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“That won’t be necessary,” she said coolly. “Perhaps I shouldn’t answer any questions until I call an attorney.”

Pendergast gave her a long, steady look. “I am not in any mood for obstructionism,” he said in a low, menacing voice. “You will answer any questions I put to you, attorney and Miranda be damned.” He turned to the man in surgical whites. “Stand over there next to her.”

The short man hastily complied.

“Is that the patient?” Pendergast asked Brodie. “The one you mentioned earlier?”

She shook her head. “Is this any way to treat us, after we helped your partner?”

“Don’t irritate me.”

Brodie fell silent.

Pendergast looked at her, a terrible expression on his face. His Les Baer still hung ominously by his side. “You will answer my questions completely, starting now. Understood?”

The woman nodded.

“Now: why this extensive medical setup? Who is your ‘patient’?”

“I am the patient,” came a cracked, whispery voice, to the accompaniment of a door opening in the far wall. “All this largesse is for me.” A figure stood in the darkness outside the door, tall and still and gaunt, a scarecrow silhouette barely visible in the darkness beyond the emergency room. He laughed: a papery laugh, more breath than anything else. After a moment the shadow stepped very slowly from the darkness into the half-light and raised his voice only slightly.

“Here’s Charles J. Slade!”

75

JUDSON ESTERHAZY HAD GUNNED THE 250 Merc and aimed the bass boat south, accelerating to a dangerous speed down the old logging pullboat channel. With a supreme effort of will, he drew back a little on the throttle, quieted the turmoil in his mind. There was no question it had been time to cut his losses and run. He had left Pendergast and the injured woman back in the swamp, without a boat, a mile from Spanish Island. Whether they made it there or not was not his most pressing concern; he was safe and it was time to beat a strategic retreat. He would have to act decisively, and soon, but for now the wise course was to go to ground, lick his wounds—and reemerge refreshed and stronger.

Yet somehow he felt uncomfortably certain Pendergast would reach Spanish Island. And—even given all that had happened between him and its occupant—he was finding it hard to leave Slade behind, and unprotected; harder, so much harder, than he’d steeled himself to ever expect.

In a curious way, deep down, he had known this would be the result as soon as Pendergast had shown up in Savannah with his accursed revelation. The man was preternatural. Twelve years of meticulous deception, blown up in a matter of two weeks. All because one barrel of a bloody rifle had not been cleaned. Unbelievable how such a small oversight could lead to such enormous consequences. And he hadn’t helped matters any, blurting out about Audubon and New Madrid in his surprise at seeing Pendergast.

At least, Esterhazy thought, he had not made the mistake of underestimating the man… as so many others had done, to their great sorrow. Pendergast had no idea of his involvement. Nor did he know of the trump card he held in reserve. Those secrets Judson knew—without the slightest doubt—Slade would take with him, to the grave or elsewhere.

The night air breezed by his boat, the stars shimmered in the sky above, the trees stood blackly against the moonlit sky. The pullboat channel narrowed and grew shallow. Esterhazy began to calm further. There was always the possibility—a distinct one—Pendergast and the woman would die in the swamp before making it to the camp. After all, the woman had taken one of his rounds. She could easily be bleeding to death. Even if the wound wasn’t immediately fatal, it would be sheer hell dragging her through that last section of swamp, infested with alligators and water moccasins, the water thick with leeches, the air choking with mosquitoes.

He slowed as the boat came to the silted-over end of the channel. Esterhazy shut off the engine, swiveled it up out of the water, and began poling.