"Yeah. I know." And there was the thought again.

Loutie had moved over by Joey's bed and was squeezing his huge thumb in her hand. She c.o.c.ked her head at me. "What is it?"

I reached back to ma.s.sage the stiffness from my neck. "It's just... I keep thinking I know where she is. It's in the back of my mind somewhere, and I can't get to it."

Loutie looked down at Joey. "Go grab a quick shower. I've got clean clothes for you and some for Joey when he needs them." I stood there trying to think. She said, "Go! I'm here with Joey now, so you're free to go find Susan. Get in the shower. Wake up. It'll come to you."

And fifteen minutes later, as I toweled the water out of my hair, it did.

With more than three hundred dollars in her pocket, why hadn't Carli grabbed the first bus or plane to Denver or Tucson or Los Angeles? Why head west and then turn back toward the northeast? And why, in the first place, did she write a cryptic good-bye note on the bottom of a sheet of notebook paper where she had sketched Susan's old Ford pickup sitting in a hay field with rosebushes covering the front wheel?

Simple. But everything seems simple after you finally get it. I should have had it sooner. On some level, Carli had wanted to be found even before she dropped out of Loutie's guest-room window.

Susan's farmhousea"a place set among rolling hay fields and nestled inside swirls of holly and boxwoods and rosebushesa"was empty. And Carli knew it. She had traveled to Biloxi by bus to throw off her father. Then she had started her real journey when she began hitchhiking northeast toward Meridian. And that's when I really did have enough information to have found her, if I had just been able to put it all together.

My father owns a sawmill just outside a small town on the Alabama River called Coopers Bend, which, as it happens, is about two hours drive due east of Meridian, Mississippi. If you drive to the side of town opposite the mill, cruise a few miles up a county highway called Whiskey Run Road, and turn down a narrow dirt road and follow that for four or five hundred yards through cow pastures and stands of loblolly pine and water oak, you will come to a mailbox that marks the entrance to the farm that Susan Fitzsimmons had shared with her crazy artist husband before he was murdered. It was where I first met Susan, and I was now sure that it was where Carli had been headed the minute she climbed out of the window in Loutie Blue's guest room.

I should have had it figured out a second time back in Tate's h.e.l.l Swamp when Seora Carpintero had asked if Susan was a granjeroa"a farmer, and then said Susan was with "the fisherman." My third bite at the apple came when Loutie reported that Carli had been spotted in Pine Hill, which is almost dead center between Meridian and Susan's farm in Coopers Bend.

The only question now was whether Rus Poultreza""the fisherman," as the seora had called hima"had both women, or only Susan. It was possible that Carli hadn't yet made it to Coopers Bend. It also was possible that Poultrez was holding Susan somewhere else and that Carli would find the safe haven she had been seeking at Susan's farm. These things were unlikely, but still possible, which is why I didn't call the state police, the FBI, or even a few bad-a.s.s boys I went to high school with to rush out there and take care of Poultrez. Instead, I pulled on clean clothes and went out to hurriedly explain things to Loutie. Then I placed a call to the Sheriff's Department in Coopers Bend and spoke at length with local law enforcement.

As I replaced the receiver in its cradle, Nurse Ratched came in. "What are you doing in here?"

I wasn't in the mood. "What is it?"

The nurse looked like she had just sucked a crawfish head. "Are you Tom McInnes?"

"Yep."

"Then you have a phone call at the desk."

Nurse Ratched turned and marched out, and I followed. A beige receiver was lying on a raised, white-Formica platform on the horseshoe-shaped nurses station. I picked it up.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Hi. How's Joey?" It was Kelly's voice.

"He got smashed in the face, and he's got a broken nose, a dislocated jaw, and some hairline fractures. But he's going to be fine. They've got him doped up for the pain." I was glad to hear Kelly's voice, but I also wanted to get off the phone and get on the road to Susan's farmhouse. The sheriff was checking it out, but... "Thanks for calling, Kelly. Sorry, but I've got to go. Call back later if you want. Loutie's in Joey's room with him."

"I found out something about L. Carpintero."

I said, "He's dead. Is it something that still matters?"

Kelly hesitated. "I'm not sure. I just kind of know who he is, or I guess who he was." I didn't speak. She went on. "The reason you thought his face looked familiar but you couldn't place it was that he looks like someone else. A lot. His uncle was the military dictator of Panama. He's in prison here in the states now. His name..."

"Yeah, I know who he is. d.a.m.n, it's obvious once you know it. Take away the general's acne scars and about thirty years and they're twins."

"Yeah. I didn't get it. The lady in the newspaper morgue saw the resemblance, and once we had that we were able to find out who he is. He's got the same last name as his uncle. And he was mixed up in his uncle's drug business."

"Which, I remember, was supposed to have a Cuban connection."

"That's it."

Nurse Ratched walked over and glared at me. "That is not a public telephone."

I turned my back. "And that's everything you found out?"

Kelly said, "That's all so far. Nothing, by the way, about him having any nicknames like Carpintero or hammer or anything like that. I'll keep looking, though. But," and Kelly paused for effect, "I did find out Carlos Sanchez's real name."

"Who is he?"

"We found a picture of him at a Republican fund-raiser in Mobile. The paper ran the shot a few months ago because the picture also included the son of a former president. Sanchez was kind of looking down and holding a gla.s.s in front of his face, but you could tell it was him."

"Kelly!"

"Okay, okay. You know how you never see Superman and Clark Kent in the same place? Well, guess who Carlos Sanchez really is."

I said, "Charlie Estevez."

"You're no fun at all. How in the world did you figure that one out?"

"I had a suspicion."

"Well, so much for my bombsh.e.l.l. That's all I've got."

I thanked her and got off the phone.

Ten minutes later, I was speeding north in Loutie's cherry-red GTO convertible.

Four hours of road time stretched out ahead, and my contact with the worlda"my little Motorola flip phonea"was a goner. Slopping through Tate's h.e.l.l had taken care of that. I stopped at a quick mart in Panama City and called Sheriff Nixon in Coopers Bend. Deputies had been dispatched to check out the farmhouse. No report. An hour later, I stopped in Florala and got the same message. A little over an hour after that, I pulled over in Monroeville and made the same call. This time Nixon was in.

"n.o.body's there."

I had been scared and nervous, worried about what might be happening to Susan and Carli while I was on the road. Now I was just scared. If they weren't at the farm, if all the clues I had stringed together were nothing but snippets of a larger picture that I was missing...

Nixon's hard voice cut my thoughts short. "You hear me? Are you still there?"

"Yes, I'm here. I was thinking. Are you sure no one was there?"

"Well, I didn't go out there myself. But two deputies did and said they looked around pretty good. Looked for cars, knocked on the door, even looked in the windows as best they could."

"They didn't go inside, though?"

"h.e.l.l, Tom. We can't just break in to somebody's house without a reason."

I grasped at straws. "Did they check out the barn in back?"

Nixon sounded like he'd had enough of this. "They checked the place out. You want to go out there and look some more, help yourself. I got other things to do." And he hung up.

Nice guy.

I climbed into Loutie's cla.s.sic convertible and pulled back onto the blacktop. Before I had just been worrying. Now I was driving slower and thinking more, and I wondered if I had imagined all the clues and coincidences pointing to the farm. I ran everything over in my mind, turned it around, and pulled at it from as many different sides as I could find. The bottom line was that Carli had to be either at the farm or d.a.m.n close to it. Susana"if the dark and dangerous Seora Carpintero could be believeda"was with Rus Poultrez ... somewhere.

I jammed down the accelerator. Either I was right about everything and everyone coming together at Susan's farm, or I didn't have a frigging clue.

chapter thirty-six.

According to the fluorescent lines on my diving watch, I turned onto the dirt road leading to Susan's farm a few minutes after 7:30 that evening. The sun had fallen beneath the horizon, but the western sky still glowed with sunset colors that cast long shadows across new-green hay fields. Pecan trees, post oaks, and cedars grown from bird droppings interrupted kinked lines of barbed wire that stretched along both sides of the right-of-way. Susan's mailbox came up on the right, and I clicked off the headlights. I pulled off onto the gravel shoulder and stepped out.

The shrill of crickets filled the fields and woods, and a bullfrog on one of Susan's ponds bellowed at whatever they bellow at. I turned down the gravel driveway and found myself trotting then jogging then running full out. I forced myself to stop. With my back pressed against the thick trunk of a pine, I got quiet and tried to listen. Crickets made music. A light wind rustled the pine needles and oak leaves overhead, and my heart thumped like a fist on the inside of my sternum. I breathed deeply, forcing my mind to calm, and started once again down the driveway.

Staying close to cover along the roadside, I walked slowly around the last small curve of gravel and dropped to one knee when the house came into view. Susan's cla.s.sic white farmhouse seemed to float above the ground on a soft black cloud of shrubbery. No lights showed through the dark-shuttered windows in front. To the right of the house, the small, whitewashed barn Susan used for a carport seemed empty, but inside the barn was shadowed black, and I knew that a car or even Rus Poultrez himself could be hidden deep inside.

I had a choice to make.

The driveway leading to the farmhouse pa.s.ses between two ponds. One is higher than the other, and water pours from the higher pond to the lower through large white pipes beneath the roadbed. I could reach the house in less than a minute, maybe thirty seconds, if I stayed on the road and crossed between the ponds. And, if I did that, I would make one h.e.l.l of a nice target. On the other hand, I could circle one of the ponds, stay in thick cover, and get to the house in ten or fifteen minutes. No question about it. Circling made more sense. But on the other hand, I thought... Screw it. I crept to the pond's edge, took three deep breaths, and sprinted across the roadbed in full sight of G.o.d and possible killers and anyone else who wanted to watch.

Joey's Walther PPK was in my right hand, and I used it to pump as I raced into the night. Ten seconds of eternity pa.s.sed as it felt as though my knees were flying up to my chest and my heels brushed the back of my head. Ten seconds, as it turned out, of nothinga"nothing but running and breathing and terror. The far bank of the lower pond pa.s.sed by on my left, and I dove off the driveway and landed in a base runner's slide, tearing down the bank with my right knee tucked under and my left toe pointed. Gravel ripped my pants, and I felt the sharp sting of small stones grinding away at flesh. It was a shallow ditch, and I hit bottom quickly. I tried to hold very still and listen for sounds other than my own heavy breathing.

I clicked off the Walther's safety and eased back up to the roadbed on my belly. The house was still dark. The carport was dark. Nothing moved. But there was something. In back, just visible through thick azaleas and boxwoods and holly trees, a pale light framed a porch swing hung from the limb of an oak tree. It could have been a security light or the reflection of moonlight off a second-story window. It could have been a lot of things.

I made another quick scan of the house and the carport and the grounds; then I worked my way through the ditch to a row of thick brush lining the fence. Minutes later, I was pressed against the wall of the huge red barn in back of the farmhouse, and I was looking up at the lighted shade of a bedside lamp in one of Susan's upstairs bedrooms.

Okay. Now what?

I watched. I watched for what seemed a very long time. And nothing happened. But finally I did notice something new. Through one of the back windows on the ground floor, I could just see the top of a doorway that I could have sworn led into Susan's study. And, I realized, there was no reason on earth that I should have been able to see the outline of an open door inside a dark house. The opening seemed to be lighted by a faint glow from the other side, from inside the study.

I needed a better view. Circling around the back of the barn, I made it to the other side of the yard and paused to pick out a shadowed path to Susan's wide, wraparound porch. Another quick look around the moonlit yard, and I took off, staying low and silently cringing as each footfall crunched through dried layers of leaves and pine needles that had acc.u.mulated while Susan was away.

Next to the back edge of the banistered porch, I had just hooked left to head for the side steps when my left foot struck something that felt like a sack of loose dirt. My front foot faltered and twisted as the other foot slid backward across loose leaves. I lost balance and hit the ground chest first. Something dull and hard gouged the side of my neck. Wind rushed out on impact, and I made an involuntary "Oomph" sound.

I grabbed for the stick that had gouged my neck and pushed. It moved, but in a strange, organic, rolling motion. It was attached to something, and that something was a leg. My hand was wrapped around the dirt-caked toe of a cowboy boot. And I was lying full across someone's corpse.

Shuddering and rolling, I cleared the lump of flesh and pressed my back against the porch. I held the Walther automatic against my chest and listened. But I looked at nothing but the dead body at my feet. It was a man. Thank G.o.d. He lay on his back with one narrow cowboy boot pointing up and the other lying flat. His head was twisted at an unnatural angle that buried his face in gra.s.s and leaves. But I knew who he was. I recognized the short, light hair; I recognized the build and even the clothes. I reached down and yanked up his left sleeve and found the tattoo: an ugly blue dagger with R.I.P. over it and R.E.T. underneath. Rudolph Enis Teeter, a.k.a. Sonny, had a bullet hole through his left side and, from the looks of it, a broken neck to boot.

I had just leaned forward to check his neck when I saw the shadow. A shovel with a tombstone-shaped head smashed into my right wrist, and the Walther PPK spun off into the dark. The giant black shadow of Rus Poultrez loomed over me. He didn't speak. He didn't laugh. He just raised the shovel back up over his head and aimed the metal spade at the top of my head.

I was crouching. I came up fast, burying my head in his gut, clamping his legs with my forearms, and driving with my legs. Poultrez managed to bring the shovel down in an excruciating blow to my lower back that shot hot waves of pain from my b.u.t.t to my shoulder, but I had him off balance. The big man went over on his back as I jammed my head and all the weight behind it into his belly. I somersaulted over his chest and landed just over his head. My right hand was numb. I jammed the fingers of my left hand into my hip pocket and came out with the switchblade that Sonny Teeter had donated to Joey in the parking lot of Mother's Milk.

Poultrez was big, even bigger than Joey, but he didn't have Joey's speed. My fingers found the chrome b.u.t.ton on the side of the yellow knife handle, and I felt the blade click open as I spun around and slammed my right elbow into the big man's face. In the same instant, the long thin blade protruding from my left fist found the soft flesh of his neck. And, just as Joey described on Dog Island, I jammed it in up to the hilt and twisted with all my strength. Hot blood gushed over my fist and down my forearm. Rus Poultrez shuddered and fell limp.

In an old cattle trough next to the barn, I washed off Poultrez's blood in a shallow pool of rainwater. The feeling started to return to my right hand, and with the feeling came searing pain. I could use my thumb and two of my fingers, but my index and middle fingers hung like dead tubes of meat.

I went back to check Poultrez. He was extremely dead.

It took a minute or so to find Joey's handgun. I picked it up in my left hand and mounted the porch. No one was moving inside the house.

I circled the house, found the front door unlocked, and stepped inside. The only sounds were the ticktock of Susan's antique grandfather clock and the periodic hum of the refrigerator's ice maker cycling on. I knew the house, so I left the lights out as I conducted a search of every room on the ground floor. Upstairs, only one person was in residence. And it was my client, Carli Poultrez.

Carli jerked and made a yelping sound when I opened the bedroom door. She said something like, "No." Her wrists and ankles were bound with s.h.a.ggy twine and lashed to a four-poster bed. Her slit-up-the-outside shorts were unsnapped and unzipped, but they were still on. Carli's shirt and bra had been torn or cut open at the front, and the white mounds of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s looked soft and vulnerable against the tanned muscles of her stomach and shoulders.

I said, "It's okay, Carli. It's me, Tom."

She lifted head off the bed and stared wildly in my direction. "Get out of here. Run. Run now. Get out of here, Tom. Get out of here."

"Carli, it's okay."

She screamed. "Don't you understand? He's here! He'll kill everybody."

I glanced down the hallway and closed the door before walking over to the bed. I reached down and pulled a spread over Carli's exposed b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Who's here, Carli? Is it just your father?"

She started to cry and spoke between deep, wrenching sobs. "Yes. My father. He's here."

I dropped the Walther in my hip pocket and started picking at the knots on her left wrist. I could have cut thema"if only my knife hadn't still been buried in her father's neck. "Is anyone else here? Anyone else who wants to hurt you?"

"No. Just him." She looked at what I was doing and seemed to find herself a little. "Hurry. He'll be back. You need to hurry. We gotta find Susan."

I had one wrist free now, and Carli reached across to claw at the twine binding her other arm while I moved down to untie her ankles. "It's okay, Carli. Your father's dead. He tried to bash my head in with a shovel, and I had to kill him. I'm sorry."

Her wrists were free now. Carli sat up and looked at me. "He's dead? You sure? He's really dead?"

"Yes, Carli. He's really dead."

She squeezed shut her eyes and began to cry again. The spread had fallen away when she sat up, and each sob made her young b.r.e.a.s.t.s tremble. All she said was, "Good."

I was untying the last piece of twine. She looked down and pulled the covers up to her neck. I said, "Do you have any other clothes here?"

She seemed to be coming into the present. "Yeah. In my bag. It's over in the closet there." I walked over and opened the closet. As I bent over to pick up her backpack, she said, "I put it in there yesterday when I first got here. You know, before I knew Susan and my ... before I knew he was here."

I dropped the backpack on the bed. "Susan's here?"

Carli came a little unfocused, then said, "She was here. He couldn't handle her and me at the same time. He said ... he said he was gonna shut her up and save her for later. He said she was gonna be dessert." She started to cry again.

"Is she okay?"

"I don't know. I guess."

"Carli. Was Susan hurt? We found a lot of blood in the room where they kidnapped her."

The girl's eyes focused. "No. Susan wasn't hurt when I got here. Unless, since then..."

"Did he leave the farm with her?"