Before long, a third drink was poured, and Hector took a few beers and a pack of Marlboros out onto the back porch, and the party drifted out there. Patricia sat on one of the green metal lawn chairs and wrapped herself in a patchwork quilt that Darren’s grandmother had made before he was born. The worn cotton smelled of the blocks of cedar with which it shared a hallway closet, and the sweet scent mixed with the tang of pine in the air. It was cool outside and pitch-black beyond the yellow haze of the porch light. Roland, who never slept a night outside the city limits if he didn’t have to, flinched every time he heard a screech owl hooting. He was soon bumming smokes off Hector and daring any of them to say something about it. Buddy talked about the dispatcher in Corsicana he was putting it to three times a week: Could suck the stone out of a peach. Patricia called him a nasty bastard and threw a lime rind at his head. Ricky was already nodding off, his black gators hanging over the edge of the porch’s love seat, a water-stained cushion folded under his head. They’d left the back door open, and the smell of tamales and barbecue crept into the night air. Darren sat closest to the warmth of the house, keeping an ear out for the oven timer.

He poured himself a fourth drink, marveling at his folly, that he’d actually thought there was a chance he wasn’t going to end up knee-deep in brown water tonight. His skin flushed. He grew hot beneath the gray T-shirt he was wearing. He grew furious, actually, mad at himself. His brain loosened by drink, he could admit he’d stumbled badly with Frank Vaughn this afternoon. The man was bluffing, he told himself; he had to be. But if Vaughn had gone to the Mathews place solely on a fishing expedition, Darren had acted skittish enough to convince him to keep his line wet.

There was no way his mother would speak to the district attorney, right? It made no sense, not in the mind of Bell Callis, anyway. It would rob her of the very thing she’d always wanted, the attention of one of the Mathews men, her son at her feet. Without Darren, who would do her yard work and check on the plumbing line? If he went to prison, who would stock her fridge and pay her cable bill? Surely his mother wouldn’t intentionally ruin her only son. Right?

Lightnin’ had his own take on it.

You got love just like a hydrant…you know that turns it off and on.

The pick of his guitar was like a finger poking Darren’s wounds.

Lisa didn’t know about the money.

She didn’t know the whole story; no one did.