“We always feel torn. He’ll live. And yes, we must learn from him everything there is to learn. Somehow. He isn’t going to want to talk. Remember, he didn’t care if he died. He was part of six. He said that made him immortal.”

“‘This isn’t the way he wanted it, but the way it has to be,’” Katie said, repeated the words that had been spoken. “A creature of six...and a he who is calling the shots. Oh, Dan, I wonder if that meant I’m supposed to die under an axe, like my parents.”

“Katie, we have Browne. Jennie is dead. We believe they were low on their number. Maybe the couple killed in Baton Rouge were part of the group. Jennie was seen, and so she had to die. Come to think of it, I wonder if Neil would have been killed, too. You knew he was in the city. You saw him. Once you saw him, he became a liability... Interesting. I’m sure Axel and Ryder will see that guards are posted on him at the hospital.”

They reached her house. The dogs were waiting.

Katie greeted them with a lot of love. “My knights in furry armor!” she said.

“They do love you,” Dan agreed.

“And they seem to like you okay, too,” she said.

“I like dogs. They’re honest,” he told her as they went up the porch steps and then into the house.

They ate the pizza in the kitchen.

Katie climbed up the stairs ahead of him.

But she went straight to the guest bedroom, crashing down on the bed.

“I think he is the big man,” Dan said, sliding his gun and holster onto the bedside table and walking idly to the dresser to strip off his jacket, vest and shirt. “He wants to recreate the Axeman and revive the belief in immortal creation on the Sixth, or whatever. But I believe different people carry out different crimes. I do believe Neil killed Jennie because he was ordered to do so. And he killed your parents and probably the couple in Orlando. But here in New Orleans, he really went for the Axeman legend. The big man himself seems to have committed the murders of the Rodenberry couple and Elle Détente. I don’t know whether he knew George before the murders or just knew George was a close friend of your father’s, or even if George was really supposed to die, but he turned out to be a very convenient scapegoat.”

He sat at the foot of the bed, sliding out of his shoes and socks, thoughtful. He turned to Katie, knowing her mind must be in turmoil and wanting to hold her.

“Katie?”

He curled up next to her.

He’d been talking to himself.

Despite the trauma, Katie was sound asleep.

He lay next to her, careful not to wake her, and held her tenderly in his arms.