As I drive through the gate of the Walls, passing the now silent crowd standing their candlelight vigil in the rain-swept darkness, one thing comes clear to me. This is the last trip I will make to this prison. The yellow glow of the candles grows smaller in my rearview mirror. Three more men pass their days on death row because I put them here.

They will die without me present.

CHAPTER 21

When I reach the hotel, Caitlin is waiting for me with a cold can of Dr Pepper and a chicken sandwich. I’m starving. It took two hours to get back to Houston through the rain and traffic, but knowing that Annie might not go to sleep without me close kept me from stopping for food. I shouldn’t have worried. She is sound asleep in one of the double beds, while the television plays CNN in muted tones. Caitlin is wearing silk pajamas that somehow look demure and sexy at the same time. I collapse at the table by the window and devour the sandwich, then drink the Dr Pepper in a few gulps. Her instincts are as accurate as always; she says nothing while I eat.

“Thank you,” I tell her, tossing the sandwich wrapper into the wastepaper can. “Really.”

“I saw a clip of you coming out of the prison. Was it bad?”

“Bad enough. That’s the last one I go to.”

“Let’s change the subject, then. Annie only woke up once, and I rubbed her back till she fell asleep again.”

“I really appreciate you staying with her.”

“No problem. She’s great.” Caitlin reaches out and touches my knee. “You really look tired. You want me to go to my room so you can crash? Our flight to Gunnison leaves at eight-thirty.”

We’re renting a Cherokee in Gunnison for the drive up to Crested Butte. “I don’t think I can get to sleep yet.”

“Okay.” She scoots back in her chair and folds her legs beneath her. “Let’s talk business, then. Your assistant called. Your ATF friend called her and confirmed that Payton’s car was destroyed by C-4 plastic explosive. They found traces of something called RDX in the shrapnel. He said there should be plenty more embedded in the metal of Payton’s car. No problem to prove in court.”

Half my fatigue disappears in the shot of adrenaline this produces. “So, Ray Presley planted the blasting caps and dynamite. And someone falsified the lab report.”

She nods. “I’ve been studying your copy of the police report. It’s mostly gossip, really. Wild theories. The interesting thing is that there were rumored suspects the detectives never talked to, local guys who had done other race crimes. Almost as if Creel and Temple knew those suspects weren’t guilty.”

“Presley may well have planted that C-4 himself. He’s killed before. But for money usually. If he killed Payton, it wasn’t on his own hook.”