Quentin’s chuckle is a low rasp. “I knew some of those crackers all too well, my boy. This is like Old Home Week for me. You just keep me apprised of any developments in that line. If I’m unavailable, you can tell Doris anything you would me. Almost anything, anyway. I’ll trust your judgment on that.”

Quentin is a lot like the traditional FBI; he prefers a one-way flow of information, with him on the receiving end. Feeling like I’ve surrendered to fate, I start to hang up, but concern for my father overrides my decorum. “Quentin, I have to ask you a hard question.”

“They’re the only ones worth asking, most times.”

“I know you haven’t been doing well. Can you handle a major murder trial, if it comes to that?”

There’s a long pause, during which I hear the high wheeze of an old man breathing. “I won’t lie to you,” he says finally. “The Lord has taken a lot from me since my prime. I’ve had some low days. I can’t walk, can’t eat anything worth eating, and I can’t give my woman what she needs. And no matter what a woman tells you to comfort you, that eats you up inside. It’s enough to make a man lie down and never get up again.”

I hear the sound of careful sipping, then the pained groan of an old man shifting position. “But they’ll have to lay me out dead on the courtroom floor before I let anybody put Tom Cage behind bars.”

For the first time since yesterday morning, I feel the burden of defending my father partly lifted from my shoulders. The relief of having a lawyer with Quentin Avery’s gifts in Dad’s corner—even if his powers aren’t what they once were—is enough to bring tears to my eyes. I want to say, “I never doubted you,” but Quentin knows better. “Thank you” is all I can manage.

“Don’t feel bad for asking what you did. There’s no room for sentiment when family’s on the line.”

“I appreciate it, Quentin.”

“Get a good night’s sleep, brother. Do whatever you need to about the Double Eagles, but leave Shad Johnson and Joe Elder to me. Those boys don’t want no part of my bad side. Now, Doris just opened the front door, and she’ll beat me like an egg-suckin’ dog if she catches me with this bourbon. You’d hear me holler all the way to Natchez.”

I hear a click, and then a female voice says, “Hello, Penn.” Before I can respond, Doris Avery continues in a voice that holds many emotions: regret, fear, foreboding. “I pray to God we make it through this trial.”

“I do, too,” I tell her, meaning all of us, but most of all, Quentin and my father.