“I won’t turn down FBI agents, but if you’re going to protect Sonny, you need to keep questioning the other Double Eagles.”
“I know. I intend to. But I’m going to try to expedite some air assets down there. I’ll also call ahead and inform the Highway Patrol you’re going to be coming through, but don’t kill yourself.”
“Oh, Lord,” my mother intones. “There must be some other way.”
“Daddy, is Caitlin really in trouble?”
I clench my daughter in a tight hug. “She’s just exploring in the woods, babe. She’s fine, but I want to make sure she doesn’t get lost. I’m going to find her. You take care of Gram while I’m gone.” Reaching to my right, I squeeze Kirk Boisseau’s hand.
The marine shakes his head and says, “You don’t think I’m staying here, do you?”
“Hell, yes. You’ve done enough for one day.”
“You need to get to an ER,” Kaiser tells him. “And don’t worry about the Cage ladies. They’re going to have a steel curtain around them.”
Before Kirk can argue, Kaiser’s cell phone rings, and he answers with such authority in his voice that everyone falls silent. I give him a quick salute and start to move past him, but he grabs my arm and holds me in place. When I try to pull away, he tightens his grip, forcing me to look into his face, which has gone pale.
“Forget that,” he says sharply. “Forget the bombs, forget the crowd, forget everything. Get into that cellblock and get Sonny Thornfield out of there.”
Bombs?
“I don’t give a damn about an escape! Get Thornfield secured!”
“What happened?” I ask, after he slaps the phone against his thigh.
“Some kind of explosive attack on the courthouse. And since the courthouse is attached to the sheriff’s department, they had to evacuate it. I’ve got to get over there.”
“What in God’s name is going on?” my mother asks.
Kaiser drops my arm. “Call me from the road, Penn. Let me know what you need.”
“I will.”
After giving Annie and Mom a final hug, I sprint toward the police barricade, speed-dialing Carl Sims on the way.
WALT HAD FINALLY MASTERED the art of driving with his left hand while monitoring the GPS tracker that he held in his right. He’d followed Forrest and Ozan along Highway 61 as it wound through the pine and hardwood forests between Natchez and Woodville, then watched them turn east toward Athens Point. When the cruiser passed the turn to Valhalla without slowing, Walt feared the worst. His secret hope had been that Tom had been moved from Sonny’s Old River fishing cabin to the hunting camp. But if Knox and Ozan weren’t stopping . . . then he was probably elsewhere.
The next time Walt looked down at the tracking screen, he did a double take. The cruiser had turned east off Highway 61 on a road about two miles past the turn to Valhalla. Maybe it led to some other destination on the camp property? He felt a fillip of excitement in his chest, but also concern. They might be nearing some hiding place unknown to anyone. In a matter of minutes, he might have to decide whether to try to rescue Tom himself or call for backup and hope for the best.
Walt made up his mind then and there that if the pair led him to Tom, he would go in with his pistol-grip Benelli shotgun and finish them once and for all. The time for talking was done. It was kill or be killed.
The question was, would he even get that chance?
THE GERMAN AUDI S4 can do 180 miles per hour, but my American version is computer-limited to 135. Despite a lightly falling rain, I’ve hit the maximum several times during the past ten minutes, especially on the long stretch where Highway 61 climbs from Adams County into Wilkinson. I’ve spent much of the drive on the phone.
Carl Sims quickly located Terry Foreman at the Crossroads Café. Reviewing the security footage there, Carl found video recordings of Caitlin speaking to a young black man inside the café, then getting into his truck in the parking lot. A Cajun pirogue was clearly visible in the back of his truck. A teenager eating in the café identified the black driver as Harold Wallis, a local fisherman, poacher, and sometime drug dealer. Carl told me that Caitlin didn’t look as though she was under duress at any point on the tape.
Carl also told me that Danny McDavitt was ready to do anything he could to help me locate Caitlin, but that Sheriff Ellis hadn’t yet okayed the use of his chopper. If the sheriff stalled much longer, McDavitt would take me over the swamp in his own fixed-wing plane.
I’ve tried to call Caitlin several times from the road, but she hasn’t answered once. As I roar past the private prison north of Woodville, Mississippi, my cell phone rings again. My heart leaps, but it’s only Kaiser again.
“What have you got?” I ask.
“Sonny Thornfield’s dead.”
“No. How?”
“They got him in his cell. Someone opened the cells during the mandatory evacuation. There goes our star witness.”
“Jesus, John.” I don’t remind him of my warnings that the extra time he took with Thornfield would put his life in jeopardy.
“Oh, and the meth Dennis planted was stolen from the evidence room during the alarm.”
Yet again, the Knox family is two steps ahead of us. “Was it obviously murder?”
“No. It looks like a heart attack, but I know better. At least one of Dennis’s deputies had to be involved, but that’s no surprise. We’ve got real trouble in this parish.”
That’s probably how Snake or Forrest learned of our special interrogation.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Kaiser. “I still need your help, though.”
“Tell me.”
“I need the Lusahatcha County helicopter in the air and searching for the truck Caitlin left that gas station in. Carl says the sheriff down there hasn’t okayed it, and he may have ties to the Knox family. I’m not saying he’s dirty, but he’s definitely hunted out at Valhalla. He might be as obstructive as he can about us searching that land.”
“I’ll take care of it.”