“Penn, would you take Annie from me? My legs have gone to sleep. She’s way too big for my lap now.”

He stopped pacing and glared at her, but then his face softened, and they made the transfer with the smoothness imparted by long practice.

“I’m going to make you a drink,” she said.

“I don’t need a drink.”

“Yes, you do. If you don’t slow that brain down, you’re going to talk yourself into something crazy. You have to calm down, son.”

He sighed heavily and looked over at his desk. “All right, one drink.”

“Gin and tonic?”

He nodded.

Peggy swished up the stairs before he could think twice, then went to the kitchen cabinet where Penn kept the liquor. A young FBI agent sat at the kitchen table, but he merely nodded to her and smiled encouragingly.

“Is there anything I can do for you, ma’am?”

“No, thank you.” Peggy quickly poured a triple serving of gin.

“Don’t hesitate to ask.”

“I won’t,” Peggy said, covertly reaching into her purse for the bottle of the temazepam she took to help her sleep. She swallowed one of the yellow capsules, then quickly pulled apart three others and stirred the white powder into Penn’s drink with her forefinger. It didn’t dissolve very well, but she thought the bitter gin would cover the taste.

“I wish my husband would call,” she said, just to keep the agent focused on what she was saying rather than what she was doing.

“I think Agent Kaiser wishes the same thing.”

“Oh,” Peggy said brightly, “I’m sorry, I forgot to offer you a drink.”

The agent smiled. “I’m on duty, Mrs. Cage.”

“Peggy, I told you. Please.”

“I’m fine, ma’am.”

She smiled, then picked up the glass and carried it back to the basement, the ice tinkling as she negotiated the stairs. She thought she might have to press Penn to drink, but when she got to his office, she found Annie asleep on the couch and Penn standing by his desk with his hand out. He took a big gulp from the glass, then gave her a hug so tight she could feel him shuddering against her. As she hugged him back, she spied a suede zip bag lying on his desktop. It hadn’t been there when she left to get the drinks. Tom owned several bags like that one. Every one contained a pistol.

“Mom . . . last night Dad was hiding at Quentin’s house in Jefferson County. I didn’t know that, but Caitlin did. She found him somehow. She went to see him, she talked to him, but she never told me about it. I think Walt knew, but he held it back to protect her. I only found out because I called Melba to check on her. She let it slip by mistake. If Caitlin had told me last night where Dad was . . . none of this would have happened. Don’t you see? It’s like she killed herself. Because she wanted an exclusive story. Can you believe that?”

Peggy was stunned, but she didn’t want to play into Penn’s anger. “I imagine Tom made her promise not to tell us about it.”

“Of course he did, but still. You’ve got to draw the line somewhere with loyalty. That’s what I was telling you yesterday.”

Peggy just hugged her son and willed the drug to take effect.

“Can you believe Dad just walked out of that hospital? Caitlin was dead upstairs, and he just . . . walked out. Like he didn’t even care.”

“He couldn’t have known she’d died, honey.” Peggy prayed this was true.

Penn drew back, his bloodshot eyes like those of an angry and disillusioned teenager. “If he didn’t, then it’s worse. He knew she was barely holding on.”

“Don’t talk that way!” Peggy snapped.

“Why not? I’m sorry, Mom, but I have to say it: how many chances has Dad had to do the right thing?”

Peggy went and sat beside Annie, stroked her silken hair. All she’d withheld from Penn roiled in her stomach like something she needed to vomit up, yet still she did not speak.

“I wonder if he’ll even come to Caitlin’s funeral?” Penn asked bitterly.

A wrenching abdominal ache nearly doubled Peggy over. She almost couldn’t bear to hear these words come from her son’s mouth. When would those three pills take effect? Penn’s face had grown steadily redder, but he showed no sign of collapsing. As she stroked Annie’s hair, Penn spoke with almost fearful softness.

“Mom . . . do I know everything you know?”

Peggy closed her eyes and thought of Tom running through the night. Every fiber of her heart urged her to stand, take Penn in her arms, and do all she could to make him understand the true stakes of their situation. But she had sworn to Tom not to reveal her knowledge without his permission, not even to save his life. She hadn’t wanted to make that promise, but she had. Earlier she’d considered breaking her oath, but now, with Penn like this . . . she knew Tom had been right.

“I can’t help you,” she said simply. “I wish I could, but your father is the only one who knows what really happened back in those dark days.”

“I’m not talking about the old days,” Penn said, his eyes leveled at her.

Peggy’s heart fluttered with fear. After taking a slow breath, she folded her hands together and spoke with absolute conviction. “Son, the violence that exploded this week was like the bombs the work crews used to find in Germany when they worked on the streets after the war. It’s been waiting in this ground ever since the sixties, rusting away. Sooner or later, somebody was going to sink a shovel into the wrong place. That was Henry Sexton. And once he shoveled out enough dirt . . . nothing was going to stop the explosion.”

Penn shook his head, his eyes unmerciful. “That’s not what happened, Mom. Henry had been digging around that bomb for years and it never went off. It was Viola Turner who triggered it. And why? Why did she come home? To die? Maybe. More likely, it was to make Dad—”

“Stop!” Peggy hissed, and a door slammed shut in her mind. “I won’t listen to that kind of talk. Even if you’re right, I don’t care to discuss it.”

“Mom, we have to—”

She shook her head and looked resolutely down at Annie’s face. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. If we do.”

“If we’re not going to discuss that, why are we even talking?”

Peggy took another deep breath, then slowly exhaled. “I know there’s a pistol in your bag. What are you planning to do with it?”

He looked over at the suede pouch. “I’m not going to hurt myself, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“It’s not. I’m worried you’ll try to hurt someone else with it. Because of what happened to Caitlin.”

Penn shrugged angrily. “I don’t know who killed her.”

Peggy gave him a long look.

“Mom, I’ve been carrying that gun since Monday. None of us has any business leaving this house unarmed.”

“None of us has any business leaving this house period. Not tonight. And especially you. Your daughter needs you.”

Penn walked up and stood over Annie, looking down with a mixture of love and grief in his eyes. “Where’s Dad, Mom?”

“Dear God, son. If I knew, I would tell you. Don’t you know that?”

Penn looked over at her then, his eyes more lost than she could ever remember. “I don’t,” he said. “That’s what all this has done to us. What Dad has done to us. And now Caitlin’s dead.” He started to continue, then checked himself. His mouth opened and closed as though he were testing the function of his jaw.

Thank God, Peggy thought, seeing confusion in his eyes. The drug is finally working.

“Tom still might not know what’s happened to Caitlin,” she thought aloud. “He could be lying unconscious beside a road somewhere. He could have been kidnapped from that hospital.”

Penn made a contemptuous sound and flipped his hand in the air. “The security cameras filmed him walking out. He put on a doctor’s coat and . . . sneaked out.”

Penn sounded like Tom after four or five whiskeys. Peggy started to worry that he might hurt himself if he simply passed out.