She led off with a firsthand account of the attack on Henry Sexton and Sherry Harden, and concluded with the contents of the Katy Royal interview. She spared Brody Royal nothing. The only person she treated with kid gloves was Tom Cage. As she corrected the last typo, she knew in her gut that this was the story to print tomorrow. Penn might hate her for it, but he would be judging her by inverted priorities. He was so deep inside the nightmare that he could no longer tell right from wrong. She was preparing to send the story to Jamie for a read-through when someone knocked at her door.

“Working!” she shouted.

“It’s Penn,” said a male voice, muffled by the wood.

Was that a male staffer telling her Penn was out front? she wondered. Or was Penn actually at the door?

“Caitlin!” Penn shouted. “Open up!”

A ripple of irrational fear crossed her skin. She sat frozen for three seconds, then got up and opened the door. Penn stood there, looking as tired as she’d ever seen him.

“You talked to Royal?” she asked.

He nodded.

She took his hand and pulled him into her office, then closed the door. “And?”

Penn’s other hand held a leather holster with his .357 inside. He laid the pistol on the credenza to his right. Caitlin stared at it for a couple of seconds, realizing how seriously he was taking the danger. “So? What did he say?”

“He’s going to do it. He’s going to get the APB canceled. He didn’t have any choice, really. He’s going to fix everything.”

“Fix everything?” she echoed, unable to conceal her disappointment. “What does that mean?”

“The APB, the dead trooper, even Viola’s murder case.”

“And you believed him?”

“I did. I do. The whole conversation was anticlimactic. More surreal than confrontational, like a weird business deal. I think Royal has dealt with this kind of crap his whole life, though not with quite so much at stake. He realizes that his freedom and wealth are in danger, so he’ll do whatever’s necessary to preserve them.”

Caitlin shook her head in disbelief. “How can he do those things? Magic?”

Penn ran his hands through his hair, then collapsed into the chair opposite her desk. “By calling the right people, apparently. It’s not what you know, right? It’s who.”

She knew her disgust showed on her face. “There’s got to be more to it than that. How can he muzzle Shad Johnson? And Sheriff Byrd?”

Penn laughed with bitter amusement. “I don’t think Shad or Billy would even flirt with the idea of crossing Brody Royal.”

A sudden wave of nausea nearly made Caitlin double over. Grabbing her lukewarm Mountain Dew, she drank what was left to try to settle her stomach. “I don’t understand. This is exactly the kind of backroom deal you’ve despised all your life.”