Randall’s face darkened. “Don’t even mention your little rat dogs. Brody should have left you in the nuthouse over in Texas.”
She shuddered, a physical echo of her year locked inside the Borgen Institute.
“Tell me, Randall,” she said in a voice she barely recognized. “Please. Why am I still here?”
He stepped closer, staring down like a hunter about to finish a wounded animal. Her brain told her to run, but she remained on her stool. If he killed her … what did it matter?
“You really want to know?” he asked, and she shivered at the coldness in his voice. “I’ll tell you. You know that river land you own?”
“What about it?”
Randall smiled. “Eleven miles of pristine riverfront farmland. Eleven miles. That came down to you from your mother’s family, and it’s legally encumbered so that it can never leave her blood family. Well … since you can’t have kids, that means once you die, it goes to your cousin up in Savannah.”
Katy shook her head, lost in confusion. “I don’t understand. If you can’t get that land, or sell it, what good is it to you?”
Her husband laughed with such harshness that she felt sick. “It ain’t me, honey. It’s your daddy. Brody might never be able to get hold of that land, but as long as you’re alive, he can lease it to farmers, cut timber off it, and suck the oil out from under it. And that’s what he’s been doing since the day I married you.” Randall tapped the side of his head and laughed. “You get it now? You’re worth more to him alive than you are dead. It’s really that simple. Jesus. I thought for sure you’d have figured that out by now. I guess your brain is more scrambled than I thought.”
He turned to his closet and pulled a shirt over his still-wet back. “So here I stand, your babysitter. Highest paid babysitter in the world, probably. But it still ain’t enough.”
She sat in stunned silence, staring at her shattered reflection, finally understanding the riddle of her existence. In her mind, she watched a blurry movie of herself signing various papers in an alcoholic haze.
“I’ve got a busy day,” Randall said. “Brody’s in New Orleans, but he’ll be back this afternoon. Go play with your dogs, or whatever you’re going to do. But do me one favor, please. Take a fucking bath.”
He walked out of the room.
Katy sat motionless until she heard the carport door slam. Then she picked up the newspaper, walked to the bathtub, and turned the hot tap wide open. Opening a drawer beside her husband’s lavatory, she took out a pair of sharp scissors, which she laid in the edge of the tub. You get it now? Randall had said, as though talking to a moron. You’re worth more to him alive than you are dead. Katy’s leg muscles quivered as though barely able to support her weight. How was that possible, since she felt as though she might float away from the earth’s surface at any moment? While she waited for the tub to fill, she looked down at the newspaper and read the name beneath the top story.
Caitlin Masters.
CHAPTER 63
DESPITE BREAKING THE speed limit most of the way to Mercy Hospital, I find Caitlin already talking to Drew Elliott in the north wing. She hardly glances over as I approach, since she’s giving her full attention to Drew, who looks up and waves at me but keeps talking. At forty-two, Drew remains the television ideal of a doctor: handsome, athletic, super-competent. But like all mortals, he’s had his share of personal troubles, and I’ve done my part to help him out of them.
“We probably should have flown him to Baton Rouge,” Drew says, nodding down the hall to where a parish deputy sits glumly on guard in a high school desk. “But between the orthopedist, the surgeon, and myself, we managed to patch Henry back together. Reduced the fractures, took care of the abdomen. Besides, he didn’t want to leave. He insisted that we keep him in this hospital. Something to do with Albert Norris being treated here, apparently.”
A single-story structure on Highway 15, Mercy Hospital serves the citizens of three surrounding parishes, but it’s no level-one trauma center.
“I appreciate you driving back over to check on him,” I say. “Has Henry gotten clearheaded enough to say anything more about his attackers?”
Drew nods. “Last night he dreamed that one of his assailants was the son of a guy he played church softball with about ten years ago. Casey Whelan was the kid’s name. I don’t know how seriously Sheriff Dennis will take that, but Henry sounded sure.”
“The FBI will take it seriously. They’re in town now.” I cut my eyes at Caitlin. “Special Agent Kaiser is supervising an FBI team down at the Jericho Hole. My guess is they’re planning to dive on the car Kirk Boisseau found yesterday.”
“Has Henry really been asking for me this morning?” Caitlin asks Drew.
“He’s spoken both your names, but I think it’s you he really wants to see.”
“I’d better get in there then. How lucid is he?”
“In and out. He looks bad, but I’m confident his head injury’s not life-threatening.”
“So he’s out of danger?” I ask.
“I’m not sure that’s a medical question.” Drew nods down the hall at the armed deputy.
I shake Drew’s hand. After he gives Caitlin a farewell hug and departs, she and I walk toward the deputy’s desk. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” I ask her.
“I’m fine.”
Sure you are.
We identify ourselves to the deputy, but he asks to see our driver’s licenses anyway, which gives me some measure of confidence in Sheriff Dennis’s precautions.