“Does he live in Jacobsville?”

Eb hesitated.

She lifted her hands from the keyboard. “You wouldn’t want to say, would you?” she asked perceptibly. “If he has family, it could hurt them, as well. There wouldn’t be a place they could go where the media wouldn’t find them.”

“The media can be like a dog after a juicy bone,” Eb said with some irritation. “They’ll get fed one way or the other, with truth or, if time doesn’t permit, with lies. I’ve seen lives ruined by eager reporters out to make a name for themselves.” He paused. “Present company excepted,” he added gently. “I know all about you from Minette.”

She smiled gently. “Thanks. I always try to be fair and present both sides of the story without editorializing. I don’t like a lot of what I see on television, presented as fair coverage. Most of the commentators seem quite biased to me. They convict people and act as judge, jury and executioner.” She shook her head. “I like the paper I work for. Our editor, even our publisher, are fanatics for accurate and fair coverage. They fired a reporter last month whose story implicated an innocent man. He swore he had eyewitnesses to back up the facts, and that he could prove them. Later, when the editor sent other reporters out to recheck—after the innocent man’s attorneys filed a lawsuit—they found that the reporter had ignored people who could verify the man’s whereabouts at the time of the crime. The reporter didn’t even question them.”

Eb sighed, leaning back in his recliner. “That happens all too often. Even on major newspapers,” he added, alluding to a reporter for one of the very large East Coast dailies who’d recently been let go for fabricating stories.

“We try,” Michelle said quietly. “We really try. Most reporters only want to help people, to point out problems, to help better the world around us.”

“I know that. It’s the one bad apple in the barrel that pollutes the others,” he said.

“This man, Angel, is there any way I could interview him?”

He almost bit through his lip. He couldn’t tell her that. “No,” he said finally. “We’ve hidden him in a luxury hotel in a foreign country. The news media will have a hell of a time trying to ferret him out. We have armed guards in native dress everywhere. Meanwhile, I’ve hired an investigative firm out of Houston—Dane Lassiter’s—to dig out the truth. Believe me, there’s no one in the world better at it. He’s a former Houston policeman.”

“I know of him,” she replied. “His son was involved in a turf war between drug lords in the area, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, he was. That was a while back.”