It all went as if they’d rehearsed it. Boxers approached from behind and produced two set of zip ties from his vest. They were much more convenient than handcuffs, and more secure. Given the right conditions, ballpoint pen fillers could be used to pick handcuff locks. Without a knife or a good pair of snips, zip tied prisoners stayed zip tied until someone decided to let them go free. Besides, there were no keys to lose.

When they were both secure, Jonathan let his weapon fall against its sling and stepped closer. He gave his most charming smile. “Well, hello, Sheriff Bonneville. What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

“Taking you down,” said the deputy.

Jonathan allowed his smile to fade as he shifted his gaze. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

The man just glared.

“This is Jesse Collier,” Gail said. “My right hand.”

Jonathan took his time evaluating what he saw. Middle aged and a little thick of middle, the guy had a life-hardened look about him. Jonathan assessed him as zero bullshit and dangerous. “He looks like a loyal deputy,” he said. “A smart one, who knows when he’s no longer in control and needs to do what he’s told.”

Jesse spat a wad of phlegm that nailed the shoulder of Jonathan’s vest. Boxers dropped him with a savage punch to the kidney. The entire transaction went down with such speed that they all jumped.

“Enough!” Jonathan commanded.

“The fuck do you think you are?” Boxers yelled at the contorting deputy. “That’s my friend you just spit on.”

“Big Guy!” Jonathan said, more soothingly this time. “It’s okay.”

“No

“Gail Bonneville and Jesse Collier,” Jonathan said, “allow me to present the rest of the Hughes family-Steve and Julie.”

“What’s going on?” Julie demanded.

Jonathan explained the confrontation on the road as he helped the newcomers into dining table chairs.

“Why are they here?” Stephenson asked.

“If you want the short version,” Jonathan began, “Sheriff Bonneville is better at her job than I had anticipated. When I rescued Thomas, it was from a farmhouse in her jurisdiction.”

“So you admit it now,” Jesse said.

“Not much sense denying at this point,” Jonathan conceded. “Anyway, she’s been hunting for me ever since.” He turned one of the remaining dining chairs around and sat with his chest resting on the cane back, facing Gail. “I do hope, however, that you’ll tell how you connected the final dots. I know it didn’t come from fingerprints-we’ve already established that.”

Gail smiled as she shook her head. “When you unstrap my hands, I’ll fill you in.”

Jonathan smiled. He liked this woman. He even liked her deputy, although of the two of them, he was the one to be feared.

“What was your plan?” Jonathan asked. “Were you going to arrest us single-handedly?”

She shrugged. “If the opportunity arose, I suppose we might have. But really, it was more about recon. Once I got the lay of the land, maybe I would have taken my pictures to the state police and put together a plan to take you out.”

“In spite of your directive from the FBI.”

“Because of my directive from the FBI.”

She had guts, he had to give her that.

Stephenson looked confused. “So, your only interest here is to arrest Scorpion for shooting up your town?”

“And to arrest you for killing the Caldwell family,” Gail replied evenly.

“So you don’t know about the rest?” Julie asked.

Gail and Jesse exchanged looks. “What rest?”

Stephenson laughed heartily and paid for it with a muscle spasm. “Boy, do we have a story for you,” he grunted through the pain.

It took every bit of a half hour to tell the story again-thirty minutes that they could ill afford. By the time they were done, the Hummer and Gail’s Kia Sorrento had both arrived in the front yard, and Thomas and Boxers had joined the confab in the main room.

“So, Sheriff and Deputy, you’ve stepped into the middle of a war that’s about to happen,” Jonathan concluded. “And to tell you the God’s honest truth, I don’t know what I’m going to do about it. You’ve proved yourself to be just crazy enough not to be trusted if I let you go, but it doesn’t seem right to keep you trussed up like a couple of sculptures once the shooting starts. The third option-giving you a gun and asking you to help-doesn’t do much for me, either.”

“Well you sure as hell can’t give Deputy Dawg there a weapon,” Boxers said, pointing at Jesse.

Jonathan stood. “Enough chatting,” he said. “Let’s get to work. Once it gets dark, we’ll be on borrowed time. We’ve got to get that grass cut down out front, and we’ve got to get an ambush set.” He looked at Stephenson. “How about we start with a tour? Are you up for a little hobbling?” He held out his hand and helped the

“What about them?” Boxers asked, indicating the captives. “We gotta do something.”

He had a point. “Zip them to the chairs.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Gail said.

Boxers froze. He shot a panicked look to Jonathan. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. For Boxers, the Achilles’ heel was excretory functions. He could wallow to his elbows in blood and brains and not even wince. Pee and poop were entirely different matters.

Trying not to laugh at the look of horror from the big guy, Jonathan’s eyes narrowed as he assessed Gail’s angle. “Okay,” he said at length. “Tom, escort the sheriff to the outhouse.”

“No way!”

“You just have to walk with her,” Jonathan said. “You don’t have to wipe her.”

Gail was blushing. “You know I’m right here, right? And, not to get too graphic, there is the matter of my pants.”

“Yeah,” Thomas said. “Who’s gonna do that?”

Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Julie?”

She stood. “Sure,” she said, and she helped lift Gail to her feet with a hand on her biceps. “Come on, Sheriff, I’ll help you.”

Before they’d had a chance to move, Jonathan said, “Tom, you go, too, to help your mom.”

Thomas made a slashing motion with his hand-a definitive denial. “No. I am not-”

“Tom, I want you to stay with your mom.” This time, his tone conveyed his real message, and everyone in the room caught the subtext. Jonathan didn’t trust either woman.

Thomas conceded, even as Julie’s back stiffened.

“Let’s not argue, okay?” Thomas said, getting ahead of his mother’s inevitable complaint. “Let’s just do this and get it over with.”

Jonathan’s tour of the DuBois property started by heading up the stairs. The steps led directly to the master bedroom, where the ceiling was barely high enough to allow him to stand upright in the parallel troughs between the rough-hewn oak beams. A sagging double bed and a small table filled the space.

“Cozy,” Jonathan said.

Stephenson chuckled. “As a kid, I used to think this place was huge.”

“I guess it helps to be four feet tall.” He knocked on the nearest beam with his fist. “Solid.”

“Family lore has it that my grandfather built the place with his own hands. Not sure how he got the three-hundred-pound beams up.”

“Not a man to be trifled with,” Jonathan said. “I need to know if your wife is going to be a liability.” He launched that last part like a torpedo.

“Excuse me?”

“Do I need to watch my back when she’s around?”

Stephenson waved off the notion as foolish. “She’s not a violent woman. That’s part of why she’s being so…difficult. You have nothing to worry about.”

“You’re sure.”

“I’m better than sure. She’s just terrified. Hell, so am I.”

Fair enough, Jonathan thought. “Next I need see the GVX.”

Boxers came along. As barns go, the one on the DuBois property was small, but built to the same standards as the house. The heavy timber pillars looked brand new even if the fifteen-foot of they supported needed considerable repair. An ancient John Deere tractor stood in the far corner, still hooked up to the enormous cutting deck that clearly hadn’t been used in a while. “There you go, Big Guy,” Jonathan said, pointing. “Fill that baby with fuel from the spares on the Hummer and mow down all that free cover out front.”