The Bone Tree (Penn Cage #5) - Greg Iles Page 0,8

and squeeze her shoulder. “Whoever it is, act more disoriented than you are. You really are in shock, but play it up more. When they question you, try to stick to the past hour, nothing more. Act exhausted, and play up your injuries.”

Caitlin doesn’t appear to like this plan. “I don’t want to spend the night in a damned hospital. This is the biggest story I’ve ever been involved in. I’ve got zero time to waste.”

“I know.” Moving forward, I pull her tight against me. An hour ago I made the worst mistake of my life by begging her to suppress part of a story in order to try to bargain with a killer for my father’s life. I’ve got no right to try to control anything she does now. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. You tried to tell me something like this would happen. My worry over Dad blinded me.”

She shakes her head against my chest. “It wasn’t just you. Once I made that recording of Katy, Brody was going to come after us, no matter what.”

“But he wouldn’t have known about the recording if I hadn’t told him.”

This is debatable, but Caitlin only draws back and looks hard into my eyes. “Whatever happens now, I need to get back to the newspaper. Please do whatever you can to make that happen.”

The fire engine screeches to a stop thirty feet from us, and uniformed men leap off and out of it. The hoses come out faster than I would have believed possible, but these guys don’t have a prayer of putting out this inferno. One fireman hurries toward the body on the ground and drops to his knees, but I call out to him that the man is dead.

“What happened?” shouts another man from behind me. “Is there anybody still in the house?”

When I turn, I see a fire captain wearing a black hardhat and a fireproof coat. “Three dead men. That’s all I know. Not from the fire, though. There was a gunfight.”

His mouth drops open. “Gunfight? In Mr. Royal’s place?”

“Brody Royal’s one of the dead.”

“Oh, no.”

“His son-in-law is another. The third is Henry Sexton, the reporter.”

The fire captain shakes his head, unable to comprehend what I’m telling him. “Is that it? Nobody else?”

“I really don’t know. There’s nobody I’d risk my men to save.”

The fireman looks at me as if I might be out of my mind.

“They were torturing us,” I say. “Before the fire.”

“Torturing . . . ?” The captain looks closer at me. “Hey, I know you. You’re the mayor of Natchez. Penn Cage.”

“That’s right.”

“Are you okay?”

“I guess so. This is Caitlin Masters, the publisher of the Natchez Examiner.”

“What the hell started the fire?”

The answer to this question isn’t something the fire captain could accept. Let’s see . . . Brody Royal was preparing to burn off Caitlin’s arm with a flamethrower. I was chained to the wall, tearing my hands to shreds in my desperation to break free. That’s when Henry Sexton, despite his injuries, somehow struggled to his feet and shielded Caitlin with his body. Royal meant to burn him too, but like some medieval martyr, the reporter charged Royal and threw his arms around him before the old man could safely ignite the flamethrower. While the rest of us stared in horror, Henry pulled the trigger and immolated them both, creating a firestorm that no amount of water could smother—

“Mayor?” says the fire captain, catching hold of my shoulders. “Maybe you ought to sit down, huh?”

“A World War Two flamethrower,” I mumble. “Loaded with gasoline and tar.”

The man shakes his head in disbelief, then motions for help and starts shouting orders.

The sound of gunning motors makes me turn toward the driveway entrance. Three Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Department cruisers roar up behind the fire truck. Two park there, but a Chevy Tahoe pulls around the fire truck and drives up to within ten feet of me before it stops.

“Thank God,” Caitlin says in my ear.

Sheriff Walker Dennis gets out of his cruiser and stumps toward us. Three years shy of fifty, he carries himself like a minor-league baseball star gone to seed. He weighs 220 pounds and has forearms that would discourage anyone from betting against him in an arm-wrestling match. The way he wears his brown uniform and Stetson gives the impression that he’s been a sheriff all his adult life, but in fact he only took over the job about six weeks ago, after his predecessor was indicted on