Forrest looked down at the wrought-iron patio table, where a copy of the Natchez Examiner lay open. While yesterday’s sensational stories had made no mention of him, today’s main article had reported that Colonel Griffith Mackiever was under fire for child pornography allegations and quoted an unnamed “FBI source” who claimed that Mackiever’s second-in-command might be behind those charges. A side article by Caitlin Masters suggested that dirty politics lay at the root of this scandal, and Masters had taken great pains to point out the connections between Forrest and his extended family, nearly all of whom had been members of the Ku Klux Klan, and some even suspected Double Eagles. Forrest had a feeling that Masters’s FBI source was John Kaiser, the same agent who had drained the Jericho Hole. He was starting to think he’d been behind the curve where that particular FBI agent was concerned. He needed a line into Kaiser’s plans, and he had a good idea how to get one.

As his coffee went cold, Forrest began to feel a little anxious. He’d expected the call informing him of Sheriff Dennis’s arrest by seven A.M., and it was ten past now. The deputy in charge of the bust hadn’t checked in since before six. Forrest took out his cell phone and speed-dialed the moron.

“Hunt here,” said a country-ass voice.

“You know who this is?”

“Yes, sir!”

“What’s the holdup?”

“The sheriff’s still in his house, Colonel. He’s usually in his office by now, and already drunk his morning coffee. I don’t know what the holdup is. You want me to just knock on his door with the K-9?” Deputy Hunt asked. “I could tell him we got an anonymous tip?”

Forrest looked at his watch. “No, hell no. Maybe his wife decided to give it up this morning. Give him ten more minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where are you parked? Can he see you?”

“I’m down the street in a friend’s SUV. No markings. Sheriff won’t recognize it.”

“And you have backup?”

“Yes, sir. Parker and McGown. They’re out of sight, too.”

“Okay. The questioning’s going to start pretty soon over at the department, so ten minutes is the limit. If he’s not outside by then, bust him right in front of his family.”

Hunt made a noise that sounded like a gulp.

“Are you up for this job, Deputy?”

“Yes, sir. No problem.”

“All right, then. If you see anything suspicious, call me. Otherwise, follow orders. Out.”

Forrest hung up and looked out over the narrow lake. A glittering gold bass boat arrowed along the opposite shore, trailing a silver wake that rolled gently into the cypresses. He sipped his coffee, then held his hand high in greeting.

Across the lake, the fisherman waved back.

CHAPTER 50

“PENN? PENN, WAKE UP.”

My mother’s face materializes above mine, only inches away. It takes a few moments for reality to assert itself, and longer for my sense of time to reengage. Then I glance at my watch, and a rush of adrenaline blasts through me.

“It’s nearly seven! Did you oversleep?” I sit up in the bed, unintentionally giving my mother an accusatory look.

“No,” she says purposefully.

Of course she didn’t. She’s fully dressed, and I can smell coffee and bacon all the way from the first-floor kitchen. Undoubtedly Annie is down there eating breakfast. “Then why didn’t you wake me earlier?”

Mom sits beside me on the bed, her brow knit with worry. “Are you sure you need to go question the Knoxes? You said there would be other law enforcement people there. The FBI even. Do they really need you?”

“Sheriff Dennis wants me there. I told you last night I needed to do this.”

“I know you did. But I have a bad feeling about it. I don’t usually pay attention to that kind of thing—women’s intuition and all that. But today is different. That Knox family is bad news. We lived fifty miles away from Ferriday and never left the farm, but our men knew about Elam Knox. They kept their daughters home when he came around with his ratty old revival tent. And the apples apparently didn’t fall far from the tree.”

While she was speaking, my mind slipped back to the hotel room with Dwight Stone and Kaiser, and their surreal narrative played behind my eyes like a black-and-white sequel to JFK. At this point, there’s nothing Mom could say that would stop me from keeping my appointment at the Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office.

“Mom, I have to go. It’s that simple, and it’s my best shot at helping Dad. Now, what do you think about sending Annie back to school?”

“It’s a terrible idea. We’re fine right here.”

“Are you sure it’s not too much? I can have patrol cars watch the school. Chief Logan will do that for me.”

Mom actually snorts at this idea. “She’s not half the trouble you were. She’s staying right here.”

“All right. But I’m going to have Kirk Boisseau come over and sit with you.”

“Kirk Boisseau? Why not one of those policemen your father treated?”

“We need a different skill set than that. Kirk was a recon marine. He can handle real trouble.”

Mom sighs as though this is unnecessary, but she doesn’t argue further.

As I power up my burn phone, a text pings through. It’s from Sheriff Dennis, and it reads: I left a present at your house. OOOO. I dropped the keys through the mail slot. See you at seven.

“The keys?” I murmur. Then it hits me: the four O’s in his text are meant to be the Audi rings. “Walker found my S4!”

“What?” asks Mom, looking worried. “Who found what?”

“I think Sheriff Dennis found my car.”

“Oh. I thought that was something about your father.”

I shake my head. “Wherever Dad’s hiding, he’s doing a good job.”

Her eyes betray both anxiety and satisfaction.

“Tell Annie I’ll be down in one minute.”

Whipping the sheet off the bed, I wrap it around me and hurry into the bathroom. There’s no time for a shower. Unless Walker Dennis ran into a problem I don’t know about, sometime during the last hour he busted the senior surviving members of the Double Eagle group on meth trafficking charges. And if he did, then everybody who thought the shit hit the fan yesterday is going to have their mind blown today.

CHAPTER 51

“HELICOPTER,” SAID JORDAN Glass, cocking her ear to the wind. “Sounds like a JetRanger.”

Caitlin spun around, scanning the tops of the cypress trees. She saw nothing but looming clouds in the gray morning sky, but Carl Sims was clearly impressed by this deduction, staring at Jordan with a mixture of curiosity and admiration.

Caitlin heard nothing at first. Then she caught the whup-whup-whup of rotor blades slicing the air. The sound grew steadily louder, and suddenly the engine was roaring and the chopper came in over the tree line, pointed straight at them.

“Is that Danny McDavitt?” she asked.

“Who else?” Carl pulled the women toward his truck as the JetRanger flared and settled into the dirt clearing in a roaring cloud of dust.

Caitlin instinctively looked at Jordan for guidance, but the photographer was already running in a crouch toward the helicopter. She obviously knew that the most comfortable place in relation to a chopper was inside the machine, not out of it.

Once Carl shut Caitlin inside and she put on the headset Danny McDavitt handed her, the noise dropped considerably. Danny was a handsome man with a craggy face, close-cropped steel-gray hair, and kind eyes that missed nothing. He was basically a more rugged version of John Kaiser. Pulling off her headset, Caitlin motioned for Jordan to do the same, then gave her a sanitized version of their pilot’s personal history, taking care to leave out a few details that had become the feast of local gossips some time ago. She described Danny as a retired air force major—and decorated veteran of Afghanistan—who’d married the widow of a local physician. Jordan looked as if she wanted to ask for more details, but Carl was signaling that they should put their headsets back on.