Charley nodded first, and his eyes told Billy that he sensed the price of survival might be high. Billy reached into his desk and took out a Buck knife with an eight-inch blade. Too big to be a practical deer-skinning knife, it looked more like a bayonet. “You’ll have to prove it.”

“How?” Charley asked, his eyes locked on the knife.

“Shut your friend up. For good.”

Behind the boys, Sonny Thornfield blanched. Charley’s mouth fell open, but no sound emerged. He swallowed, then turned to Jake, who was shivering.

“That guy in the mask said Casey’s dying already,” Charley pointed out. “Can’t we just let him pass in his own time?”

“You’re missing the point, son,” Billy said, not unkindly. “Think about it.”

While Charley tried to do that, his friend Jake seized the knife from Billy and moved toward the bench.

“Not in here!” Billy snapped. “I don’t want blood spraying all over the damn wall. And we’d never get it out of the rug. There’s a deck right outside this room. Take him out there. The door’s behind that curtain.”

Sonny pulled back the curtain and opened the door. Cold air drifted into the study. Jake Whitten motioned for Charley to help him lift Whelan. After a moment’s hesitation, Charley walked to the bench, grasped Whelan’s legs, and helped carry him out onto the deck.

Five seconds after Sonny closed the door, a shriek pierced the air. Whelan screamed so loudly that Billy knew the duct tape had come off his mouth. Snake walked to the door and peered out at the slaughter. Billy pulled a Pro Video magazine from his top drawer and rotated his swivel chair toward the stuffed hog behind him. He’d never derived pleasure from this kind of thing, as his father did. He heard Sonny slowly counting aloud: “One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi …” By the time Sonny reached ten, the screaming had stopped, and Billy turned back toward the door.

Still wearing the balaclava, Forrest stood beside Sonny, one of the Valhalla camcorders in his hand, filming the murder through a window beside the deck door. He must have slipped in through the study’s side entrance. Forrest lowered the camera, then turned and walked to the door behind Billy’s desk.

“Dead?” Billy asked as he passed.

“Finally. Those boys don’t know beans about killing. Make them hose off the deck before they leave.”

As Forrest closed the door, Charley and Whitten came back inside and stood unsteadily before Billy’s desk, their chests heaving. Both had been covered by arterial spray: Charley looked like he’d been hit in the head with a paint-filled balloon.

“What do we tell Uncle Randall?” Charley panted.