“Thank you.”

“Hold off on that thanks, because there’s something else.” His serious tone arrested her attention. “I told Wiley about Costa Rica.”

She had expected him to, of course, but the implications were daunting. “Does he see me as an accomplice?”

“He’s thinking it over. Reason I’m telling you now is in case you’re planning to bamboozle us, help Josh get away, something like that. It would make you look really bad in the eyes of the law.”

“I won’t.”

“Okay.”

“I swear to you.”

“Okay.” He held her gaze for several seconds, then said, “Now…the other rules.”

A few minutes later, Wiley opened the passenger door and got in. “Sorry that took a while longer than it should have. The lady is so relieved she couldn’t stop talking. Hick’s regained consciousness. He’s alert. Responds correctly to the questions put to him.”

Jordie exclaimed her relief.

“That’s good news,” Shaw said.

“Not for you,” Wiley said. “He woke up mad as hell. Remembered the hoodie, thought it was you who’d shot him.”

“I hope somebody told him different.”

“He still doesn’t like you. But nobody does, right?”

Shaw looked in the rearview mirror and shot Jordie a look. She smiled back, but then her features returned to being taut with anxiety.

Following the directions she gave him, Shaw angled off the main road onto one whose bends were dictated by the winding bayou which it ran alongside. The swampy landscape on either side was a panoply of sameness, one perspective exactly like every other. With no signposts, either natural or man-made, one could get easily lost. He began to doubt Jordie’s recollection.

But then she said, “There. On the right.”

The turnoff was marked only by a rusty and dented metal mailbox. It sat atop a steeply leaning wooden post that seemed to be relying on the surrounding weeds to keep it from toppling. A quarter of a mile farther along the narrow gravel road, a house came into view.

“That it?” Shaw asked.

“Yes. I’m positive.”

It didn’t look at all hospitable or even habitable. There wasn’t a sign of life about the place, not a blade of living grass or green shrubbery. Even the surrounding trees had been suffocated by the Spanish moss that hung from their bare branches.

“Looks like a haunted house,” Wiley said.

“That would appeal to Josh,” she said. “He likes video games with supernatural and horror themes.”

Shaw stopped the car about fifty yards away from the house, but he kept the engine running as they assessed it. It was built in a typical Acadian style, supported on stout cypress beams, with a deep porch on three sides, shaded by the overhang. The exterior might once have been white, but the elements had stripped so much of the paint that the structure had been left a mournful gray that matched the monochromatic setting. Rust had taken over most of the tin roof. Snaggletoothed hurricane shutters hung crookedly from the windows.

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Shaw said. “Which is why I hate that there are so many windows. We’re sitting ducks for anybody who might be inside looking out.”

“Josh wouldn’t shoot anybody,” Jordie said.

“Wasn’t referring to Josh.”

“Panella?” Without waiting for an answer, Wiley drew his weapon just as Shaw did. “No car here.”

“I noticed that,” Shaw said. “Not sure what it means.”

“Maybe it means that I was wrong,” Jordie said. “That no one’s been here in ages.”

“I don’t think so.” Shaw couldn’t explain why he felt that. It was a gut thing.

“I should call for backup,” Wiley said.

“No!” Jordie said. “Let’s at least determine that Josh isn’t here.”

“Or that he is,” Shaw said. “Sink down.” He took his foot off the brake and drove slowly toward the house, then stopped about ten yards short of the steps leading up to the porch. He opened the driver’s door and got out but remained crouched behind the door. Wiley did the same on the passenger side. Shaw looked across the car’s interior and said, “This is your show.”

Wiley called out Josh’s name and identified himself. “I brought your sister with me. She wants to talk to you.”

They waited in breathless anticipation, but there was nothing forthcoming from the house. Wiley tried again, putting more force behind his voice. “Josh? It’s time to surrender. You keep up this nonsense, you lose your bargaining position for leniency.”

The clock in the dashboard was a retro analog model. Shaw listened to it tick off another sixty seconds, and when still nothing happened, he opened the backseat door and motioned Jordie out.

“Take my place behind the wheel.”

One of his rules of engagement had been that if she came along, she was to do what he said, when he said it. She slid out of the back and into the front without question or argument.

He placed his hand on the top of her head and pushed her down. “Stay low. I’d leave Wiley here with you, but we need to go in from two different directions. Any sign of Josh, the rustle of one leaf, a bug fart, you lay down on the horn.”

“If Josh is in there, I’m praying he’ll come out with his hands up.”

“Me too. But in case another scenario plays out—”

“Like Panella?”

“Like anything. Hit the horn, and then floorboard the gas pedal.”

“What about you?”

“Don’t wait on us. You get clear. Understood?”

With obvious reluctance, she nodded.

Then he took the palm pistol from his boot and passed it to her. “If it really goes south, this is ready to fire. You’ve got seven shots. Don’t hesitate. Point and pull the trigger. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“Will you do it?”

She swallowed. “I don’t know.”

“Great. You choose now to turn perfectly honest. I’m used to you mouthing back.”

She gave him a tremulous smile. “Be careful.”

He kissed her hard and quick. “Count on it.”