Relief and fear had a little tug o’ war going in my heart. She was there, she was alive, and we were about to do something probably stupid and dangerous to get her back.

“My lady, art thou ready?”

“Yeah,” I lied.

“Master Dirk? Sir Edrard?”

“I’m ready,” Edrard said.

“Shit, yeah, let’s do this thing.” Maybe Dirk was bluffing, but he sounded surer of himself than Edrard and I did.

Gentry passed his phone to Edrard, and we all fell in line behind him. Edrard peeled off first, when we were still a hundred yards out, to take up his position on the high spot Gentry had picked out for him. I called Edrard’s phone and, when he answered, Gentry, Dirk, and I walked on with the line open.

When we reached the road that went to the cabin, we left Dirk to stand watch. The sun was at the top of the trees, and we were only forty or fifty yards from the cabin. Gentry stepped out into the middle of the road, so I did, too. Then we started walking.

At twenty yards, the man on the porch finally noticed us. He stood up and lifted the shotgun he’d had across his lap. It was only a shotgun, though, and at that distance, I wasn’t worried. When we were ten yards away, I recognized the man on the porch. Conrad Ligett. He yelled back into the house through the open screen door: “Scanlon! Get out here.”

Gentry and I stopped about fifteen feet from the front porch. The man named Scanlon stepped outside and, for a minute, he and Ligett just looked at us. We obviously weren’t cops, but we weren’t obviously anything else, either.

“You folks need to get on outta here,” Ligett said. “You’re trespassing and about to get yourselves shot.”

“I’m here to get my sister, LaReigne.”

“I don’t know nothing about that. Get the fuck off my land.”

“I’m not expecting anything for free. I’m willing to pay to get my sister back.” I’d practiced it in my head during the drive, but it was happening so fast I wasn’t sure I was saying what I’d planned to say. I felt like there was a time delay between my brain and my mouth.

“What makes you think your sister’s here?” Scanlon said.

“Because that fucker is here.” I pointed at Ligett. “Conrad, right? You’ve been on the news. If you’re here, I figure my sister’s here, too. I’m willing to pay you all fifty thousand dollars to get her back. It’s cash. Used bills. Unmarked. Untraceable.”

“Fifty grand?” Scanlon said. “Fuck if you have fifty grand. I bet you don’t have a hundred bucks to your name.”

“Let me show it to you.”

“Yeah, why don’t you do that?” Until then, Scanlon had had his gun down by his side, but he brought it up and pointed it at us. Gentry tensed up beside me.

I pulled the phone out of my pocket and opened the photos app. I took a dozen steps closer to the cabin porch, Gentry right next to me, and held the phone out.

As crazy as it was, we’d taken the pictures in the Sonic parking lot. I’d laid the cash on the hood of Gentry’s truck and posed with it. One pic with the fifty thousand, another with the almost ninety-five thousand, in case I needed it.

“That photo was taken today. There’s the money,” I said.

“What’s to stop me from shooting the both of you and taking it?” Scanlon was still pointing his gun at me, and I hoped I didn’t look as terrified as I felt.

“Because if you shoot me, my friend up on the hill is gonna put a couple arrows in you, and burn this place to the ground.”

Scanlon laughed, so I handed the phone to Gentry. He put it to his ear and said, “Prove thy aim is true, Sir Edrard.”

About twenty seconds later a flaming arrow dropped out of the sky and hit the dirt in the space between the cabin and the barn. Even though I knew it was coming, it made me jump. The second arrow landed ten feet closer to the cabin. Scanlon stopped laughing. Gentry handed me the phone and went over to stamp out the flames from the arrows. He was grinning when he walked back to me.

“So like I was saying. I’m offering you fifty thousand dollars for my sister. Here’s how it works. You bring her out here. She and one of your friends walk back up the hill with us. We give your friend the money, he walks back down here, and we drive away.”

“Shit, I guess it’s true, all them rumors about your daddy ending up with that bank money,” Scanlon said. It didn’t surprise me there were rumors at the prison. Everybody liked to think somebody had succeeded where the rest of them had failed. I wondered again if that was why they’d picked LaReigne. Had they thought they might be able to ransom her? If I’d waited, would they have come to me or Uncle Alva eventually?

“Oh, you think we’re gonna let you walk away and call the cops?” Ligett said.

“If I wanted to call the cops I’d have done it an hour ago, and my friend with the bow and arrows can call them right now. Except I want my sister back alive, and I don’t think the cops can help me with that. If she’s here, let me see her.”

“Well, I’ll say this: you’re a helluva a lot smarter than your sister, but I bet this is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done,” Scanlon said.

“It’s really simple. You want the money? Let me see my sister.”

“I don’t—” Ligett started to say, but Scanlon cut him off.

“All right. You come on inside, but your boy stays out here.”

“It me liketh not, my lady.” When I looked at Gentry, he was scratching the back of his neck with both hands. He could draw his sword from that position, and I wasn’t sure if that made me less nervous or more nervous.

“It’s okay. I have the phone. If I need help I’ll tell Edrard and he’ll let you know.”

Gentry lowered his hands and nodded.

I went up the stairs like an old lady, because my hip was so tight I could barely get my foot up each riser. The steps creaked under me and, when I got to the top, Ligett reached out like he meant to frisk me.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” I said. “You got a gun. I got a gun. Let’s play nice.”

For a minute, I thought that was going to be the deal breaker, but Scanlon shook his head at Ligett and said, “It’s okay if the lady wants to bring a gun. She’s not gonna shoot the place up.”

Inside, the cabin smelled like stale cigarettes and mildew and onions.

“Go on ahead. Door on the right.” Scanlon pointed for me to go down the hall ahead of him. When I stopped at the door he’d indicated, he said, “Go on in.”