“Well, you talk to him, then. Tell him if he doesn’t come clean, I’ll have Captain Ozan cut it out of him. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir. Loud and clear. But this don’t make no damn sense.”

Forrest hung up and speed-dialed Claude Devereux at his home in Vidalia. The phone rang six times, and then an answering machine picked up. Forrest listened to the old lawyer’s oily voice and waited for the beep.

“Claude, this is Forrest. If you don’t call me back within five minutes, I’ll make sure you spend the few years you have left handling death row appeals pro bono from your cell in Angola. Have a nice day.”

Forrest hung up.

Twenty seconds later, Devereux returned the call.

“Jesus,” said the Cajun, “you don’t have to get my blood pressure up like that.”

“Take a goddamn pill, Claude. I need you to get down to the CPSO and advise some clients who are about to be questioned.”

“You mean Snake and Sonny and the others?”

“That’s right.”

“But—I thought you had that taken care of.”

“I do. You’re my secret weapon.”

Devereux muttered under his breath. “Are they in custody?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter.”

“Shit, Forrest . . . the damned FBI’s in town. And this isn’t 1964. What are you getting me into?”

“You scared, Claude? You used to laugh at the FBI.”

“Thirty years ago. I was young and stupid. Those sons of bitches have more power now than they ever did under Hoover. If the FBI is in on this questioning, I might need a lawyer myself. And the tide has turned against loudmouths like Snake Knox, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Stop flappin’ your gums and get over there, Claude. You don’t have a choice.”

After some grumbling, Devereux said, “All right, all right. I suppose I can.”

“That tone doesn’t inspire confidence.”

“Forrest, Christ . . . I’m too old for this.”

“The alternative is worse, I promise you.”

Forrest was pretty sure Devereux had stopped breathing.

“You getting your tie on, Claude?”

“As we speak.”

“Call me with a report, soon as you can.”

“I will. Let me get going.”

Forrest hung up, then blew out a rush of air. He didn’t like it when things didn’t go according to plan. It had been years now since anyone had dared to challenge him directly, but Penn Cage, John Kaiser, and Walker Dennis seemed to be intent on doing just that. He wondered whether Claude Devereux still had the stones to handle adversaries of that caliber. Claude had been a slick operator in the old days, as connected as anybody in Louisiana. He’d kept many a sticky-fingered politician out of prison, from sitting governors to U.S. senators. But Penn Cage was an accomplished attorney with a stellar record as a prosecutor, and Forrest didn’t like the fear he’d heard in the old man’s voice.

A disturbing thought struck him. What if Devereux didn’t even go to the sheriff’s office? What if he tried to rabbit? Then it would be up to Snake to handle whatever surprise those three Boy Scouts had cooked up for the Double Eagles. The more Forrest thought about this, the surer he became that he wasn’t the only one who’d arranged a surprise for today. He got up from the table, tossed the dregs of his coffee over the deck rail, and speed-dialed Alphonse Ozan.

DEPUTY HIRAM HUNT HAD phoned Colonel Knox from underneath Sheriff Dennis’s house, and he was still there, checking for the ninth or tenth time to be sure he wasn’t mistaken about the crystal meth. But he knew he wasn’t. He’d duct-taped the trash bag containing the packets between two floor joists, right where the return air duct descended from the living room floor.

Now nothing remained but the residue of the duct tape. Hunt could feel the tacky glue on his fingertips. Could some scavenging animal like a raccoon have taken the bag? Possibly, but an animal would have ripped it open on the spot to discover whether it contained any food.

“Shit fire,” Hunt muttered, knowing his life was on the line.

Pocketing his flashlight, he scrabbled backward out from under the house, emerging near the air-conditioning unit. He hoped to God that Kyle Allard knew something about the missing meth, because if he didn’t, that Redbone bastard Ozan would probably kill him trying to squeeze out the truth.

As Hunt straightened up, he figured he could wait two minutes to call Allard. He wanted to get away from the sheriff’s house before any neighbors saw him. If something had gone wrong, the last thing he needed was Sheriff Dennis asking what he’d been doing under his house that morning. Hunt strode around the corner, then stopped cold.

Walker Dennis stood there with another deputy, a recent hire named Wilkins, a kid fresh out of the Marines.

“What’s up, Hiram?” asked the sheriff, a strange glint in his eyes. “You lost?”

“Uh, no, sir.”

“Well?”

“I was just looking for you, sir. We, ah, got an anonymous tip that there was some drugs under your house. We knew it was bullshit, of course, but we figured somebody ought to crawl under there so we could say we’d checked it out.”

“I see. Who’s ‘we,’ Hiram?”

“Uh, you know . . . Randy, I think.” Randy Frey wasn’t on the Knox payroll, but he was stupid, and the sheriff might believe the deputy was lying if he denied it.

Sheriff Dennis gave Wilkins some kind of head signal, and the new guy drew his pistol and covered Hunt with it.

“Hey now,” Hunt said nervously. “What . . . what’s going on?”

Sheriff Dennis smiled, but the look in his eyes made Hunt’s bowels shift.

“You’re going to get plenty of time to answer that question, Hiram. Yes, sir. Now, hand me your weapon.”

“Listen, Sheriff—”

“Hand it over!”

With shaking hands, Hunt drew his weapon with his thumb and forefinger and passed it butt first to the sheriff. Dennis looked down at it, then grimaced and handed the weapon to the new guy. Hunt was trying to think of something intelligent to say, but nothing came to him.

“Give me your phones,” Dennis ordered. “All of ’em.”

Hunt unclipped the departmental cell phone from his belt. Then, after some hesitation, he removed the StarTac burn phone from his trouser pocket. It had been his only safe link to Forrest Knox, and now it might just hang him.

Dennis snatched the StarTac from his hand. “Cuff him, Wilkins. Hands behind your back, Hiram.”

Hunt felt tears in his eyes. “Sheriff, please—”

Walker Dennis drove his fist into Hiram’s gut, driving every bit of air out of his lungs. He doubled over, tried to keep his feet, then collapsed on the sheriff’s lawn. He felt the new guy cuffing his wrists behind him, then Dennis’s hot breath in his ear.

“This is my home, you cocksucker. The bastards you work for killed my cousin and two fine deputies—unlike you. You think about that while you’re riding to where you’re going.”

“You taking me to jail?” Hunt asked, gasping for breath.

“Ohh, no,” said the sheriff in a strange voice. “We’re way past that now, Hiram. Yes, sir.”

WALT GARRITY WAS SCANNING the Bouchard lake house through a 10x Leupold scope when his burn phone rang. After more than a dozen attempts to reach Griffith Mackiever, the man had finally called him back. Walt set down the scope and answered the phone.

“Tell me you’ve done something with that video,” Walt said, skipping the small talk.

“I’m trying,” Mackiever said. “I’m having a hell of a time getting anybody to meet with me. Those damned kiddie porn accusations have made me toxic. No government official wants to have anything to do with me. Most won’t even take my calls.”

“You can always take it to the media yourself,” Walt suggested. “Or scare the hell out of Knox with it.”

“Hell, I haven’t even ID’d the men in it yet.”

“Have you tried?”

“I’m working on it, Walt.”

“Work faster, damn it. There’s a lot more than your reputation on the line, or the image of the state police.”