“Got it. What about Garrity?”
The specter of Walt Garrity allied with Griffith Mackiever rose to the forefront of Forrest’s mind. “If they find Garrity alone, they should waste him. We’ll pin Deke Dunn’s death on him, and that’ll clear the books, freeing us to cut a deal with Dr. Cage. The doc will just have to live with Garrity’s death as the price of his freedom.”
Ozan seemed to like this solution. “And Snake? When he finally reads what’s in the Examiner in the morning—and he will, the online version—he’ll be ready to kill that Masters bitch, just like you said.”
“Leave Snake to me. I’ll tell him we’re going to take everybody out, but he needs to stay in Texas while we do it. Then if I change my mind, I’ll tell him we couldn’t bring it off, and we need him to do the wet work.”
At last Ozan seemed satisfied.
“Now, find me Tom Cage.”
“It can’t be that goddamn hard,” Ozan declared. “Especially with him and Garrity split up. He’s got to still be in Louisiana, probably within twenty miles of where he dumped Floyd. There’s no way he crossed the Mississippi River. We’ve got roadblocks at every bridge, and even a cruiser at the St. Francisville ferry, in case he thinks it’s still running.”
Forrest wasn’t so sure. “He’s proved to be a resourceful son of a bitch, Alphonse. If we don’t find him in the next two hours, we might need to pull that APB on him and just leave it on Garrity.”
“You think that’ll bring him out of the woods?”
“Who knows? For now, put every man you can into LaSalle, Catahoula, Franklin, and Tensas parishes. Check out the wife’s relatives’ houses. And keep the tech division going back over all electronic communications of Dr. Cage, his family, his partners, everybody. If there’s a deal to be made, we’ve got to do it quick. Otherwise, we turn Snake loose and get ready for the Sam Peckinpah ending.”
“The what?” Ozan asked.
“Nothing. Get to it, Captain.”
As the Redbone left the study, Forrest reflected on the irony that he could probably have a more enjoyable conversation with Tom Cage than with any of the men he worked with every day. That included his cousin Billy, who was a serious reader, at least by Knox family standards. Once more Forrest thought about his father and Dr. Cage joking around while the doc gave him his football physical. Then he banished the thought. For at bottom, he felt strangely sure that before another day had come and gone, he would have to kill Tom Cage, either with his own hands or by sending other men to do his will.
CHAPTER 16
I’M STANDING IN the third-floor bedroom of Edelweiss, the historic house I bought for Caitlin as a wedding present, looking down at my daughter’s sleeping face. There’s just enough light leaking through the cypress shutters to illuminate Annie’s profile against her pillow. I’ve done this hundreds of times in my life. The nights I remember most were those after Annie’s mother was diagnosed with cancer—immediately after getting the news, of course, and then later, after her treatments had failed, and hope failed with them. On those desolate nights, I stared down at my three-year-old daughter and shivered in the strangling grip of mortality, forced to accept that all my hope, faith, strength, intelligence, friends, and money could not even slow the progression of the disease that would take Annie’s mother from her and leave me to do a job for which I felt completely unprepared.
Now, eight years later, having brought Annie through that most terrible of traumas, I feel almost as helpless as I was then. Only this time it’s not an illness I’m fighting, but my father. The man who guided me through most of my life has vanished, leaving chaos and death in his wake, and I am all but powerless to save him. For now, I must focus on protecting the rest of our family. Thinking back on what Kaiser told me about the lethality of Forrest Knox, I’m thankful for this German chalet perched on the bluff above Silver Street and the Mississippi River. Whenever possible, hide in plain sight, a wise friend once advised me. Since I kept this purchase secret from everyone but my mother, it has proved to be a serviceable safe house. How strange it is to remember that if Viola Turner hadn’t died early Monday morning, I would be giving Caitlin a key to Edelweiss next Friday—probably with a huge ribbon and bow tied around the massive doors. Now I have no idea when we might be married. In the meantime, my mother and daughter hide here like witnesses in a Mafia trial.