‘I don’t think these are Baptist terrorists, Henry. If you know anything about this, whatever Luke’s gotten involved in, you and I can deal. But now’s the time.’
‘I don’t know anything.’
‘The day after Clifford gets killed, a bomb goes off in Ripley, Texas. I’m sure you saw that on the news.’
‘Ripley was Hellfire?’
‘Bridger made Hellfire sound much bigger than a single bomb. Much bigger. More than one city attacked.’
‘I can’t help you. I know nothing, except that Luke is not a terrorist.’
‘No, Luke has just consistently reached out to freaks and people who hate. But he’s not a terrorist, no.’ A smile flicked on Drummond’s face. ‘What did you make him into, Henry? Now, Warren, he knew how to be a father. I think you just know how to be a screw-up.’
‘You judging me. Where were you again when our friends died? Those rehab places all sound alike to me.’ Henry kept his gaze locked on Drummond’s eyes and to his satisfaction he saw he’d scored a hit.
Drummond lifted and inspected a photo of Luke, his mother and Henry from the desk. A happier time, the photo taken at a vacation in Hawaii a year before the car crash that killed Barbara. Their smiles glowed. He set the photo down. ‘If you’re hiding him, don’t. Give him to me. If he’s innocent or he’s been pulled into this against his will, we’ll help him and he’ll go home with a clean slate. If he’s guilty, then we find out what this Hellfire bullshit is and we stop it cold.’
Drummond’s tactic was nothing but playing nice cop before he played bad cop again. ‘I do not know where he is.’
‘The world you and your stepson are in is a little too small for my liking, Henry. You and Luke Dantry and Allen Clifford, all mixing it up years after we said our goodbyes. Sit there. Move and you get cut.’ Then Drummond proceeded to search the study with a professional’s keen efficiency. Henry sat, calmly, blanketing the rage inside him with a knowing half-smile. Nothing to link him to the Night Road, or to Hellfire, was here. Let Drummond look.
When he was done, Drummond stood. The frustration in his eyes was a knife that Henry could twist.
‘You’ve kept Clifford’s name out of the paper,’ Henry said.
‘Yes.’
‘So you are with the government.’
Drummond didn’t answer but he wanted to prove his power, Henry could see. Proving his power, his superiority, had always been Drummond’s weakness.
From his jacket, Drummond pulled out a photo and pushed it under Henry’s nose. The photo appeared to be from a video camera mounted in a police car, aimed out the front windshield. It was a single shot, an officer talking to two men sitting in a BMW, a traffic stop. The ticket Luke had gotten in Mirabeau, Henry realized. He recognized the grainy profile of a man in the passenger seat. Eric Lindoe.
If he finds Eric, Drummond could find his connection to me, Henry thought. Keep the lies simple. ‘That’s Luke at the wheel, I don’t know who the other man is. Why hasn’t this photo been released to the press?’
Drummond ignored the question and tapped the photo. ‘It’s not a good enough shot to ID his face, but we’ll find out who he is. I understand the last time you saw Luke was at the Austin airport. We’ll nab all the video feeds from there as well.’
He knew then that whoever employed Drummond and Clifford would identify and find Eric Lindoe; it might just be a matter of hours. Maybe a couple of days. His world was unraveling. ‘This proves Luke is innocent… he must have been forced…’
‘Proves nothing. Innocent of pulling a trigger, perhaps, but Luke drove the car. Someone destroyed the Book Club before. Someone seems to be trying again. You and I shouldn’t sleep too good. Maybe we’re next.’
‘The plane flight – they were collateral damage. Ace Beere’ – the private jet mechanic who had tampered with the plane’s flight system so everyone on the flight died from hypoxia -‘he was trying to get revenge on his employer. Not the Book Club. We weren’t the targets.’
‘Lucky, that you and Clifford and me couldn’t make the trip.’
‘I always thought so,’ Henry said.
Drummond crossed his arms. ‘I need to understand Luke. Then I can figure out what his next move might be.’
Henry saw that the questions Drummond asked might reveal more than he intended. He nodded. ‘What do you want to know? I’ll tell you just to help Luke. You promise you won’t hurt him.’
‘I promise. After his father’s death, Luke Dantry vanished for seven weeks.’
‘He ran away from home. He walked and hitchhiked south.’
‘His mother must have been frantic. Good thing you were there to comfort her.’ Drummond raised an eyebrow.
‘A dear friendship and a good marriage came out of Luke’s running,’ Henry said evenly. ‘Luke went to Cape Hatteras.’
‘It doesn’t take seven weeks to walk or hitchhike from Washington to Cape Hatteras. Where was he during those seven weeks?’
‘Mourning. Hiding from the world.’
‘He was living on the streets.’
‘He was only fourteen. But Warren had taught him to be rather independent. When the police found him he was sitting on the beach at the cape, staring out at sea where his father’s plane went down. He’d been sitting on the sand for two days, watching the sea. Someone noticed him and called the police.’
‘Pining for the dead at this level doesn’t sound quite normal.’
Henry loathed Drummond’s dismissive tone but he decided it might be a goad, a prod to make him talk more than he should. ‘Luke was extremely close to his – to Warren. You know how much everyone loved Warren.’
‘Didn’t we all.’ Drummond tilted his head. ‘Luke never called his mom to say he was safe?’
‘No. He should have. Luke had a tough time of it. He ran out of cash; he’d only taken a hundred dollars with him. His face was all over the Virginia papers then; people were looking for him. He figured out how to blend in, how to hide, how to survive on the run.’
‘I never thought of concealment as a genetic trait. His father was good at staying under the radar, too.’ Drummond rested the knife against his leg. ‘This kid spent seven weeks evading the police and the detectives that your wife hired to find him. All without money or resources. And now he’s hiding again.’
Henry’s mouth thinned. A twist of pride in Luke filled his chest. ‘If he doesn’t want to be found, you won’t find him.’ I will find him first, he thought. And then I’ll have Mouser kill you with your own knife, you insufferable bastard.
‘Are you using this kid to settle old scores? Let’s be honest. You hated me, you hated Warren, you hated everyone in the Book Club.’
‘That’s not true…’
‘Isn’t it? We all thought you hated us.’
‘Hardly. I made the Book Club happen.’
‘Maybe. But Warren Dantry made it succeed.’
Henry shook his head slowly. The words, and the truth, couldn’t hurt him any more. The Book Club was dead and he’d won. ‘Some success. A bunch of thinkers and thugs that no one paid much attention to in the first place.’
‘And now your stepson…’
‘He’s my son!’ Henry snapped. An awful silence descended between the two men.
Drummond’s lips curled in a sneer. ‘You really did step into Warren Dantry’s life. His career. His wife. His son. My God, I guess you got over your hatred for him. How do Warren’s shoes fit you, Henry?’
Henry breathed slowly, counted to ten, etched a half-smile on his face. He had never wanted to kill anyone as badly as he wanted to kill Drummond. He quelled the rage. ‘You know if I knew, I would tell you, because then I could help you find Luke. That’s all I want. Luke to be found and home safe.’
Drummond tented his fingers with the air of a man with a final card to play. ‘I’ll find him. Before the police do. He’s going to talk to me.’ Drummond stood. ‘It might be best, Henry, if you allowed yourself to be placed under my protection.’