Start gathering your cash today.”

“What about me?” Faith says.

“Call your sister, the one who lives in Denver.”

Faith’s expression shows she’s not happy a killer knows where her sister lives.

Maybe says, “Tell her you’re coming to see her on the 13th. You’d like to stay a couple nights. “She’ll say yes, don’t you think?”

Faith nods.

“Send an email to follow up on the conversation. Buy a couple of presents for her kids today, and wrap them. The trip and presents will be on record. If you’re both out of town it’s highly likely Jake and Lemon will get together that night, don’t you think?”

“It’s a certainty,” Faith says.

“If they hook up, I’ll kill them together. If not, I’ll kill them individually. It’ll either be a home invasion or a murder-suicide.”

“What’s the motivation for that?”

“Someone will know about the affair. It can’t be you guys, but trust me, someone will know. When the cops find out, the pieces will fall into place. You might be suspects, but your alibis are excellent. And they won’t find out about me unless you tell them. And that would be a mistake.” She pauses a minute, picks Byron’s nuts off the pavement, puts them in her jeans pocket. Then says, “Any questions?”

Faith and Milo look at each other.

No, they don’t have any questions.

15.

Donovan Creed, Joe Penny,

Jack & Jill.

JACK TALLOW LOOKS like shit. He’s juiced up with pain meds and antibiotics and writing stories about Jill’s husband that are impossible to believe.

Writing them on a yellow legal pad, since he can’t speak.

Bobby Dee had a doctor remove his vocal cords so he wouldn’t make too much noise while being tortured. But he didn’t have time to be tortured too badly in the basement because Bobby had his goons dump Jack in a pen full of wild hogs near the Blood River. From what I’ve pieced together, Jack’s escape involved killing two guys and stealing a truck. But the details are sketchy, and I’m not interested enough to question him further.

If Jack’s to be believed, Bobby has a number of prisoners chained up in the basement of his antebellum home in La Pierre, Louisiana. And now he’s insisting I spare the prisoners.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about the prisoners,” I say. “And if they look as bad as you, I expect they’ll welcome a swift death.”

Jack writes:

Some of them are kids! The prisoners are part of the state’s witness protection program. Bobby sells the snitches to the mob and rapes and tortures the family members.

“I can see why you didn’t get along,” I say. “He sounds like a shitty host.”

You have to save them. You can’t just blow them up.

I look at Joe Penny. “I want this done tonight. Any way to keep the prisoners alive while blowing up the rest of the house?”

“I haven’t seen the house, but if it’s as big as Jill says, the prisoners have three ways to die and only one way to live.”

“Elaborate.”

“They could die in the initial blast, be crushed by the rubble, or suffocate from the dust.”

“And their chance for living?”

“Pure luck.”

“Give me odds.”

He looks at Jack.