“He thinks you know more than you’re lettin’ on.” He turned to face me. “So this is to keep him from tryin’ to get it.”

“You don’t want to tell him?”

His eyes narrowed. “It’s never a good idea to play your hand too early.”

Fear crept up my spine to the base of my neck. “This is a dangerous game, Hank.”

“I know, girl, and I would send you inside and try to shield you from it, but you don’t seem the type. Do you want to go inside?”

I stared into his deep-set, bright eyes. He looked totally sane and not high on pain pills, and he knew this town far better than I did. I suspected part of the reason he’d called Bingham was to protect me, and I wasn’t letting him fight this battle alone. “No. I’m not hiding from this.”

He gave a slow nod as we heard the rumble of vehicles approaching from down the mountain. Two trucks turned onto Hank’s property and flicked off their headlights as they pulled up in front of the house.

“Let me take the lead on this,” he said.

I didn’t answer, just gripped the shotgun with my sweat-slicked hands, wishing I had time to wipe them on my pajama bottoms.

The two trucks came to a halt, and I noticed that one was a black truck with a crunched front end.

I gasped. “That’s the truck that ran Wyatt off the road.”

“It did what, now?” Hank asked.

“The truck that followed us to Greeneville. When Wyatt chased after it, it ran him off the road.”

“You let me take care of this,” he said, sitting up straighter and gripping his gun with a tighter grasp.

If Bingham thought I had more information, and perhaps a connection to his competition in Atlanta, I wasn’t surprised he’d been following me, but why would he have tried to kill Wyatt?

The truck doors opened, and four men piled out and walked toward us.

“That’s close enough,” Hank called out when they were about twenty feet away.

A man laughed, but it was humorless. “You called me, old man.”

It was Bingham. I resisted the urge to shiver.

Hank wasn’t intimidated. “We need to work out a deal before I give you what you came for.”

My gaze darted to the body on the ground then back to Bingham.

“What sort of deal?” he asked.

“First of all, you got a question, you come to me and ask me to my face. You don’t send a goon after me and my own. I thought that arrangement had already been set in stone.”

Bingham held his hands out to his sides. “Seems to me you’re fresh out of kin, Chalmers.”

“You know damn good and well I claimed Wyatt Drummond as mine. So why is your man runnin’ ’im off the road?”

Bingham didn’t say anything for a moment, and when he spoke again, there was a little less arrogance in his voice. “That was a misunderstandin’.”

“A misunderstandin’ that nearly got the boy killed.”

I hadn’t told Hank that part, but I supposed that getting run off the road in these parts could be considered attempted murder.

“He should have left my man alone,” Bingham said.

“And your man shouldn’t have been following me and Carly. He was protectin’ his kin, Bingham. You of all people should understand that.”

Bingham turned his attention to me and took a step forward.

Hank shifted in his seat and lifted the barrel of his shotgun, pointing it at Bingham’s chest. Bingham’s men all pointed their weapons at Hank, but he seemed unfazed. “You take one step closer, and I’ll blow a hole in ya just like I did to that guy lyin’ on the ground.”

“And my men will kill you,” Bingham said evenly. “And her.”

“I’m trustin’ in your sense of self-preservation to keep that from happenin’.”

The air hung heavy with tension for a couple of heartbeats before Bingham patted his hand downward. His men lowered their weapons.

“So what’s the deal, old man?” Bingham asked. “You claim you shot one of the men who killed your grandson. But how can I be certain this man was involved, and what’s to say there was more than one?” He turned his attention to me. “Unless Ms. Moore knows more than she’s let on up to this point.”

“You can believe me or not,” Hank said, his own gun still raised. “But ask yourself why else this man would be breakin’ into my grandson’s room in the middle of the night.”

Bingham jutted a foot in front of him and shifted his balance. “I suppose you have a point. But what makes you think he wasn’t the only one?”

“Because he mentioned that he and his buddies were lookin’ for a stash. They thought Seth had brought it here.”

“And did he?” Bingham asked.

“Hell if I know,” Hank told him, “but if he had, I sure as hell wouldn’t be tellin’ you.” His back stiffened. “We had an agreement, Bingham, and you broke it. And I’m not talkin’ about running Wyatt off the road. I’m talkin’ about my grandson.”

“Hey now,” Bingham said, raising up his hands. “I did no such thing.”

“That’s not what your man said when he paid me a visit the day Seth died.” When Bingham remained silent, Hank said, “What? Cat got your tongue?”

“That doesn’t count, Hank,” Bingham said. “The boy came to me.”

“And I told you that if I conceded my business to you, you would leave me and my kin alone. That was the deal.” Hank’s voice was tight, and he sounded so mad I wondered if he was about to shoot Bingham, consequences be damned.

Bingham was silent for a moment. “Okay, I can see your point. I should’ve come to you.”

“Yeah,” Hank said, his voice breaking. “He’d still be alive if you had.”

Bingham took a step closer, his hands out at his sides again, pleading, “That boy was bound and determined to find out who’d supplied his mother with those drugs. There was no way in hell I could have stopped ’im, and you sure wouldn’t have been able to stand in his way. Hell, you were laid up in the hospital.”

Hank didn’t answer.

“I didn’t kill your grandson, Chalmers,” Bingham said, more insistent this time. “You and I want the same thing. We both want to know who did.”

“And I told you that I’ve got one of them. I’m willin’ to make a trade.”

“What is it you want to trade for a dead man?” Bingham asked.

“You get the identity of one of the interlopers, and in exchange, you leave Carly the hell alone.”

I refrained from gasping, but Bingham didn’t hide his surprise. “Why?”

“You don’t need to know why. You just need to agree to the terms.”

Bingham shifted his weight, looking like a wildcat preparing to leap. “Here’s the thing, old man. None of that makes sense. If she doesn’t know anything, then why are you so protective of her? And if she knows who killed the boy, why would you hide it?”

Hank didn’t answer.

“Why would you stick your neck out for some woman you don’t even know?” Bingham asked more insistently.