Terry’s eyes darted back and forth like she was looking for an escape route.

“Promise me, Terry.”

“Do you have pepper spray or something?”

“I’ve got more than that.” Caitlin opened her purse and showed Terry the butt of her 9 mm pistol.

“Oh, my God.”

“Do we have a deal?”

Terry closed her eyes and struggled with her fear. “Okay,” she said finally. “But if you’re not back here in two hours, I’m calling Mayor Cage and the cops and anybody else I can think of.”

Caitlin squeezed her arm. “Good girl.”

She waved at Harold, who walked back to the booth with some chicken fingers wrapped in wax paper.

“We all set?” he asked, sliding into his seat.

“Yep, I’ll be your only passenger. Terry’s staying here to man the phone for me. And if we’re not back in two hours, she’s calling the cavalry.”

Harold looked discomfited by this news, but then he shrugged and said, “You’re paying the fare, you make the rules.”

“Can we make it there and back in two hours?”

“Probably so. Long as we don’t run into company.”

“Is that your boat in the back of your pickup?”

“Yeah. And we’d better get moving, before this rain lets up.”

“I’m ready.”

“One more thing,” he said, his face hardening.

Caitlin raised her eyebrows.

“You got a gun?”

She nodded.

“What kind?”

“Nine mil. In my purse.”

“Okay. I feel better already.”

“Do you have a gun?”

Harold looked embarrassed. “All I got’s a .22 rifle, for shootin’ snakes and such. I had to pawn my pistol. But we’ll be all right with your nine.”

“Okay, then. I’ll come out to your truck a minute after you leave.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Harold Wallis walked back to the counter, bought a pack of cigarettes, then sauntered out into the rain as if he had nothing to do for the rest of the day. A man in the far booth watched him for a few seconds, then went back to his coffee.

Caitlin folded the map and slipped it into the side pocket of her purse. Then she looked at Terry and gave her a confident smile. “Don’t worry, okay? Just drive around for a while, walk through a couple of stores. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Terry Foreman looked like she was about to cry. “You’d better be.”

“Two hours from now, you and I are going to be headed into the history books.”

“I don’t care about that.”

“Well, I do. And I sign the checks.”

“Great.” Terry got up so that Caitlin could get out of the booth.

Caitlin shouldered her purse and walked to the door without looking back.

She could hardly contain herself as she trudged through the rain toward the beat-up truck with the knifelike brown pirogue jutting from its open bed. Harold Wallis was already inside, and blue-gray exhaust puffed steadily from the tailpipe. With a silent prayer of thanks, Caitlin climbed into the truck.

CHAPTER 67

DRIVEN BY PANIC, I crossed the Mississippi River and reached the police barricade at the intersection of Auburn and Duncan Avenues in record time, topping a hundred miles an hour on short stretches, weaving in and out of traffic like a PCP-crazed fugitive on COPS. Thanks to a radio call by Chief Logan of the Natchez police, no police cars tried to stop me. I don’t think half the drivers I passed even saw me until I’d blown past them.

My well-known face was enough to get me past the Natchez cops at the Duncan Avenue barricade, but it takes Kaiser to get me past the FBI agents and up to the Abrams house. A bright red fire engine is parked in the driveway, its crew spraying water on the face of the house, which still seems to be standing. As we move closer, I spy Annie and my mother sitting on the Abramses’ front porch, watching the firemen work. Kirk Boisseau leans against one of the porch columns, his pants scorched, his face lined with pain. James Ervin is sitting against the column at his feet, his face covered with soot.

“Daddy!” Annie cries, leaping off the porch and running to me.

I lift her into my arms and squeeze tight. Beyond her, I see tears running down my mother’s face.

“Kirk feels really bad,” Annie says in my ear. “But he was awesome.”

She pulls back and begins chattering with eyes so bright and alive that I can only stare. “The house isn’t messed up too bad. The fire department was so close, and the sprinkler system worked just like it’s supposed to. The back looks bad, all black, but the fire chief already said the damage is mostly superficial.”

“Sam Abrams is going to have a heart attack,” I murmur, looking past her at Mom again.

“Tell Dad how Kirk saved you, Gram!” Annie cries. “Come here, Kirk.”

Hugging my mother, I wave at my old friend. After patting Ervin on the shoulder, Kirk limps toward us.

“He got burned bad on his leg,” Annie goes on. “But he pushed Gram back through the door when Spider-Man threw the bomb.”

“Spider-Man?” I ask in confusion.

“The guy who threw the bomb was wearing a Spider-Man mask. Kirk said it was a Molotov cocktail.”

I lower her to the street and reach out to take Kirk’s hand.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I should’ve reacted quicker.”

“Don’t be stupid, man. You did great. I’m just glad you’re alive. You obviously went far beyond the call of duty.”

“He did,” Mom says. “He was wonderful.”

“I’ll second that,” John Kaiser says from behind me.

As I turn back to Kaiser, my cell phone rings. I take it from my pocket and check the LCD, then stop. The screen reads JORDAN GLASS.

“Dad, listen,” Annie says, pulling on my arm.

“Hang on, babe.” Jordan must have tried to reach Kaiser and failed, then decided to try me. But if my memory serves, she ought to be winging her way to Cuba now, or at least headed to the airport. I press SEND and say, “Hello? Jordan?”

“Penn, yeah, it’s me.”

“What’s going on? Are you trying to reach John?”

Kaiser moves around in front of me, his eyebrows raised.

“No, I wanted you. I’m worried about Caitlin.”

Thirty yards to my right, a window shatters and falls to the ground. I whirl and see a fireman aiming his hose into the new opening in the house.

Kaiser is still looking hard at me, but I signal for him to be patient.

“After we finished with the Lusahatcha sheriff’s people, we split up at an Athens Point gas station. A girl from the Examiner had driven down, and she was supposed to drive Caitlin back to Natchez. Her name was Terry. But as I drove toward Baton Rouge, something told me I ought to be sure they’d done that. So I started calling Caitlin.”

“She didn’t answer?”

“No. She could have been busy, of course, but I had a funny feeling. I kept calling, and her phone started kicking me straight to voice mail. I tried five more times before I called you. Have you heard from her?”

“No. I’ve assumed she was on her way back.”

“What’s the cell reception like between Athens Point and Natchez?”

“Good, most of the way. Couple of dead spots.”

“Maybe that’s it. Or maybe she switched off that phone for some reason. But when I started thinking about her being out of range, I thought of that swamp. We had no reception at all at ground level—only in the chopper. And . . . well, I know how badly she wants to find the Bone Tree. I made her swear that she wouldn’t go back until Carl or Danny could help her, but I don’t know. . . .”

“I do. Do you remember the last name of the girl she’s supposed to be with?”

“Terry, that’s all I know. She works in marketing at the paper.”

“Okay, that’s enough to work with. Do you need to talk to John? He’s about five feet away from me.”

“No, listen. I called you because I don’t really have the right to tell John what I know about Caitlin. She has a lead that nobody else did. Henry had found a poacher who claimed to know where the Bone Tree was. The guy didn’t show today, but he sent a map that supposedly showed the tree’s location. Long story short, Caitlin still has that map, or at least a photo I shot of it. Also, she’s not only after old bones from those cold cases. Frank Knox apparently hung on to some kind of document that he used as insurance against Carlos Marcello. It was supposedly written in Russian, and it was supposed to have been kept inside that tree at some point. You know Caitlin. She’s not about to let somebody else get down in there and find that stuff before she does.”