Peggy closed her eyes and thought of Tom running through the night. Every fiber of her heart urged her to stand, take Penn in her arms, and do all she could to make him understand the true stakes of their situation. But she had sworn to Tom not to reveal her knowledge without his permission, not even to save his life. She hadn’t wanted to make that promise, but she had. Earlier she’d considered breaking her oath, but now, with Penn like this . . . she knew Tom had been right.
“I can’t help you,” she said simply. “I wish I could, but your father is the only one who knows what really happened back in those dark days.”
“I’m not talking about the old days,” Penn said, his eyes leveled at her.
Peggy’s heart fluttered with fear. After taking a slow breath, she folded her hands together and spoke with absolute conviction. “Son, the violence that exploded this week was like the bombs the work crews used to find in Germany when they worked on the streets after the war. It’s been waiting in this ground ever since the sixties, rusting away. Sooner or later, somebody was going to sink a shovel into the wrong place. That was Henry Sexton. And once he shoveled out enough dirt . . . nothing was going to stop the explosion.”
Penn shook his head, his eyes unmerciful. “That’s not what happened, Mom. Henry had been digging around that bomb for years and it never went off. It was Viola Turner who triggered it. And why? Why did she come home? To die? Maybe. More likely, it was to make Dad—”
“Stop!” Peggy hissed, and a door slammed shut in her mind. “I won’t listen to that kind of talk. Even if you’re right, I don’t care to discuss it.”
“Mom, we have to—”
She shook her head and looked resolutely down at Annie’s face. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. If we do.”
“If we’re not going to discuss that, why are we even talking?”
Peggy took another deep breath, then slowly exhaled. “I know there’s a pistol in your bag. What are you planning to do with it?”
He looked over at the suede pouch. “I’m not going to hurt myself, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“It’s not. I’m worried you’ll try to hurt someone else with it. Because of what happened to Caitlin.”
Penn shrugged angrily. “I don’t know who killed her.”
Peggy gave him a long look.
“Mom, I’ve been carrying that gun since Monday. None of us has any business leaving this house unarmed.”
“None of us has any business leaving this house period. Not tonight. And especially you. Your daughter needs you.”
Penn walked up and stood over Annie, looking down with a mixture of love and grief in his eyes. “Where’s Dad, Mom?”
“Dear God, son. If I knew, I would tell you. Don’t you know that?”
Penn looked over at her then, his eyes more lost than she could ever remember. “I don’t,” he said. “That’s what all this has done to us. What Dad has done to us. And now Caitlin’s dead.” He started to continue, then checked himself. His mouth opened and closed as though he were testing the function of his jaw.
Thank God, Peggy thought, seeing confusion in his eyes. The drug is finally working.
“Tom still might not know what’s happened to Caitlin,” she thought aloud. “He could be lying unconscious beside a road somewhere. He could have been kidnapped from that hospital.”
Penn made a contemptuous sound and flipped his hand in the air. “The security cameras filmed him walking out. He put on a doctor’s coat and . . . sneaked out.”
Penn sounded like Tom after four or five whiskeys. Peggy started to worry that he might hurt himself if he simply passed out.
“Why don’t you sit down? You’re exhausted.”
“Dad knows what happened, all right. Earlier today Walt and I were working together. He was glad to take my calls. But now . . . he won’t answer. That tells me he’s hooked up with Dad again.”
“I hope that’s true! I just pray they’re not dead in a ditch somewhere.”
A snort of laughter came from Penn’s nose. “No chance of that,” he slurred. “If those two get killed in this mess, they’ll be the last to die. No . . . he and Walt are sitting pretty somewhere . . . playing whatever game they’ve been playing from the start. Unless Walt doesn’t know the game either. He might be just like the rest of them, acting out of blind loyalty to a man who doesn’t exist . . . who never really did. Like Drew, Melba, even Caitlin. And . . .”
“And what?”
Penn shook his head. “I forgot what I was saying. I was thinking about the bone creek.”
“You mean the Bone Tree?”
“That’s what I said.”
Penn looked at the floor and shook his head like some despairing drunk. “I had to call her father,” he said, wavering on his feet. “Did I tell you that? I called the estimable Mr. John Masters to tell him his daughter had been murdered.”
“I know that was hard.”
Penn’s glassy eyes found hers again. “Do you know what he said to me? What the great John Masters said to me . . . after I told him I’d let his favorite daughter get killed?”
Peggy shook her head.
Penn opened his mouth but no sound emerged. She was about to slide Annie’s head from her lap when he turned in place and fell across the club chair beside his desk.
He was out.
As carefully as she could, Peggy reached into her pocket, took out her cell phone, and dialed Drew Elliott’s home number.
After three rings, a reassuring voice said, “Dr. Elliott.”
“Drew, this is Peggy Cage.”
“Oh, Peggy. I’m so sorry about Caitlin. Is everything all right over there? Can I do anything to help?”
“Actually . . . you can. Penn isn’t handling Caitlin’s passing very well. I slipped him three of my sleeping pills and got him down, but it’s going to take more than that to keep him asleep until morning. I’m worried he’s going to wake up in the middle of the night and go hunting for someone.”
“Okay. I’ll be right over.”
“Thank you, Drew. We’re in the basement.”
“Have you had any word from Tom?”
“No. Have you?”
“I’m afraid not. But sit tight. I’m on my way.”
“Bring something strong, Drew. Penn’s just like his father. It’s not easy to get him angry, but once he is, there’s no stopping him.”
CHAPTER 77