They’re lying, Tom thought. Melba’s dead.
He jerked as the boy medic probed flesh that was not quite numb. Then his stomach rolled as the chopper began to descend rapidly. He wanted to ask the boy a question, but it kept drifting out of his head, like a flashlight fading into darkness. Then all was night once more.
“IS MELBA ALIVE OR DEAD?”
“Does it matter what I say? You won’t believe me either way.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“She’s fine, Doc. They just darted her, same as they did you.”
Hope flamed in Tom’s chest, but he tamped it down, wary of being manipulated.
VOICES IN THE DARK.
One more powerful than the others . . . An officer being deferred to by noncoms and enlisted men.
This time Tom kept his eyes closed.
“What’s his status?” asked the officer’s voice.
“He needs to be in a hospital, Colonel. No shit. We’re lucky that dart didn’t stop his heart.”
“What about his bullet wound?”
“I pumped him full of antibiotics. If his heart doesn’t give out, he should be okay for a couple of days. But he’s also diabetic. Somebody needs to be checking his sugar regularly.”
“For the next twelve hours, that’s your job. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Give me a minute with him. Then we’ll move him out of the chopper.”
There was a shuffle of boots on metal, and then someone squatted on his haunches beside Tom. Tom heard the knees creak.
“Hey, Doc,” said the officer. “You can quit playing possum. I got your message. If you want to make a deal, open your eyes.”
Tom did.
He saw a dark, intense face and a deformed ear that barely qualified as one at all, in the cosmetic sense. Beneath the face he saw a lieutenant colonel’s oak leaves on the epaulettes of a state trooper’s uniform. The uniform threw Tom back to the borrow pits, and Walt killing the trooper beside the van.
“Do you know who I am?” asked the man.
“I don’t recognize you. But I’m guessing you’re Frank Knox’s son.”
The trooper smiled. “That’s right. Forrest Knox.”
“What happened to the ear? War wound?”
Knox looked almost pleased by Tom’s frankness. “Lost it in the Vietnamese Highlands.”
“You didn’t want to fix it?”
Knox shrugged. “I like keeping the civilians off balance. You know?”
Tom didn’t answer. He knew the type all too well.
“So, you want to make a deal,” Forrest said.
“That’s right.”
“You offering to guarantee I stay squeaky clean if I can get you out of hot water on this cop killing? Is that about it?”
“Not just that. I want you to close the Viola Turner murder, too.”
Forrest nodded as though intrigued. “I suppose you didn’t kill her?”
“That no longer matters. The only question now is who gets blamed for it.”
Forrest smiled. “You have a suggestion?”
“I say blame the dead. Easiest for everybody.”
Now Knox grinned. “A man after my own heart. I like that plan, Doc.”
“So what do you think?”
Knox shifted his weight onto his haunches. “I think I need to get in touch with your son. The problem is, I can’t find him.”
“I don’t know where he is,” Tom said. “And vice versa. Safer that way.”
“Maybe up till now. But the thing is, Doc, while I trust your motives—and your follow-through, up to a point—your word doesn’t mean a damn thing if you can’t call off your son and his fiancée at the newspaper. Right?”
“I can do that. I talked to Caitlin tonight.”
“And she said she’ll drop the story?”
Tom tried to hold his facial expression neutral. “She’s open to it. I think Penn and I together can persuade her.”
“I hope so, Doc. For your sake.” Forrest leaned down over him, his gaze disturbingly intimate. “My daddy always liked you, Doc. He respected what you did in Korea. Do you remember him?”
Tom let himself think back to the early sixties. “I remember Frank, all right.”
“Nothing good to say, though? Even now?”
“We were more different than alike.”
Forrest grinned again. “No doubt about that.” He raised his hand and tapped his forefinger hard on Tom’s forehead. “I’d hate to have to hurt you, Doc. I really would. I remember you giving me my football physicals back in the day. But if you and your boy can’t straighten out that Masters cunt before she goes too far . . . she’s gonna pull the same train Viola Turner did back in ’68. Only she won’t come out of it alive.”
While Tom tried to suppress his memory of Viola’s wrecked state after those events, Knox signaled through the chopper’s wide hatch. “Let’s get him out!”
Three masked SWAT team members clambered through the hatch. Forrest moved aside so they could slide Tom onto a stretcher. They lifted him easily, then manhandled him through the door and out under the starry sky.
Tom smelled the stink of old crude oil and the sticky mud some men called gumbo. Turning his head to the right, he saw the long black arm of a pumping unit rising and falling like a black bird drinking from a puddle, the cyclic hum of its engine strangely comforting in the dark.
“Oil field,” he murmured, as the men carried him through the night.
“Yep,” Forrest said from above him. “Brody Royal owned this land, but he won’t have much use for it now. There’s an old well-checker’s shack through the trees. I was going to leave you there, but considering your present condition, I think we’ll give you the better alternative.”
Tom followed Knox’s pointing hand.
Parked in the dark about forty yards from the well was Walt Garrity’s silver Roadtrek van. They must have sent someone to collect it from Drew’s lake house garage.
“Where’s Walt?” Tom asked.
“I was hoping you could tell me that.”
Tom shook his head. “I lost touch with him a long time ago.”