Unwritten Laws 01(336)

He turns away, rubbing his chin in silence.

“Now?” Regan asks eagerly.

Royal holds up one hand, then turns slowly around the firing range and focuses on me again. “You know the tragic irony of all this? It’s only happening because of your father. All of it. All these deaths go back to him.”

I blink in confusion. “What?”

“Back in the gun room you asked me if I killed Viola. Well, I didn’t, as a matter of fact. I would have, thirty-seven years ago.” Brody steps to within inches of my face, his eyes gleaming like those of an old lecher. “I’ll tell you this: she was a sweet piece, boy. I had my taste out at a machine shop in the woods. Snake and his boys had her tied to a worktable, taking turns. I wore a hood while I took mine, just to be safe, but I could sure see her. My God … like a brown-skinned angel she was. But Snake had said too much in front of her, and she needed to die.”

Caitlin is watching Brody with visceral hatred.

“That’s ancient history,” I say in a shaky voice. “Who killed her?”

He shakes his head in amazement. “Don’t you see it yet? Viola would have died forty years ago if it was up to me. Or Snake. We all wanted her silenced. It was your daddy who kept her alive. St. Thomas Cage, M.D.”

“I know that. But how did he save her?”

Royal shrugs as if the answer is self-evident. “The same way I was going to get that APB canceled, or blame Morehouse for her murder. Power. The crazy irony of this whole goat rope is that, after giving up so much to keep that colored nurse alive back then, Doc killed her himself forty years later.”

My blood pressure plummets so fast that I feel I might faint. But Royal only mutters, “It defies understanding, I tell you.”

I don’t want to believe a word he’s saying, but I see only truth in the old man’s eyes.

“Tom thinks that damn son of hers is his,” Brody goes on. “And I suppose he could be. But like as not, he’s mine—or Snake’s, or Frank’s, or God-knows-who-else’s.” Royal pokes me in the chest. “That’s why you’re down in this hole, son. That’s why you and yours are going to die. You’re paying for the sins of the father, just like the Bible says.” He shrugs philosophically. “It’ll kill your daddy to hear you died this way, but he’s got no one to blame but himself.”

Royal takes a long last look at me, then turns away as though I’m already dead and says, “All right, Randall.”

“You won’t get my mother and daughter,” I promise his back. “My father, either. You don’t know where they are.”

Royal nods, then smiles sadly. “I’ll know in about thirty seconds, when your fiancée is screaming like a heretic at the stake.”

Caitlin closes her eyes.

“I don’t know myself,” I tell him.

“Yes, you do. You hid your mother and daughter. Had to have. And as for your father … you may not know where he is, but you know how to reach him. As soon as I had Forrest cancel that APB, you were going to call him and Garrity and tell them it was okay to come in.”

I’ll never be able to convince Royal otherwise.

Regan braces the firing pipe on his hip and aims it at Caitlin’s helpless body.

“Oh,” Brody says, as though he’s just remembered something. He takes a small derringer from his pocket, breaks it open, and removes one of its two rounds, which he slips into his pocket. “I’ve always been a student of human behavior, and I’m curious about something.”

He bends over and slides the pistol across the concrete to me.

“You’ve got one bullet,” he says. “What will you do with it? Once Ms. Masters is on fire, will you put her out of her misery? Or will you try to kill me?”

Like a suspicious primate taunted by a cruel zoo worker, I hesitate to reach for the derringer. But in the end, I snatch it up. Maybe I can inflict some degree of harm on Brody before I die. Breaking open the weapon, I check the remaining round—a .22 long rifle bullet. It seems to be live, but it’s practically useless from this range. To reliably kill from this gun, this bullet should be fired from a foot or less.

“There’s a third choice, Brody,” Randall says. “He might save the bullet for himself. To spare himself the pain.”

Royal laughs. “Are you that blind, Randall? Not Mayor Cage. He’s a white-knight type. He’s Ivanhoe, son. Chivalry and honor. He’s his daddy all over again. Nope … he’ll shoot the girl. I’d stake my fortune on it.”

“Look at his eyes,” Regan says, watching me warily. “I’d take a step back, if I were you.”