Caitlin moaned. She felt as though a strong man were pressing down on her breastbone.
“Colonel Forrest, he’s connected all over this state. Even up in Washington. That’s how it’s always been down here. My granddaddy told me that. Forrest’s daddy was just like him. He kept all the niggers round here in line for the Man.”
She wanted to speak, but her lungs felt like they’d shrunk to a quarter of their normal size. Maybe it’s panic, she thought.
“You still awake?” Harold called.
When she didn’t reply, he said, “Come on, now. Don’t play games with me.”
A terrifying thought came to her. “Harold, please,” she gasped. “I’m pregnant.”
The boy said nothing to this. Had she struck a chord of compassion?
“I just found out. I was . . . supposed to be getting married next week, and . . . I’m already pregnant. If you let me die here, you’re killing my baby, too.”
After a long silence, a spooked whisper said, “You’re lying.”
“I’m not,” Caitlin sobbed. “I wouldn’t lie about that.”
“Women lie about being with child all the time.”
“Oh, God,” she croaked. “Why don’t you just . . . fucking get it over with?”
“ ’Cause I know you’ve got more bullets. It’ll be over soon enough.”
She wondered why Harold had only shot her once. He must be worried about attracting attention, in case there were still deputies in the swamp. Honest deputies like Carl Sims. Harold had been genuinely frightened by the sounds of the boat motors during the trip in.
With desperate effort, Caitlin raised her pistol, then shut her eyes and fired two shots at the crack of light. Then she opened her eyes and watched for the slightest movement at the edge of the fissure.
A shadow deepened at the right edge of the crack.
She fired.
Harold cried out in pain, then screamed in fury.
Caitlin gritted her teeth and scooted about three feet to her left. Seconds later, the barrel of the .22 rifle appeared in the crack and orange flame shot from it. The impacting rounds knocked stinging wood chips into her face, but at least no lead struck her.
“Fuck you!” she yelled, and fired another round. “You missed!”
One shot left.
She waited for the barrel to appear again, but it didn’t. Twenty seconds later, she heard the trolling motor start up. Panic shot through her like a jolt of electric current. She tried to roll sideways and crawl across the dirt floor, but it was useless. Before she’d made it two feet, she heard the hum of the motor fading. Ten seconds later, all was silent.
But not for long. For some reason her ears began ringing, making a harsh sound like her junior-high-school bell, only this bell wouldn’t stop. She drew all the breath she could into her lungs, then slowly, agonizingly, forced herself back into a sitting position. She only managed it because the earth humped against the wall helped her get herself out of a prone position.
Taking the flashlight in her hand, she shone it around once more in hopes of finding something that might somehow help her. This time she played the beam around the seam where the trunk legs met the earth, where dirt and other organic matter had been mounded up in the darkest part of the cave. As the beam came closer to her, she realized that the mound she had clung to as she pulled herself up was not all made of earth.
It was human.
There was a body lying facedown against the wall of the tree. Whoever that person was, they had to be dead. He or she had not stirred during the gunfight, and that could mean only one thing.
Knowing she was probably only minutes from death herself, Caitlin let her body fall sideways, then used her elbows to crawl close enough to the head to shine her light on it. The hair was gray and white. She steeled herself against her fear, then held the flashlight closer with her left hand, took hold of the hair with her right, and pulled the head as far back as she could. The moment the beam fell on the face, she recognized what would have been—but now would never be—her father-in-law.
Tom Cage.
HIGHWAY 24 IS A serpentine track of asphalt cut through deep, encroaching woods and bordered by eleven-foot game fences. With the leaden sky above and no other cars in sight, it feels like I’m driving through some Central European country during the darkest days of the Cold War. But somewhere between the tiny hamlet of Lessley and Lake Mary, the Lusahatcha County Sheriff’s Department JetRanger swoops out of the sky ahead and drops toward the wet asphalt like a gunship on a strafing run.
I brake as hard as I dare, and finally skid to a stop mere yards from where Danny McDavitt has flared the helicopter to land. Grabbing my pistol from my glove box, I shove it into my belt, then snatch up my cell phone, leap from the car, and run to the chopper as it settles onto the road.
Carl pulls me through the side hatch and starts strapping a four-point harness over my chest.
“Any signs of Caitlin’s cell signal?” I ask.
The deputy points to the headset muffling his ears, then slaps an identical one over my head.
“What’d you say?” he asks, working at my harness buckles.
“Have you seen any sign of Caitlin’s cell signal?”
“Not yet.”
“Kaiser called. The last tower her phone pinged was four miles west of here. I don’t think she’s far away.”
“Yeah, well. I don’t want to bring you down, but you haven’t seen that swamp yet.” Carl slaps my chest, then gives McDavitt a thumbs-up.
“You secure, Mayor?” asks the pilot.
“Go!” I shout. “Get her up!”
The JetRanger rises slowly at first, but then its nose tips forward and we beat our way into the dark sky like a mother hawk in search of a lost fledgling.
CHAPTER 70