“Why?” Brody asks, taking her off guard. “Why would you do that?”

She takes some time with this question. “Because Tom Cage means more to me than any newspaper story.”

“Does he indeed?” Royal picks up two sheets of printer paper off the sofa. “Then perhaps you can explain something to me. I have here a story titled ‘Local Journalist Survives Sniper Attack.’”

Caitlin blanches, her eyes wide.

“The smaller headline,” Brody goes on, tilting his head back to better focus on the page, “reads, ‘Vidalia Nurse Perishes.’ I figure quite prominently in this story, Ms. Masters. And not in a flattering light.”

Caitlin cannot hide her astonishment, and Brody savors it like a wolf licking blood. “I wrote that before I knew about the deal,” she says.

Brody nods slowly. “I’ve calculated the timing, and I have to admit that’s possible. But you can imagine this doesn’t do much for my confidence in our arrangement holding very long.”

“I’ll delete the story.”

Another smile, this one a little cooler. “It’s already been deleted. Your editor in chief never even saw it.”

While Caitlin tries to fathom whether this could be true, he says, “I bought myself a source at the Examiner. Took a page from Forrest Knox’s book. Remarkable how cheaply you can buy a journalist. I should have remembered. Carlos always kept a few scribblers on the payroll in New Orleans.”

In my mind, I see Caitlin’s purse being flung outside the building and the door being yanked shut behind her. She’s doing a workmanlike job of hiding her fear, but I sense how deeply Royal’s seeming omnipotence has shocked her.

Royal starts to go on, but his cell phone rings. He presses a button and holds it to his ear. “Yes? … How many? … Bring them here immediately, and deal with the car afterward … Right.”

He pockets the phone and studies Caitlin’s face for several seconds.

“Let me be frank, Ms. Masters. I have both copies of the recording of my daughter. Henry Sexton will likely be dead by morning. If he’s not, the Knoxes will surely finish him off. I’m confident that Dr. Cage won’t try to attack me, if I secure his freedom. He’s done me a similar service for the past forty years, so why change now? But what I don’t have—and what I absolutely require before I will order Colonel Knox to cancel that APB and arrest warrant—is the name of the witness who can place me at Albert Norris’s store the night he died. Without that, I’m afraid we have no deal. And without a deal … the mayor here will never see his father alive again.”