I’ve never considered this. “I don’t think he will. Royal thinks he’s invincible. All his life experience up to now has confirmed that belief. He’ll think he can deal his way out of this, and I’ll confirm that instinct.”

She grunts skeptically. “I think when he’s threatened, he lashes out.”

I take her hand and squeeze it hard. “You may be right. But I know one thing for sure: if we do this by the book, Dad’s never coming home again.”

Her eyes focus somewhere above me. She looks like she’s performing a complicated equation in her head. After a long silence, she says, “We can make a copy of the recording at the paper.”

A flood of relief goes through me. “Thank you.”

“Are you going back up to the selectmen’s meeting?”

“Only to adjourn it. I’ll be back down in two minutes.”

She leans over the console and hugs me, then draws back, her eyes wet. “Do you want me to wait, or should I go on over?”

“Do you still have your gun?”

She reaches down to the floor and pulls up the black .38 Special my father gave her seven years ago. “Only fired once in anger.”

“Take off the second I step out of the car.”

She nods. “I’ll have the copy made by the time you get there.”

CHAPTER 77

WALKING DOWN THE hall toward Henry Sexton’s hospital room, Caitlin saw the deputy guarding the door watching her approach. He was sitting in the same high school desk, his cell phone glowing on the desktop like he’d been playing a game on it. His eyes followed her as surely as any high school boy’s would have, and his mouth hung just as slack. She smiled as she signed her name in his notebook, but her mind was otherwise engaged. She’d gotten her press operator to drive her to Ferriday in his car, hoping to evade anyone watching the Examiner building. Penn would scream to high heaven if he knew she’d left the building, but she meant to get all she could from Henry before tomorrow.

She’d hoped to find him alone, but her luck wasn’t running that way. Sherry Harden was still here, guarding her man with bleary eyes. Henry’s hospital room looked messier than it had during the morning, though with a lot more flowers. Henry’s eyes were half open but dull, and his bruises darker than before. When he saw Caitlin, he moved his hand on the coverlet and gave a guttural moan that resembled speech, but Caitlin couldn’t distinguish the words. As she moved closer to listen, Sherry raised herself higher in her chair like someone startled out of a nap.