Nathan kept a close eye on their captive as Grangeland tucked him into the backseat of the Crown Vic and closed the door. Ernie seemed subdued during all of this. Maybe it was shock or the false news about his brother’s capture. More likely, it was the reality of his fate sinking in. He was headed back to prison, only this time to death row. Depending on how cooperative he was on their trip up north to Montana, Nathan might give him an alternative to the living hell awaiting him.

Nathan reluctantly agreed to let Grangeland look at his wounds. He shucked off Ferris’s coat and held out his arm. Once again holding the penlight in her mouth, she pulled on a fresh pair of gloves. When the beam swept across his chest, she frowned at seeing the network of crisscrossing scars. She obviously hadn’t noticed them earlier, when the truck stop went up in flames.

He winked at her. “I lost a bet.”

“Must’ve been some bet.”

“It was.” He let her remove the blood-soaked shirt and apply a dozen wraps of gauze around the torn flesh and secure it with tape.

“Better let me see that leg.”

He put his foot on the lip of the open trunk and pulled his soaked fatigue up.

“Did you have a knife like Harvey’s?” she asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“Take a look.” She shined the penlight on the wound.

“I’ll be damned,” he said. The knife was gone, but sheath was still there. The bullet must’ve hit the knife and broken it free before fragmenting outward, shredding the flesh with shrapnel. All the bleeding had been from lacerated skin, not a bullet hole. “Luck favors the well-prepared,” he said. After Grangeland removed the sheath and wrapped the wound, he turned toward Harv. “Let’s take a quick walk. Grangeland, you’ve got Bridgestone. I need you to relay this position to your team at the truck stop so they can retrieve the Semtex from the back of the SUV.”

“No problem,” she said.

They walked a good fifty feet down the road.

“Based on what Ernie told us, I figure Leonard’s got a six-hour head start on us,” Nathan said. “We should assume seven. That has him arriving at the money drop in Montana by three in the afternoon tomorrow at the earliest. I can’t see him driving up there any faster than that. He’ll drive the speed limit to avoid being pulled over. Whatever disguise he’s using, it’s probably good enough to fool the average law-enforcement officer. Colored contacts, facial hair, whatever. He’ll have fake IDs too. We should assume he’ll make it up to the drop. I’ve driven through that area of I-fifteen, it’s remote. You could drive for hundreds of miles without seeing a state trooper.”

“You’re thinking he’ll drive straight through?”