“Thanks.” He sits on the thick log and turns his brown eyes on me, reading more than I usually like to let people see. “Penn, I know your father’s jumped bail. He’s in real trouble, and you need to get him back before anybody else finds out he’s gone.”

“What makes you think he’s jumped bail?” I ask, hoping my face doesn’t betray my guilty knowledge.

“Come on, man. Let’s not do this. You already knew he skipped.”

Blood is pounding in my ears. “My father didn’t kill anybody, Agent Kaiser.”

He gives me an appraising look. “From what I’ve read of his history, I tend to believe you. But if he’s innocent, why did he jump bail?”

“I’m not sure yet. But this whole prosecution is motivated by revenge. The local sheriff and DA have wanted payback on my father and me for a long time.”

Kaiser nods slowly. “I figured it might be something like that.”

“How did you find out he skipped?”

“I’ve got an agent over at the hospital, covering Henry Sexton. Last night, a former Double Eagle named Sonny Thornfield was dropped off outside the Mercy Hospital ER. He was having a heart attack. I wondered if he could have been faking, trying to get close enough to finish the job on Henry. But the ER doc says the coronary was real, and Thornfield made no attempt to reach Henry’s room.”

“What’s the connection to my father?”

“Around the time Thornfield appeared, a nurse saw your father driving a big silver van in the hospital parking lot.”

A chill rockets up my spine. Walt Garrity’s Roadtrek. I remember the sleek silver van parked in front of my house only two months ago.

“The nurse had gone outside to smoke a cigarette,” Kaiser goes on. “The van looked empty, but when the hospital’s rent-a-cop pulled alongside to check it out, your father suddenly climbed behind the wheel. He moved the van to a parking space near the front. When the guard came around the building again, the van was gone. Do you know anybody with a big silver conversion van?”

Oh, man …

“Obviously you do.”

“I didn’t say that. Was this nurse sure it was my father?”

“Positive. She’d worked with him for fifteen years at St. Catherine’s Hospital in Natchez.”

I shake my head as though confused, but all I’m thinking is, What the hell are Walt and Dad trying to accomplish? “Have you told anyone else about this?”

“No, but it won’t stay secret long. Nurses talk. And don’t bother trying your dad’s cell phone. He’s shut it off. Whoever owns that van is giving him good advice.”