I glanced at the water.
At the top of the hunting blind, a windsock hung lazily. Along the side of the structure, the shape of an arm reached for something, then fell back into the darkness.
I looked back at Nolan.
“When I was younger, we’d play survival here,” he said. “Rule was, sun comes up, and I win.”
I wanted to shoot him dead.
“I’m sorry your dad did this to you.”
Nolan laughed. “Dad did nothing but raise me with honesty and fairness. You really don’t know anything, do you?”
He straightened his arm then, and Frank’s Glock nearly touched my shirt. “You’re gonna let me walk out of here, Camden. ’Cause if you don’t, we’re gonna kill each other. Or we’ll stay like this all night. And Agent Roberts doesn’t have all night.”
An insect was crawling on my face. The wind had grown colder.
“Can I add a complication?” he said, smiling. “See, I like playing games with you. And you know I had Banning’s login. Kind of a nice view. You can see anything. Like what was going to happen to PAR next month.”
He moved from a crouching position to a standing one, and I mirrored him.
“PAR is getting disbanded,” he said.
“I know,” I replied. Even though I had not been sure about this.
“That’s why they didn’t care when you were assigned this investigation. Frank is dumping you to run Dallas. So maybe you want to take a shot at me after all. Let your boss die.”
I said nothing.
“Cassie Pardo is being sent to Information Services in Clarksville,” he continued. “Jo Harris to Omaha.”
I recalled Richie’s comment about a one-month trial at PAR, after which Frank would decide where he’d go next.
“Wanna know what was gonna happen to you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m suspended right now. So I’m gone anyway.”
“Interesting,” he said. “So whadaya say? Wanna wait here all night ’til backup comes? Let Frank get what he deserves for not telling you all?”
“No.”
“Then I’m backing up,” he said. “And maybe there’s a chance you save your boss.”
I thought of Nolan’s smashed RV, a half mile away. I could get Frank and still go after Nolan.
He took another step back into a grove of hardwood, his gun trained on me the whole time. And mine on him.
“Last chance to shoot me,” he said.
The moonlight on the tree trunks showed off how enormous they were. One moment, Nolan was beside them. The next, he’d disappeared.
I heard footsteps. The crashing sounds of palmettos being pushed aside. When the noise faded into the distance, I turned. Picked up the rifle and slung it over my shoulder. Headed for the hunting blind.
“Frank?” I called out.
I heard a muffled sound and saw the tail of a gator slide into the water.
Alligators are apex predators, related to beasts that lived 150 million years ago. Shooter once told me they were easy to kill—if you were an expert shot. You simply had to place a bullet behind the rectangular plate on the top of the reptile’s head.
I pointed in that direction and emptied my Glock in a tight pattern. In the light of my flashlight, the water went a reddish brown.
“Frank,” I hollered again, the hunting blind now twenty feet in front of me.
I moved into the three-foot-deep swamp, my eyes darting left and right. I’d already lost my mom. I couldn’t lose Frank.
I saw a shape along the east-facing pylon on the tower and trudged closer. The ground dropped, the water rising to my chin. I held my gun above the surface.
Frank was tied to the pylon, his head barely above water. I cut at the rope with Terradas’s pocketknife, and he broke free.
“C’mon,” I said.
We turned back through the greenish-brown water, and I heard a splash north of me. Jammed a new magazine into my Glock and fired blindly.
As the water level got lower and the shore drew closer, I saw Frank’s face was cut. As were his legs.
“Faster,” I said.
In a minute, we’d made it to shore. Frank dropped to the ground, and I scanned the thicket for Nolan, my Glock held out.
Nothing.
Above us, a bank of trees was covered in Spanish moss. I remembered my mother teaching me as a child that the plant was neither moss nor from Spain.
Frank lifted his leg. The cuts there had shredded his slacks, and he was bleeding badly. I presumed Mad Dog had cut him to draw in the alligators, but this could also have happened from moving through the thicket. Either way, I had to get him to a hospital.
“I’m not sure the tailor can mend these.” He motioned at his pants, half laughing. “And you know I got a good tailor.”
Frank was in bad shape. Dehydrated. Bleeding. There was no way I could leave him here and chase Nolan. And there was no way Frank was in any shape to join me.
“Tell me you killed that son of a bitch,” he said.
I had never heard Frank curse before, and I shook my head. Smacked at a mosquito.
“No,” I said.
I walked past the muddy divot where I’d surprise attacked Nolan. Found my iPhone in a bush nearby. The face was cracked, but no bullets were in it.
“I wrecked his RV,” I said. “But he knows this area. And he’s got a head start.”
I held up my phone. One bar. Cassie picked up on the first ring.
“You got him?”
“Frank, yes,” I said. “But Nolan is in the wind. Send an ambulance for the boss. And have that game warden meet me by the Union Gas turnaround.”
I hung up and dropped onto my back, exhausted.
Frank turned to me. “Thank you,” he said.
He started crying then, and I reached a hand over. Put it on his shoulder.
“I didn’t deserve this,” he said. “You coming to rescue me.”
And at that moment, I knew Ethan Nolan was right. PAR was being shut down, and Frank was leaving us behind.