Flattening her left hand over Henry’s sketch, she picked up her Treo and dialed the poacher’s number yet again. The phone rang five times . . . seven. She was moving her thumb to the END button when a surprisingly deep voice barked from the Treo’s little speaker.

“Hello!” she said, jerking the phone to her ear.

The cigarette-parched voice of an older black man said, “Hey, now. Who dis be?”

“I’m a friend of Henry Sexton,” Caitlin said. “I’ve been trying to reach you since last night.”

Silence.

“Are you there, Mr. Rambin?”

“I been workin’. What you want, lady?”

“I want to find the tree that Henry Sexton was looking for. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

More silence. Then the voice said, “Might do. Might not. I read in the Natchez paper a little while ago that Mister Henry be dead. Burned up, it said. I don’t wanna get burned up.”

“I don’t either. And I wrote that newspaper story, by the way.”

“Huh. How you know about Henry and me?”

“I was working with him. And I can certainly make the trip worth your while.”

This time the silence stretched too long.

“You can name your price,” she said quickly, afraid she would lose him like a fish nibbling on a line.

“Henry was gon’ pay me two thousand dollah.”

Caitlin doubted this, but she said, “I can match that.”

After a couple of seconds, Rambin said, “Price gone up now, though. Hazard pay.”

She closed her eyes but did not sigh. “I see. What’s the new price?”

“Double. Fo’ thousand. Take it or leave it.”

After what seemed a suitable interval—which she hoped would mask the fact that she would pay forty thousand dollars to find the Bone Tree—she said, “Four thousand it is. But I want to go this afternoon.”

“No way, lady. I got work this afternoon. Can’t get loose. Plus, I got to make sure the coast is clear. We’ll go tomorrow morning. After that, I’m clearing out. Too dangerous round here. Gettin’ like the old days again.”

The idea of waiting a full day galled her, but Caitlin sensed that upping her offer wouldn’t persuade Rambin to change his mind. “You know what tree I’m talking about, right? Are you positive you know where it is?”

A harsh squawk of a laugh came through the phone. “Lady, they ain’t nothin’ I don’t know ’bout this old swamp. I was birthed on the edge of it, and lived jes’ about every day in it. You jes’ bring your money, hear?”

“Where?” she asked quickly.

“Ain’t but one decent road leads down to the swamp from the state road. There’s others, but you’d never find ’em.”

“I’ll be there. Is eight A.M. all right?”

“Six thirty,” Rambin said. “And bring cash. I don’t take no damn bank check.”

“I will.”

“What’s your name?” Rambin asked.

“Caitlin Masters.”

The old poacher took his time with this. “I see it right here in the paper,” he said finally. “All right, then. You wear a red bandanna around your neck. You see a rusted old school bus, you’ll know you goin’ the right way. Park where the road ends. If I feel like you’re on the level, I’ll let you see me. And no po-lice. You hear?”

“I’ll be there,” Caitlin promised. “Without police.”

Rambin clicked off without another word.

Caitlin sat up, her eyes on Henry’s journal. She was excited, but the reality of tomorrow’s rendezvous presented certain problems. For one, she would have to craft a cover story that would guarantee both secrecy and freedom of movement, one that would satisfy both Penn and Kaiser. At least she had a decent amount of time to come up with something credible.

She suddenly remembered Henry’s warning that she not try to find the Bone Tree alone. Yesterday the reporter had actually made her promise not to do so. Would it be wise to keep that promise? Who could she trust to keep their mouth shut about her mission? Jamie? She needed her editor running the paper in her absence. Keisha Harvin, perhaps? The hungry young reporter would kill to go on an assignment like this one, but Keisha was simply the wrong color. A black girl prowling the back roads of Lusahatcha County in the company of a white woman would attract unwanted attention.

While Caitlin considered other alternatives, an image of Jordan Glass rose into her mind. Jordan would be the perfect companion: the photographer was a veteran of countless war zones and wouldn’t be intimidated by anything they might encounter. The problem was, Glass was married to Kaiser. And even though Jordan had told Caitlin that she kept some things from her husband, Caitlin was unwilling to trust her best lead to a woman she’d only just met—even if Glass was a personal hero to her.

Caitlin jumped when the landline on her desk rang. The second she picked it up, Jamie Lewis said, “Kaiser’s headed back to your office, and he doesn’t look happy.”

“Thanks.”

She opened her drawer and swept the journals and envelope into it, then switched off her light and unlocked her door. As she curled up on the little sofa against the wall, a knocking sounded on her door.

Caitlin didn’t move.

The FBI agent waited a few seconds, then turned the knob and leaned into the room. She could almost sense Kaiser’s eyes adjusting to the darkness.

“Caitlin?” he said softly.

She didn’t stir.

“Caitlin.”

She gave him nothing. Kaiser stood there in silence, making judgments she could only guess at. While she waited, the mind-boggling reality of what she’d arranged with Toby Rambin sent a chill up her spine. If she did everything right—and if Rambin turned out to know what he claimed he did—then by tomorrow at noon she might be cracking open the biggest story of her career. In a single day she could vindicate Henry Sexton, bring closure—and possibly justice—to the families of several civil rights martyrs, and rack up another Pulitzer Prize. You couldn’t do a better day’s work than that.

After some fraction of time she could not guess at, John Kaiser went out and pulled the door shut behind him. Caitlin remained on the sofa, breathing deeply, trying to slow her pounding heart. Now that she’d finally connected with the poacher, whatever had kept her going all these hours without sleep finally let go, and exhaustion washed over her. In the darkness of her mind, she saw the wild-eyed face of Elam Knox staring in fury from the black V in the trunk of the Bone Tree.

“I’m coming for you, you bastard,” she whispered fiercely. “And there’s not a goddamned thing you can do about it.”

CHAPTER 26

DREW’S LAKE HOUSE was locked when I arrived, so I opened it with the key he’d given me. Inside, I found nothing but evidence of a hasty departure. There were dirty dishes in the sink, and the chairs and sofa looked as though someone had gotten up and left the room only minutes ago. One bed had been slept in, and in the bathroom lay a pair of pants on the floor that matched my father’s size. Back in the den, I found something far more disturbing: a plastic bottle of nitroglycerine tablets. Dad usually keeps a couple of tablets in a pocket, but it was hard for me to imagine him voluntarily leaving that bottle behind. The only scenario that made sense—other than his being killed or kidnapped—was him running for his life, leaving so fast that he left critical medication behind.

After searching every room, I went out to the closed garage. Drew had told me I might find his old pickup truck there, but it was gone. Instead, I found Walt Garrity’s Roadtrek van. The sight of it stirred something in me. It was so easy to imagine Dad and Walt rolling down the highway, laughing and smiling. But necessity had separated them, and since the police had a description of the unique vehicle, they’d been forced to leave the Roadtrek behind.