“Wait a minute.” Shaw tried to sit up but was able only to lever himself onto his elbows. “Is Josh Bennett still at large?” Seeing the deputy’s hesitation, Shaw said, “His capture wouldn’t be kept secret. It’ll have been on the news. I can ask her,” he added, indicating the nurse, “or you can just tell me.”

Morrow said, “Still at large.”

“And the feds think his sister can lead them to him?” He made a scoffing sound. “Wish them luck.”

Morrow came back to the bed. “Why do you say that?”

Shaw gauged the deputy’s apparent interest, then said to the nurse, “Beat it.”

Her sizable chest swelled with indignation. “I beg your pardon?”

Shaw fixed his coldest, most intimidating stare on her. She gathered her dignity and marched out. He returned his attention to Morrow. “Jordie Bennett doesn’t know anything. Not about her brother. Not about Panella.”

“That’s what she told you.”

“I was trying to squeeze more money out of the deal. I grilled her under pain of death. I put her through hell. Didn’t she tell Wiley all this?”

“She alluded to your death threats and persistence. But there were gaps in her story that Wiley wants filled.”

“What kind of gaps?”

The nurse reappeared, bringing with her a staff supervisor and the deputy guarding his room. The guard said, “Sorry, Sergeant Morrow. They’re kicking you out.”

Morrow said to Shaw, “I’ll be back later.”

“Wait a goddamn minute! These gaps in Jordie’s statement. Are they regarding her brother? Panella? What?”

“Probably all of the above. You included.”

“If she’d known anything about Panella or her brother, she would’ve told me.”

“Or stabbed you.” Morrow held Shaw’s gaze for several seconds, then the corner of his mouth hiked up in a quasismile. “Kinda makes you wonder who rooked who, doesn’t it?”

He turned to go. The people grouped in the open doorway parted for him. In a voice too low to hear, he said something to the deputy, then walked away. The others dispersed. The nurse Shaw had insulted shot him a spiteful look and pulled the door partially shut.

As he resettled on the hard pillow, his thoughts swirled around Jordie, star of his drug-inspired, X-rated dreams, sister of a criminal, object of Billy Panella’s affection.

Although she’d denied that, it was logical to assume. Panella had the hots for her, she’d spurned him, and he—

Or had she spurned him?

Morrow hinted that Shaw had been a chump to trust her. Obviously the FBI doubted her trustworthiness. She’d left gaps in the account she’d given Joe Wiley, and it was bedeviling Shaw to wonder what they were.

Hearing murmured voices just outside his room, he raised his head as the door was eased open. When he saw who his new visitor was, he swore under his breath.

“Not a very nice greeting.” Xavier Dupaw, assistant district attorney of Orleans Parish, came to the side of his bed and took him in from head to toe, tsking. “My, my. Look at you.”

The prosecutor tried and failed to contain a smirk. “You are in deep, deep doo-doo this time, Mr. Kinnard. Up to your ungroomed eyebrows in Panella’s doo-doo.” More tsking. “Of course, a day and a half spent alone with Jordie Bennett was a fringe benefit.” He winked.

Shaw wanted to tear out the guy’s jugular with his teeth.

“No wiggle room for you this time, my friend.” Dupaw leaned down and whispered with devilish glee, “Let’s get this party started!”

Chapter 25

Jordie kept the television in her bedroom tuned to the network morning shows, anticipating the local stations’ break-ins. Because of their brevity, her rescue was only touched upon, and there was no mention of Shaw’s condition. She paced until Gwen knocked on her door and told her that their Continental breakfast had arrived.

While sipping a cup of strong coffee, it occurred to Jordie how ill-advised it would be to meet with Agents Wiley and Hickam without having legal representation there. She didn’t want to appear guilty of any wrongdoing. But she wasn’t naïve, either.

She borrowed Gwen’s phone to call the lawyer who’d been at her side when she was questioned six months earlier and therefore was familiar with the case.

Adrian Dover was in her forties, sharp, no pushover. Better still, recognizing the implications of Josh’s escape and Jordie’s abduction, she was willing to adjust her schedule and come to Jordie’s aid on short notice. On Jordie’s behalf, Gwen called Joe Wiley and asked if the interview could be moved back to noon, allowing Jordie time to confer with her lawyer. He granted the request.

A few minutes before twelve Gwen ushered Jordie and the attorney down a corridor in the FBI building and into an interrogation room, although it was not identified as such. Jordie had been through this drill before.

Wiley and Hickam were already there. Everyone was painstakingly polite. Jordie thanked Wiley for agreeing to the postponement. He said it was just as well, because one of the toilets at his house had overflowed, creating a minor flood in an upstairs hallway.

Jordie curbed her impatience for as long as she could before interrupting Wiley’s anecdote about his wife’s encounter with the indifferent and unhurried plumber.

“What is Shaw Kinnard’s condition?” she blurted. “Did he make it through the surgery all right?”

The two men exchanged an uneasy glance.

Jordie’s stomach plummeted. “He died?”

Wiley cleared his throat. “No. He came through the surgery okay and was expected to make a full recovery.”

She tried to keep her relief from being too obvious. But then she caught the tense of the verb. “Was expected?”

No longer the genial family man harassed by a faulty toilet, Wiley now assumed his game face. “About fifteen minutes ago, we got a call from the Houma hospital’s administrator. Preemptive, I think. He’s covering his…behind.”

“For what?”

“Kinnard is en route to a trauma center here in New Orleans. His condition is a lot more serious this time.”

Jordie’s ribs seemed to shrink around her lungs. She couldn’t take in sufficient air. “More serious than what I…what I did to him?”

“The admin guy described him as being critical. Of course, he’s not a doctor.”

She wheezed. “What happened?”

Wiley’s frown deepened. “An assistant DA here in Orleans Parish, name of Xavier Dupaw, failed to indict Kinnard on two murder raps when he had the chance to. He’s been eating crow ever since. He heard about Kinnard’s capture and went to see him in the hospital this morning.

“No one knows exactly what was said between them, and, believe me, Dupaw can be provoking as hell. Whatever he said caused Kinnard to go apeshit, if you’ll pardon the French. He started yanking on his restraints, yelling that he was gonna kill Dupaw if it was the last thing he ever did.

“The admin guy described quite a scene. The upshot of it? Kinnard was too aggressive and hostile to be left down there in Houma. Dupaw insisted that he be moved immediately to a more secure facility, a hospital with bars on the windows, concertina wire around the perimeter, and dozens of guards, not just one deputy outside his door, who Dupaw described as ‘green as they come.’” He paused and looked at her with concern. “You want some water, Ms. Bennett?”