“That’s not even the question,” she said aloud. “The question is, can I get to Katy Royal in the next hour without her husband finding out about it?”

Going back over her conversations with Penn, Caitlin realized that she’d only promised to hold off publishing anything about Brody Royal until midnight tonight. Technically, she wouldn’t be breaking her word by simply investigating him. She knew what Penn would say about this Clintonian parsing of language, but right now, his only interest was saving his father from being shot by police. Caitlin wanted the same thing, of course, but she didn’t want only that. It wasn’t even within her power to help Tom get to safety. And now that the terrifying scope of Brody Royal’s and the Double Eagles’ crimes had been revealed, she couldn’t simply turn away. This was the kind of story she’d originally moved south to cover. Never mind that the old Savage South of her mother’s imagination no longer existed; the Double Eagles were still alive—as was Brody Royal—and they’d already proved they would kill to remain free. A bloody wake of violence trailed back through history behind those old men, and the families they had wounded suffered to this day. If Caitlin had a chance to bring peace and justice to those families by succeeding where Henry had failed, how could Penn expect her to turn away? Besides, she thought with a bracing thrill, Penn will be stuck in that meeting for at least two hours.

As a sop to Penn, she dialed Mercy Hospital and asked for Henry Sexton’s room. A few moments later, Sherry Harden came on the line.

“Sherry, this is Caitlin Masters. Is Henry doing any better?”

“Nobody knows,” Sherry said curtly. “He’s sleeping. He’s been out for most of the day.”

“I’m sorry. I was hoping to verify something about the story he wants me to publish tomorrow. I need to know if he tried to reinterview someone who refused to tell him anything the first time.”

“Are you serious? I can’t wake him up for that. You’ll just have to do the best you can. And please don’t call back. The phone disturbs him.”

Sherry hung up.

Thank you very much, Caitlin thought with perverse satisfaction. Now Penn couldn’t argue that she’d tried to circumvent Henry.

She saved her open computer files in an encrypted format, then logged into a White Pages website and typed Katy Royal Regan in the search field. The search engine instantly kicked back Randall and Katy Regan, 18 Royal Road, Lake Concordia, Louisiana. She memorized the address and scrawled the phone number on a Post-it, then typed in Royal Insurance Company, Vidalia, Louisiana. Adding this phone number to the Post-it, she made a quick plan.