It was hard work, but to be free of his chair? Totally worth it.

He opened the French doors leading out onto his own private terrace and went for a stroll.

Halfway around the house he encountered another set of French doors and tall windows, all open to the afternoon breeze. It was shady on this side of the house and he was hot, so he leaned against the wall and took a break. A large planter with some kind of evergreen in it blocked most of his view inside the room, but he knew from his previous visits that it was Mr. Masterson's study.

He really didn't mean to eavesdrop, but when Masterson walked into the study and sat down at his desk, his back to David, David wasn't sure how to leave without making a scene. His crutches made too much noise on the brick pavers for him to just slip away. Plus, he had to admit, he was curious about how a man got to be as rich as Mr. Masterson-what better way to learn than watching him work?

Mr. Masterson made a strange sound, not the kind you'd expect from a rich businessman-it sounded more like the grunt a caveman might make when he lost the tug-o-war with a pterodactyl over dinner. Not that cavemen and pterodactyls coexisted in real life and if they did it would be the caveman who was dinner . . .

Flinging his stray imaginings aside, David concentrated on staying as quiet and still as possible. Not easy to do with his crutches jammed into his sides and his legs twitching with fatigue.

Masterson unlocked a desk drawer, pulled out a small cell phone, and lay it on the center of his desk blotter. All he did was stare at it.

Just take the damn thing and go, David thought, trying to ignore an itch between his shoulder blades. If he shrugged or moved to make it go away he'd make a noise, but the more he tried to ignore it, the stronger it got.

Finally, Masterson blew his breath out and pulled the phone to him. He dialed, put it on speaker, and set a small recorder alongside it.

"Hutton." The man who answered sounded young and mean. Like he didn't want to be bothered.

"Masterson here. It's a go. Time to finish what you started."

"I'm ready. But I still need her exact location."

"I just got it. Colleton Landing, South Carolina. The Landing Motel. Room Eight."

"Told you travel costs extra. Fifty thousand."

A long pause. David's itch had vanished, replaced by a trickle of sweat and an icy finger of fear.

Mr. X. That's who Mr. Masterson was talking to. And he was going after his mother next. The man on the phone was going to kill his mother.

"Deal," David's grandfather answered. "It has to be finished before three o'clock tomorrow. She can't make it to that courtroom. Do you understand?"

"I understand. Consider it done."

TWENTY-FOUR.

Before I could tell Grandel he was crazy-something Elizabeth would probably frown upon anyway-Morris bounced in. "I used the spare keys to get your stuff from the SUV." He beamed at me as he handed me my bag. "Now you can change into real clothes."

"Thanks, Morris. That's very thoughtful."

He flushed and bobbed. Grandel rolled his eyes at his older brother-I wanted to slap the superior look off his face, but restrained myself. Not for Elizabeth this time, but because Morris so adored his brother.

"I'm going to change now." I left them for the locker room next door that Morris directed me to and returned a few minutes later dressed in another pair of jeans and a Hardy & Palladino polo-my second to last one. On my feet I wore the pair of old tennis shoes I'd thrown in for emergencies or in case I ever actually did make it to the beach.

Morris was gone but Grandel was still there waiting impatiently. He frowned at my choice of ensemble. "Come on, we've got a lot of planning to do. We need to take the focus of the story off you and put it back on me and the plant."

"If you want, I can leave. Let you take the spotlight." I hoped he'd take that option, for I was really feeling like I needed to get home. Fast.

I wasn't certain if it was a mother's intuition or just the feeling that I'd already pushed my luck as far as it could go down here. After wrestling a rabid alligator, I wasn't sure if I was up to riding out a hurricane while stuck inside a nuclear reactor.

Grandel's secretary caught up to us just as we cleared the portal monitor and made it upstairs to the office level. "The front gate just called. They have Reverend Vincent and his people there. They'd like to speak with you. In person."

Grandel's face darkened. "Tell them-"

This time I was the one who took his arm. "Tell them to send them in. Thank you."

The secretary glanced at Grandel for confirmation. He opened his mouth, then closed it and jerked his chin into a nod. We arrived at his office. As soon as the door was shut he spun on me. "What the hell?"

"This is your chance. You and Vincent need to come to some kind of arrangement-and this storm gives both of you a perfect way to save face."

"How so?"

"It's an act of God, right? Use it."

He shook his head hard and fast as if shuddering down a revolting mouthful of some exotic dish that he was too polite to spit out. "That man wants to destroy my company. I'll be damned if-"

The door opened again and the secretary ushered in Vincent, Yancey, and Vincent's assistant, Paul.

"Be careful there, Owen," Vincent said. "I wouldn't tempt God any more than you already have."

"Hah. You're one to talk. What do you want?" Grandel marched behind his desk and stood with both hands flat, pressed against it, leaning forward.

"Paul, please wait outside for me," Vincent ordered. Paul frowned but then nodded and left to return to the secretary's antechamber. Vincent ignored Grandel's posturing and sank into one of the leather chairs, stretching his legs as if it were a beach chaise lounge. "You know what I want. A seat on the board. And 10 percent. I think that's fair."

"Fair? Is that what you call it? I call it blackmail, you sonofa-"

Yancey stepped into the fray. "Gentlemen, gentlemen."

I hoped that I was the only one who heard the undercurrent of self-satisfied sarcasm in his tone. If he could get Vincent what he wanted, then Yancey was in for a big payday. I couldn't really complain-stopping Vincent's protestors would go a long way to my getting paid as well.

Most important, it would allow the plant to succeed, which would mean more jobs and money flowing to the people of Colleton Landing.

"May I suggest a compromise?" Yancey said.

Both men were engaged in a staring match and neither seemed to hear him. Or neither wanted to acknowledge the possibility of compromise first.

"It's quite simple, really," Yancey continued. "We work a contingency deal. After all, no one wants to pay good money without results."

"What the hell is he talking about?" Grandel snapped.

"He means you guarantee me a seat on the board and I'll guarantee my people stand down."

"I think we can do better than that, sir," Yancey put in. "Use this hurricane to our advantage?"

"That's what she said," Grandel nodded to me.

"Yancey's right," the words practically choked me. Me and Yancey thinking along the same lines? Frightening. "The hurricane is an act of God, a sign from God, so to speak. Once the plant weathers the storm, Vincent can use that to convince his followers that the plant has been, I don't know, cleansed or something-"

"Purified by the wrath of God!" Vincent sang out in his tent-preaching voice. "It's good, I like it."

"You think that's worth a spot on my board?"

"I do. And once I help you convince the Japanese to invest, you'll sweeten the pot with a 10 percent finder's fee-payable in stock options."

Grandel slit his eyes as he thought. "Five percent. What about the other protestors?"

"I have no control over them, but Yancey here could probably help."

"She," Grandel nodded to me again. I was beginning to wonder if he'd forgotten my name. "She thought showing a few people how safe this place is would be a good idea. I thought with the storm, we could shoot a little film, invite a few civilians to weather it out inside with us-under close monitoring, of course."

Vincent nodded slowly. "Not a bad idea."

"I have some media contacts that would love a story like that," Yancey said. "Want me to stay and shoot the footage and voice-over?"

I should have been mad at Yancey co-opting my job, but instead I grabbed at the chance. It meant I could go home all the sooner-hopefully beating the storm-and I wouldn't have to deal with Owen Grandel or Reverend Vincent anymore. A win/win for all concerned. The plant saved, the town saved, along with my sanity.

"Yancey's very good at that kind of thing," I said, waiting for lightning to strike.

"What do you say, Grandel? I'm in for 5 percent. Is it a deal?" Vincent asked.

Grandel twisted his mouth but then nodded. "Deal. I'll draw up the papers, you get your people prepared. We can't afford any naysayers, so you'd better deliver or this whole thing could blow up in our faces."

"Don't worry, I can control my people."

Paul, Vincent's assistant, knocked and opened the door. He hesitated, then took a step forward. "Reverend? Shouldn't we just let God's wrath deal with this heathen and his infernal machine? Why waste our time here?"

Vincent leapt from his chair, grinning. "You're right, Paul. As always. We're above all these mundane enterprises."

He stalked out, leaving Yancey behind with me and Grandel. I rushed after them. "Wait, what about Liam?"

"What about him?" Vincent asked, as a security guard led us downstairs, where Vincent and Paul retrieved their cell phones and other personal property.

"Aren't you going to ask Grandel to drop the charges?"

Vincent's look of disdain made it clear that he wasn't going to waste any precious bargaining chips on Liam. "The Lord will provide."

Which translated to: Liam was stuck in jail. All because he tried to save me.

David remained frozen in place, trying to defy Einstein and push his own atoms into the vast subatomic spaces between the molecules of the brick wall beside him. On a strictly quantum mechanics level, it should have been possible, but all that he achieved was to shrink back into the shadow behind the plant a few centimeters more.

He had to warn his mom. But how? His cell phone was back in his room, and the last thing he wanted was to spend another minute here. Besides, with Mr. Masterson still sitting right there, he wasn't sure he could move anywhere without being caught.

His mouth went dry. Would Masterson kill him, too? Was this all some kind of revenge, killing everyone in Mom's family to avenge his son's death?

Maybe it wasn't even about Mom-after all, if he was totally honest with himself, he had to admit that he, David, was really the person responsible for Cole's death. He was the one the bad guy had been chasing when Cole got in the way.

He closed his eyes, the better to deny that those were tears making his cheeks wet, and pressed his cheek against the brick wall, trying to block out the image of Cole dying. His dad. Dead. Because of him.

The bricks gouged into his skin. It hurt. Even so, it couldn't compare to the pain he felt inside.

He'd only known Cole for a few days. No wonder Mr. Masterson had gone crazy after he was gone-and he must be crazy, trying to get nice people like Gram Flora and Jeremy and his mom killed. David tried to imagine the pain he'd feel if something bad happened to his mom.

Definitely enough to drive a person crazy.

The sound of a man's voice brought him out of his reverie. It was Ty! What was he doing here?

Mr. Masterson was asking the same thing. "The boy is resting, if that's why you came, Deputy Stillwater. Although I don't appreciate your barging into my home this way. I'm perfectly capable of caring for my own grandson. Certainly better than that mother of his."

David risked a peek through the plant's branches. Ty stood on the other side of Masterson's desk, looking down on the old man. He looked angry-you could tell because his face was a blank, like he'd wiped it clean of emotion and forced everything back. The only other time David had seen Ty look that way was when his dad died.

Mr. Masterson should have been scared by that look-David was-but he didn't seem to notice, instead kept his head down, fiddling with some papers on his desk like Ty wasn't even there.

"Actually, Mr. Masterson," Ty finally answered, "I'm here investigating an attempted murder."

"Really? I thought you'd already caught the man who tried to kill Flora-that gay nurse, right? What happened, did he slip away?" Mr. Masterson smiled as if he'd made a joke.

Ty didn't return the smile. "No. But we're still investigating. New evidence has come to light."

"Really? What kind of evidence?"

David frowned. There was no new evidence-Ty had as much as said so before the lawyer guy dragged David over here.

"Mr. Masterson." David could practically hear the fake-smile in Ty's voice. "Even though you're good friends with the Sheriff, I can't discuss an ongoing investigation."

"Then why exactly are you here, Deputy?"

"It occurred to me that there haven't been any unexplained accidents like this in Scotia since the night ten years ago when AJ Palladino almost died. I'm sure you remember that night. You were the last person to see her before she was forced off the road by one of your coal trucks."

A long pause. Masterson squared off the papers on his desk and leaned back, regarding Ty. "That's not what the authorities concluded at the time. The official cause of that accident was attempted suicide by a disturbed young woman. There was no evidence of any other vehicle, certainly none of mine, being involved."

As interesting as the conversation was, David realized that this was his chance to escape. While Ty kept Masterson's attention occupied, he could slip back around the house. Ty must have parked out front-or maybe better, near the rear of the house where there were lots of trees. He didn't have Nikki with him, which meant she must be with the Tahoe, so he would have wanted to park someplace where she could wait safely.

All David had to do was make it to Ty's car and he could get out of this place before Masterson knew he was gone. Then he and Ty could go save his mom.

Before it was too late.

TWENTY-FIVE.