“I’ll be out front in five minutes.”

“I’ll have Darius open the gate.”

Flipping the S4 into Tiptronic mode, I roar down Homochitto Street and blow through the yellow light onto Lower Woodville Road, which blurs into background as I drive. How small and helpless Henry Sexton must have felt all these years, pursuing Brody Royal—a multimillionaire who counts senators, governors, judges, and business magnates among his close friends. A man who could with impunity order the murders of two federal witnesses and go on as though nothing had happened. If any man in this area is untouchable, it’s Brody Royal. Yet the despair I felt in the doorway outside Shad’s office has faded. If Shad told me the truth up in his office—if Dad’s bail won’t likely be revoked until Judge Elder returns next Monday—then I have six days to prove that someone else killed Viola, or at least to raise reasonable doubt. And if anyone can illuminate the hidden chapters of my town’s history, it’s the old woman dying in regal splendor in her cloistered mansion, the keeper of our collective secrets …

Pithy Nolan.

CHAPTER 41

WALT GARRITY’S SILVER Roadtrek hummed northward on Highway 61 in the diffuse glow of the setting sun. He and Tom had been making mile-long laps on a stretch of Highway 61 while Snake Knox and Sonny Thornfield ate supper at a nearby Ryan’s Steakhouse.

Tom had told Walt enough to convince him of the tactical soundness of his plan, but thankfully his old friend had not pressed him for more information. Even with the bond of shared combat—and worse—Tom was not sure he could tell Walt everything. There was no risk of losing their quarry, because earlier Walt had affixed a GPS tracking device beneath Knox’s pickup, which could be monitored on a screen he’d plugged into his cigarette lighter. Walt had done this at the Concordia airport, while Knox visited the service hangar. When they traced Snake to Ryan’s to test the GPS tracker, Tom had recognized Sonny Thornfield getting out of another pickup truck nearby. Apparently, the two men had met for an early supper. Walt intended to attach a tracker to Thornfield’s pickup as well, but he was worried he might be seen from one of the restaurant’s broad windows.

Walt drove with a plastic Coke cup between his legs, while Tom munched on a Wendy’s cheeseburger in the passenger seat. Every now and then Walt’s police scanner chattered—too low for Tom to make out the messages, but Walt apparently missed nothing. The codes meant nothing to Tom anyway, except for a few he remembered from his days staffing the St. Catherine’s ER.

“Food all right?” Walt asked.

“Good,” Tom said, reaching for iced tea to wash down his cheeseburger. “Peggy would kill me if she knew I was eating this.”