In the bedroom, the man turned on a light. He was no one Petoskey recognized—tall and white, with gray-flecked dark hair. His gun had one of those extensions on it, a silencer, if the ones on TV were any indication.

“Pack a bag,” he said. “Don’t leave anything out. Clothes, wallet, passport, whatever you need for a long trip.”

Petoskey didn’t hesitate, but a whole new raft of questions floated into his crowded mind as he started to pack. Where was he going? What kind of long trip? And how could he possibly convince anyone of the truth, that he’d never had any intention of telling a soul what he knew?

One thing at a time, Petoskey. Clothes, wallet, passport…

“Now get in the bathroom,” the man told him. “Pack everything you’ll need in there.”

Right, he thought, clinging to the task at hand. Don’t leave anything out. Toothbrush, toothpaste, shaver… condoms? Sure. Why not be positive?

The master bath was tiny, with barely enough room to stand between the pedestal sink, toilet, and shower.

Petoskey opened the medicine cabinet, but then he felt another poke between his shoulder blades.

“Get in the tub and lie down, little man.”

It made no sense, but nothing did right now. Was he going to be tied up in the tub? Robbed? Left behind after all?

“No,” the man said. “The other way, with your head down by the drain.”

And suddenly it all became horribly clear. For the first time, Petoskey screamed—and he heard just how tiny his voice was from behind the tape. This was it. This was really it. Tonight, he disappeared forever.

He knew too much—the famous names, all their dirty secrets.

Chapter 79

I HAD FEWER and fewer people I could talk to about this murder case anymore. Lucky for me, Nana was still one of them.

For a few days, I’d been holding back on her. Somehow it seemed wrong to bring the extra stress into her room at the hospital. But as the days had passed, and these visits of mine turned into their own kind of normal, I started to realize something. If Nana were awake through all of this, she would have been asking about Caroline’s case every day. No doubt about it in my mind.

So I didn’t hold back anymore.

“It’s not going well, old woman. Caroline’s murder case,” I told her that night. “I’m overwhelmed, to be honest. I’ve never been in a position like this before. Not that I can remember, anyway.

“Ramon Davies is ready to take me off. The Bureau was going at it full clip, and now I don’t even know where they are on it. I’ve got the White House breathing down my neck, if you can believe that. Believe it.

“And these are supposed to be the good guys, Nana. I don’t know. It’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference anymore. It’s like somebody said: You can love this country and hate our government.”