The rattle of hailstones hitting glass brings me out of a sound sleep or a drunken stupor. I must have passed out after remembering Dad’s jailhouse rant. Getting to my feet, I realize I’m on one of the basement cots the guards have been sleeping on, and that the “hailstones” are actually the sound of someone banging on one of the tall windows of my basement office. I figure some pushy reporter has slipped past my guards and dropped down into the light well that surrounds the house. But when I look around the corner, I see the dark face and intense eyes of Lincoln Turner willing me over to the glass. After cautiously moving to the window, I crouch and raise the sash, and he bends and clambers into the room where a week ago I had my first real conversation with Serenity Butler.

“What do you want?” I ask him.

Lincoln looks around the room, cocks his head at the bottle of Hendrick’s on my desk. “There’s something we’ve got to do.”

“We? What’s that?”

His smoldering eyes find me again. “You know.”

I try to think through the fog of gin, but I can’t identify any areas of mutual benefit. “Sorry. I don’t.”

“Think about it.”

This time, the obvious comes clear with a flash of memory of wild eyes in a face that reminds me of Ronald Reagan. “Snake Knox?”

“You get the prize, brother man.”

“Nobody knows where Snake is.”

Lincoln smiles strangely. “I know.”

“So it’s pointless to talk about.”

“That’s not what I meant. I mean I know. I know where Mr. Snake is at. I found his hidey-hole.”

This revelation blows away some of the gin fog. “How?”

“Don’t matter. We can talk about it on the way.”

“On the way where?”

Lincoln looks around my office again. “I said we can talk about it on the way. Get your shit.”

“What shit would that be, exactly?”

“Whatever you want to bring. Just make sure you bring a gun.”

Okay. I see where this is going. “Where is he, Lincoln?”

“Sorry. Not taking any chances on you playing Boy Scout and calling your FBI buddy. We’re past that now. Way past.”

Only now do I realize that my half brother is wearing black jeans and a black polo shirt. He smells like he’s drunk at least half as much alcohol as I have, and also like he’s been sweating for a while. Or maybe that’s the stink of homicidal anger.

“Look, what the fuck else you gonna do?” he growls. “Sit here and drink yourself into a stupor?”

“How far are you talking about going? Five miles? Fifty? Five hundred?”

“I’ll tell you on the way, goddamn it. We don’t have a lot of time. So get your shit.”