“Don’t, hon. It’s the story that matters. Getting it out to the most people. Right?”

“Right.”

“I’m going to leave in a couple of minutes. I’ve got to get home and make supper for Sam. You be sure and call for a deputy before you go. It’s pitch-black out there now, and the last cruiser passed about five minutes ago.”

Henry’s smile vanished. Walker Dennis had kept one or another of his patrol cars sitting outside the Beacon office for most of the day. Henry figured he was doing this as a favor to Penn Cage, or maybe because he didn’t want the embarrassment of Henry being injured on his watch. But there was also the possibility that Dennis was creating a false sense of security in order to set him up. Henry didn’t really believe this, but he also knew that he’d been naïve in the past. That was why he’d agreed to let Lou Ann lend him her pepper spray, which was now attached to his key ring.

“I will,” he promised. “Tell Sam I hope his gallbladder surgery goes well.”

Lou Ann smiled again. “I will. You knock ’em dead over in Natchez.”

Henry thanked her and went out to his Explorer. The air was cooler than it had been before sundown, but it still wasn’t truly cold. He walked around to the far side of his vehicle to retrieve the new hard drive from his passenger seat. He was putting his key into the lock when he noticed that the Explorer’s rear window had been smashed. As his eyes narrowed, he heard a scratch of gravel on asphalt, then a rush of feet.

Whirling, he saw something fly at his head. He threw up his hands out of instinct, and felt his left forearm break to the musical ring of metal. Baseball bat, he thought, as pain blasted through his body.

“Grab his arms!” someone shouted. “Get him in the truck!”

Adrenaline surged through Henry, turning his heart into a runaway engine. He saw three vague shapes in the darkness, two grasping at him, the third holding high a shining blue bat. Pale faces lunged toward him, eyes blazing with hatred.

They’re just kids, he realized. What the hell?

Powerful hands closed on his broken arm. He brought up his key ring with the other, mashed his thumb on the canister of pepper spray, and waved his arm wildly. The boys began to scream and curse, and then the bat crashed down on his right wrist. He heard his keys hit the cement. He could hardly see through the pain arcing through his head.

“My eyes!” yelled a boy. “I can’t see!”

“Get him in the goddamned truck!”