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campaign.”
    Stephenson had heard rumors to this effect since last week—Ramsey had been dropping hints—but he hadn’t believed that they could be true. Bo was a hard drinker, there was no denying that, but he was the mastermind and without him Warfield would be rudderless. “I can’t believe it.”
    â€œIt’s true.” Bo dropped his cigarette to the granite, then glanced at Stephenson, a pasty-faced man who could structure a massive leveraged buyout on the back of a napkin. “Meg and I leave tomorrow for a ranch Jimmy Lee bought in Montana. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
    â€œWho will—”
    â€œFrank Ramsey,” Bo cut in, anticipating the question.
    â€œThat’s ridiculous. We can’t trust that—”
    â€œWhat’s done is done.” Bo checked the veranda door to make certain no one was listening. “I need your help, Dale,” he said, lowering his voice.
    Stephenson nodded. Bo had made him a multimillionaire over the last few years. More important, he liked the man. “What do you need?”
    â€œJimmy Lee has forbidden me to have contact with anyone at Warfield. I told him I needed to close the loop with you this morning on the transactions that are currently in process and he agreed to let me see you, but after this meeting I am officially exiled.”
    â€œBastard.”
    â€œI have to stay in touch with someone about what’s going on at Warfield, Dale. I can’t just walk away from what we’ve built and trust that Ramsey will take care of it while I’m gone.”
    â€œI agree,” Stephenson said hesitantly. He knew what was coming and it scared him. You didn’t disobey a direct order from Jimmy Lee without considerable deliberation, because you knew that the punishment upon discovery would be swift and severe, and he’d become accustomed to earning his millions from Warfield Capital.
    â€œYou and I will maintain contact, Dale.”
    Stephenson grimaced.
    â€œWe’ll keep it very quiet,” Bo assured the other man, taking note of the reluctance in his eyes. “We’ll work out a system of communication that doesn’t make you vulnerable.”
    Stephenson took a deep breath. “You’re a good friend, Bo, and you’ve made me a wealthy man. My family and I owe you a great deal. Jimmy Lee scares me, I’ll be honest.” He paused. “But of course I’ll do what you want.”

CHAPTER 4
    April 2000
    â€œ B een drinking tonight, Bo?”
    Bo reclined against the side of the Jeep, massive forearms folded over his barrel chest. “No more than usual, Sheriff Blackburn.”
    John Blackburn aimed his flashlight into the Jeep. “There’s no need to be so formal.”
    Emergency lights blazed across Bo’s three-day stubble. “Just the same, Sheriff.”
    â€œWhere’s your wife?” Blackburn asked, concerned. “Where’s Meg?”
    Blackburn was a wiry man of medium height with curly red hair and a bushy mustache that looked too big for his angular face. He never carried his service revolver on his hip, but kept it back in the patrol car. He was a commonsense lawman who was more concerned with taking care of his townspeople than intimidating them.
    â€œWhere’s
your
wife?” Bo retorted. “Where’s Katie?” Meg and Katie had become good friends over the last year, during the Hancocks’ exile in Montana.
    â€œAt home,” Blackburn said calmly, keeping his annoyance in check, recognizing that Bo wasn’t himself. “Now where’s—”
    â€œMeg’s back East seeing her family,” Bo answered.
    â€œWho’s that in the passenger seat?”
    Blackburn’s only problem was that he asked too many questions. “A friend.”
    â€œI don’t recognize her.”
    Bo knew better than to engage a police officer in conversation during a
traffic stop,