I’ve gotta calm down, he thought. Snake’s gonna see I’ve got the yips. And if he does, he’ll start to worry. And if Snake starts worrying, Forrest will, too. And I won’t live to see my grandson again.

“A perfect head shot, you said?” Sonny asked with feigned awe.

“Punched right through his skull. Got his girlfriend in the eye. Wish you coulda seen it, Son. She dropped like a sack of meal.”

“Damn,” Sonny said, trying to hold down the contents of his stomach. “I wish I could have, boy.”

CHAPTER 80

BY THE TIME I penetrated Sheriff Dennis’s outer perimeter and started looking for Caitlin, John Kaiser and a couple of his agents were on the scene and working to restore calm at the hospital. Nevertheless, I found weeping nurses, a panicked administrator, and rattled deputies milling through the halls. Just as I saw Caitlin down a corridor, Walker Dennis appeared beside me, grabbed my arm, and pulled me into an empty hospital room.

“You and I need to talk,” he said in an urgent tone, “before we see anybody else.”

“What is it, Walker?”

“A little while ago you asked me to keep that ‘Mr. Brown’ call about Brody Royal to myself. Is that still how you want to play it? With the FBI, I mean? Because in light of what’s happened, I’m thinking anything could be important, no matter how crazy it might sound.”

All I can think about is the copied audio recording of Katy Royal in my back pocket—something I don’t want John Kaiser to know about until my father has reached some safe place. “Walker, this may not make much sense to you, but I’d still prefer to keep that call between the two of us.”

His eyes narrow. “Are you onto something about Brody? Even without the wiretaps?”

I nod. “Please don’t ask me what it is now. I’ll tell you as soon as I can. I’m trying to save my father’s life, or I wouldn’t ask this of you. Can you live with that?”

Sheriff Dennis looks into my eyes for several seconds, then sighs. “I guess I can. But if you think Brody ordered Henry shot tonight, I wish you’d tell me now.”

“I don’t know, Walker. If I had to lay money on it, I’d say the Knoxes are behind this. That’s who Henry was stirring up the most. You don’t happen to know where Brody is now, do you?”

“I just checked on that, as a matter of fact. He and his family are over at St. Catherine’s Hospital. His daughter’s in a coma in their ICU.”

“Thanks, buddy.”

Walker’s eyes radiate suspicion from beneath his hat brim. “You don’t happen to know how she got that way, do you?”

“I’ll tell you that story later, too.”