“Judge, at this moment I am watching Leo Marston destroy what I believe is the evidence I requested today in my requests for production.”

A stunned pause. “Is he in the room with you?”

“No, ma’am. A few minutes ago I observed him removing file boxes from his office in a surreptitious manner. I followed him home, and I am now watching him burn those file boxes in his fireplace. Watching through a window.”

“You mean you’re trespassing on his property?”

“Is that really the point, Judge?”

I hear the clink of ice against glass, a hurried swallow.

“Judge, I have the publisher of the Natchez Examiner with me, and the events I described are all on videotape. She’s taping right this minute.”

“Christ on a crutch. What do you want me to do, counselor?”

“Call the police and have them come straight to Marston’s house and confiscate those files. And I’d like you to come with them. You might just prevent bloodshed.”

“I’ll do it, Mr. Cage. But you get your tail off Leo Marston’s property right this minute, before he puts a load of rock salt in your butt. Or worse.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I click End and touch Caitlin’s arm. “She’s sending the police.”

“They won’t make it in time. The gate’s closed, and they won’t be able to get through.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Make Marston want them to get here.”

She pulls free of my grip and bulls her way through the hedge. Seconds later, the sound of shattering glass reverberates across the floodlit lawn.

Leo goes rigid before the fireplace, his ears pricked. Caitlin’s rock smashed the window of another room, and he is unsure of what he heard.

Then another hundred-fifty-year-old pane smashes, this one less than ten feet from Marston. He stares at the broken window, looks back at the fireplace, then hurries out of the room.

Caitlin is standing in the drive like a pitcher on the mound, right arm cocked, a rock in her hand. She may not know what Leo is going after, but I do. And from the gallery Marston could pick her off firing from the waist.

I charge through the prickly hedge and run onto the lawn. “Get your ass under cover!”

Her cocked arm fires, and another pane shatters into irreparable shards. I sprint the last few yards and grab her arm, dragging her toward a thicket of azaleas. Just as we plow into the bushes, the front door of Tuscany crashes open and Leo bellows into the night:

“Where are you, you gutless sons of bitches? Come out and fight like goddamn men!”