Mason was trying to think if this was credible. Then recalling Nathan’s dog-eyed concentration as he spent hour after hour sanding the back of a pinewood duck, lost in happy oblivion, the senior deputy continued, “Garrett said if he was standing in need to he’d kill any law tried to stop him.”

“He said that? That boy?”

“Yep. Looked me right in the eye and said so. And said he was looking forward to it too. Hoped I was in the lead but he’d take any anybody happened to be handy.”

“That son of a bitch. You tell Jim?”

“Course I did. You think I wouldn’t? But he didn’t pay it a lick of mind. I like Jim Bell. You know I do. But the truth is he’s more concerned about keeping his cushy job than he is with doing it.”

The deputy was nodding and a portion of Mason was astonished that Nathan had bought this so easily and never even guessed that there might be another reason he was so hot to get that boy.

The sharpshooter thought for a moment. “Has Garrett got a gun?”

“I don’t know, Nathan. But tell me: ’Bout how hard is it to get a firearm in North Carolina? The phrase ‘fallin’ off a log’ come to mind?”

“That’s true.”

“See, Lucy and Jesse—even Jim—they don’t appreciate that kid like I do.”

“Appreciate?”

“Appreciate the danger’s what I mean,” Mason said.

“Oh.”

“He’s killed three people so far, probably Todd Wilkes too, strung that little boy up by his neck. Or at least scared him into killing himself. Which is murder all the same. And that girl got stung—Meg? You see those pictures of her face after the wasps were through with her? Then think about Ed Schaeffer. You and me were out drinking with him just last week. Now he’s in the hospital and he might never wake up.”

“It’s not like I’m a sniper or nothing, Mase.”

But Mason Germain wasn’t going to give an inch. “You know what the courts’re going to do. He’s sixteen. They’re gonna say, ’Poor boy. Parents’re dead. Let’s put him in some halfway house.’ Then he’s going to get out in six months or a year and do it all over again. Kill some other football player headed for Chapel Hill, some other girl in town never hurt a soul.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry, Nathan. You’re doing Tanner’s Corner a favor.”

“That ain’t what I was going to say. The thing is, we kill him, we lose any chance of finding Mary Beth. He’s the only one knows where she is.”