Quentin shrugs. “I’m past being surprised by anything. I don’t see that it affects our case at all.”

“Our case?”

The old lawyer makes a clucking sound with his tongue. “Come on, Penn. Aren’t you starting to see a little method in my madness?”

“Too little, too late. That’s what I see. You haven’t even dented Shad’s forensic case.”

“Everything in time.”

“Do you think there could really be a bomb?”

“I’ll know when they tell me.”

“The Double Eagles were big fans of plastic explosive. And they used a bomb as a diversion at the Concordia Courthouse when—”

“When they killed Sonny Thornfield in the jail,” Quentin finishes. “Shit.”

His preternatural calm has finally evaporated, and my pulse is pounding in my neck.

“Dad could be back in his cell by now.”

Quentin digs out his phone, but I figure I can be across the street and inside the sheriff’s office by the time Quentin gets the dispatcher to do anything.

He hasn’t even gotten an answer by the time I hit the door.

Chapter 52

Dad was alive when I reached the visiting room, and a call from Quentin to Judge Elder had ensured a double guard on him—men who understood that they were there to protect their charge, not merely to keep him from escaping. The deputies would not let me stay with him, though. The bomb threat had put everyone on edge.

As I left the sheriff’s department, I looked up and saw the trial spectators exiting the courthouse doors across the street. On both sides of the broad marble steps, two men wearing business suits photographed everyone who passed down to the sidewalk beneath the spreading oaks. FBI agents, I surmised. Kaiser’s men. As soon as Kaiser got word of the bomb threat, he must have figured the caller might have someone inside the courtroom giving him progress reports. Since nobody is required to sign his or her name as they enter the courtroom, the photographs will ensure that the Bureau can eventually trace everyone who was there this morning.

I’m still watching the mass exodus when a familiar white pickup truck stops on the street in front of me, and the passenger window drops into the door, revealing Lincoln Turner behind the wheel. My half brother’s big face and shoulders lean into the open space, his eyes bright with a strange energy.

“You look like a man who needs a ride, Mayor. Where’s your wingman?”

I left the courthouse so fast—and by such an unexpected route—that I lost my protection on the way. “I’m good,” I say, a little nervously.

“No,” says Lincoln, “you only think you are. I want to make you a proposition, brah. It won’t take more than five minutes.”

“I’m listening.”