who were anxious to be filled in. Bo had left the room more than half an hour ago and was nowhere to be seen, which left Lyn with the responsibility of talking.

“What’s happened?” Jean asked.

“Travis Brayer’s had some kind of accident,” Lyn replied in a monotone devoid of emotion.

“Oh my word, how awful,” Jean gasped.

“I suppose so,” Lyn replied mildly.

Jean gave her a sharp look. Lyn ignored this, but noticed that the curly-haired stranger was now only pretending to read his notebook while he actually listened to them.

“Well, is he okay? What was it?” Jean asked.

Lyn shook her head to convey that she didn’t know, and didn’t try to hide the possible implication that she didn’t care.

“I only caught a glimpse,” she replied.

She left out the fact that she had pantomimed shooting him in the face.

“I think this man was with him, though,” Lyn continued, pointing out the stranger. “Maybe he knows.”

The man immediately looked up in surprise, confirming Lyn’s hunch that he had been listening closely. Jean and Walton turned to look at him.

“Walton Trawler, how do you do,” Walton said as he crossed over and offered his hand in greeting.

“Oh, hello. I’m David Eisner,” David said as he shook Walton’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“You a friend of the Brayers?” Walton inquired.

“Not exactly, no,” David replied. “I’m a writer, doing a story on Bobby Brayer, among other people.”

“Were you with them today? Were you there for the accident?” Jean asked anxiously.

“Yes, I was,” David Eisner replied. “Mr. Brayer took a nasty fall and they’re very concerned.”

“Goodness,” Jean said, shaking her head.

“How’d it happen?” Walton asked.

“Just an accident,” David replied. “He got a little agitated and lost his footing. Are any of you familiar with the initials ‘K.S.O.’?”

Lyn flinched and Jean stared at the ground. Only Walton held his gaze.

“Are they the initials of a Brayer relative or something?” David continued. “No ‘B’ obviously, but maybe from Bobby Brayer’s mother’s side of the family?”

“Is that what you were told?” Jean asked quickly.

Walton could see that Jean didn’t want anyone to offer any explanation counter to whatever the Brayers might have already said. In her mind this was about sticking together as a community. Walton understood that mentality all too well, but he suddenly felt it was time for something different.

“It stands for Knights of the Southern Order,” he told David Eisen.

Jean sucked in some air. “Walton,” she said, with a warning tone in her voice.