“I’ll wait.”
Forrest put the phone on speaker and got up from his desk. He didn’t know much about Quentin Avery, but he knew enough not to rule out the possibility that Cage had run to his lawyer’s house for sanctuary. The two men were close in age, and while Avery was a rich lawyer now, he’d been a civil rights activist in his youth. At one point the regular Klan had been hunting him across the state. Forrest remembered his father talking about it.
“Colonel, I’ve got it!” said the excited voice. “I got a hit.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“A plate belonging to a John McCrae crossed west to east last night at one twenty-two A.M. That’s the wife’s brother.”
Forrest’s blood quickened. “What kind of vehicle is that?”
“It’s not a vehicle, sir. It’s a horse trailer.”
Forrest smiled. “That’s it. Has it crossed back over into Louisiana?”
“Yes, sir. It crossed back in fifty-eight minutes after it left.”
“We’ve got him,” Forrest said softly.
“What was that, sir?”
“Forget everything you just told me, Sergeant. Sequester that data. We may need it, or we may need it to disappear. I want you to prepare for both eventualities. Understand?”
“Understood, sir.”
Forrest pressed END, then picked up his encrypted phone and called Alphonse Ozan.
“Hey, boss,” said the Redbone. “What you got?”
“I think I found Dr. Cage.”
“Where is he?”
“His lawyer owns a house in Jefferson County, Mississippi, near Fayette. It’s way out in the woods. I think he’s there. Deploy the Black Team.”
“What’s the mission? Snatch or terminate?”
“I’ll call you back. Just get ’em in the air and headed north.”
TOM HAD SPENT MOST of the afternoon and evening sleeping. He rested a lot better with Melba Price watching him. The knowledge that his nurse was awake and alert meant that he didn’t have to start at every unfamiliar noise, of which there were many in Quentin’s mansion. After enough sleep, a good meal of bacon, eggs, and toast, and a generous regimen of various drugs, he’d begun feeling human again. Melba had even gotten him off the couch to make several circuits of the house. Thankfully, he managed this without getting angina, and his shoulder pain had been dulled to an endurable throb.
After they settled themselves on the living room couch again, Tom had told Melba she needed to think about heading back to Natchez. She’d done more than he had any right to ask of her, and he assured her that he was feeling better. But Melba wouldn’t hear any talk of leaving. She’d abandoned him the night before, she said, and he’d nearly died because of it. Tom pointed out that she might have been killed at Drew’s lake house as easily as he when the gunmen arrived. But Melba argued that the killers never would have sneaked up on Tom while she was there to keep watch.
After a few minutes, he took a rest from trying to persuade her and clicked on his current burn phone to see whether Walt had sent him any further messages.
There were none.
Melba got up and made a trip around the darkened interior of the house, peering out of each window until her eyes adjusted and she felt confident that no one was outside. Tom appreciated her effort, but Caitlin’s earlier visit by car proved just how quickly someone could appear at one of the doors. If Knox’s people showed up to storm the place, there’d be nothing he or Melba could do to stop them.
“Why won’t you leave, Mel?” he asked, after she’d returned to the sofa. “At a certain point, loyalty becomes foolish. Your first loyalty has to be to yourself.”
His nurse smiled wistfully. “A minute ago,” she said, “I probably couldn’t have told you why. But when you asked me just now, I realized the answer.”
“Will you tell me?”
“Back when Roderick left me—for that girl—and I sunk so low that I was just a shadow of myself . . . when I was drinking so much and thinking crazy thoughts . . . Do you remember that?”
“I remember.”
“That night you came to my house to keep me from doing something stupid? And I threw myself at you?”
“Oh, Mel, no you didn’t.”
She looked up sharply. “Hush. You know I did. We never talked about it after, but I never forgot it.”
“Mel—”
“Would you let me say my piece?” She folded her hands together and stared off into space, as though looking deep into the past. “Lord, that was back when I still looked good, and you were young enough to do something about it.”
Tom’s shoulder throbbed when he laughed, but he couldn’t help himself. “Those days are long gone, I’m afraid.”
“For you and me both, baby.”
“You’ve got some good living left, Mel.”
“Just be quiet, old man. That night, when I let you know you could have whatever you wanted . . . you were nothing but a gentleman. I don’t think many men would have walked away from me in that state, to tell you the truth. But you did.”
Tom recalled the night with perfect clarity. Melba had been a very attractive woman then. But her most alluring quality—to him—was that she’d reminded him of Viola. When she unbuttoned her robe and walked to him, trying to kiss him, for the briefest moment he’d relived the feeling of falling into Viola’s embrace. But then he’d smelled the reek of gin, and the memory evaporated.
“That wasn’t what you needed,” he said.
“I know. But I thought it was.” Melba reached out and laid a warm hand on his arm. “I knew about Viola even then. From what the older nurses had said. I think I wanted you to love me the way you loved her.”
Tom wanted to comfort her, but Melba raised her hand to keep him silent. “I don’t think you ever loved anybody like you did Viola. And I say that with all the respect in the world for Mrs. Cage.”