Darren tasted blood in the corner of his mouth.

He licked at it, a coppery bloom on his tongue.

He threw his hands up in a show of surrender, but his mind was already out of the room, already halfway to the hospital up Highway 59, where he had to see Leroy Page. “You said if Leroy doesn’t sign the sale papers, he goes to prison. Just tell me how, help me understand, and I’ll go. Why did you say that?”

“Because we had a deal.”

23.

23.

ROSEMARY AND Leroy had cut a deal, but it wasn’t working out for either of them. She wanted her casino and her son out of prison; he wanted Margaret Goodfellow and her family members to have secure rights to the land.

And someone, Darren believed, had gotten caught in the middle.

When he arrived outside Mr. Page’s room at the Marion County Hospital, Greg was stationed out front, sitting on a chair and using a rolling tray from another room as a makeshift desk. There were other agents here too, as well as the deputies who were present during the arrest. One of them was eating a package of Chuckles from the vending machine. The other was playing Candy Crush on his phone. It was Greg who stood when he saw Darren, who actually put his body before the door when Darren tried to enter. Through the small window in the door, he could see the old man still cuffed to the bed, Erika by his side, looking more wilted than before, dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

“You can’t go in there,” Greg said. He looked at Darren with a pose of great, federally backed authority, but really it was just two friends staring at each other, one of whom suspected the other of having slept with his wife. Greg felt the accusation. It sat on the air like a lead weight, the two men’s pointed avoidance of it the only thing keeping it from dropping hard at their feet.

“I have to talk to him. We may not have a lot of time.”

“He’s in a coma.” Greg gave Darren a gentle shove back. “No one but family right now. I can’t let you in there, man,” he said. Then, seeing the frantic look on Darren’s face, he added, “What the hell is happening, Darren? Quinn said you were going on about some missing woman, somebody you saw with Sandler Gaines.”

“It has to do with the sale. This whole thing is about the sale.”

“What do you mean?”

“The boy is still alive.” It wasn’t until he said it out loud that he knew it was true.

Greg looked around at the other agents and lawmen, and then, as if embarrassed for Darren in some way, he whispered, “Are you high?”