“Fuck the basket! Danny’s practically on the surface. I’ll carry her. You get your old man. He’s bigger.”
As Carl turns to the hovering chopper and waves Danny still lower, I run to my father and grab him beneath the arms. Struggling with his heavy bulk, I see Carl drag Caitlin away from the Bone Tree, lift her slim body over his shoulders, and charge into the blast of spray coming off the water. Replaying the scene in Brody’s basement two nights ago, I drop to my knees and heave my father’s body over my shoulder, then march down into the black water while Danny’s screaming rotors smash bone-thick branches off the towering tree above me.
CHAPTER 72
WALT HAD KEPT nearly a mile between himself and Forrest’s cruiser as he followed his quarry southward. The GPS tracker allowed him that luxury. He prayed that Knox and Ozan were driving to wherever Tom was being held. If they weren’t, then Forrest might already have given the kill order, and Tom could be dead or dying at this moment.
For the thousandth time Walt cursed Mackiever for not bugging Knox’s car, but there was nothing to be done now. All he could do was follow Knox and the Redbone to wherever they were bound. The cruiser was following a roundabout back road that looked as though it might lead around the Lusahatcha Swamp, toward the Mississippi River. Walt couldn’t actually see any water, but he could smell it. When you lived in a dry state like Texas, you got to where you could smell rain from a hundred miles off.
When he slowed Drew’s pickup to soften the sickening drop of a pothole, the guns in the bag on the floor behind him made a reassuring clank. Thinking himself at the end of this empty, winding road, Walt visualized various scenarios. No matter what odds he confronted, he could not hesitate to fire, as he’d done back at the Bouchard lake house. In fact, he decided, he would shoot the bastards in the back if he got the chance. Kidnapping was a felony, after all.
I ain’t proud today, he thought. Or particular.
FORREST KNOX LEANED AGAINST the side of his cruiser and watched the pirogue glide toward him out of the cypress trees. Ozan looked back from the water’s edge and gave him a thumbs-up sign. If the boy in the boat had done as instructed, then Caitlin Masters was no longer a problem.
Forrest had parked his cruiser right beside the boy’s junk pickup truck. He left his engine running, so he couldn’t hear the hum of the trolling motor as the pirogue neared the shore. Harold Wallis raised his left hand and waved. Ozan waved back. As Wallis cut his motor and drifted toward them, Forrest could see the kid was surprised to find them waiting for him.
“Hey there, Colonel!” Wallis called. “I didn’t expect to see ya’ll out here.”
The pirogue’s bow bumped the shore.
“I guess you didn’t,” Ozan said, “since you didn’t call us back.”
Harold opened his mouth but no answer emerged.
Forrest took a couple of steps toward the water’s edge. It surprised him that a drug courier like this boy couldn’t sense the danger in what he had done.
“That was a big job you did for us, Harold,” he said. “We want you to know we appreciate it.”
The boy relaxed a little, but he didn’t move to get out of the boat.
“What about the girl?” Ozan asked. “She dead?”
Harold ducked his head with an exaggerated nod. “Yes, sir. She gone. Long gone.”
“How many times did you shoot her?”
Wallis’s eyes flicked back and forth. “Oh, three, fo’ times. Right in the chest. She died inside the tree.”
“You checked to be sure?”
“Yes, sir. She bled to death right there.”
Ozan had taken a step closer to the water. “What’sa matter with your arm? Is that blood on it?”
Wallis shook his head quickly. A stupid lie.
“Did she shoot you?” Ozan asked.
“It ain’t nothin’, Captain. She winged me after the first couple of shots. But I finished her off good.”
The kid was definitely lying, Forrest decided. He’d shot her, all right, but he hadn’t stuck around to watch her bleed out.
“It’s too bad she had to die,” Forrest said. “She was a hell of a pretty girl, wasn’t she?”
The boy looked at the bottom of his boat. “Yes, sir.”
“Did you think about fucking her? As a little bonus?”
Wallis shook his head. “No, sir. I just done my business, so my brother could get out of Angola.” He looked up at last, clearly frightened. “You gonna take care of that next month, Colonel? Like the captain said?”
“Absolutely,” Forrest said. “Least I can do, after what you did today.”
The boy’s face was still troubled. “That lady told me she was pregnant, Colonel. She was lyin’, right?”
Why would Masters tell the kid that? Forrest wondered. She must have figured that killing a pregnant woman might move a simple young man to mercy. A smart play, considering the softness of this kid. She’d probably been lying, of course, but they’d never know, because no one would ever find her body and perform an autopsy.
“Sure she was lying,” Forrest said. “She was trying to play you, Harold. Play on your sympathy. She sensed you’re a good boy.”
Wallis didn’t look convinced. “It’s wrong to kill a doe that’s carryin’, Colonel. Every hunter knows that.”
“Let me help you out of there, kid,” Ozan said, reaching out his left hand.
“I’m good,” Harold said. “You men got important things to do, I know. I can pull the boat out and load it. I do it dern near every day.”
“No, it’s no problem,” Ozan said, his hand still extended.