I hear Lincoln take a long breath, and when it passes out, I feel him shifting into another state of consciousness, like a truck downshifting to climb a hill.

“You did worse than kill her,” he says, his bass voice nearly inaudible. “You broke her. You wounded her soul.”

At last I turn and meet my brother’s eyes. All I see there is pain. He will call me to account for keeping what I knew from him, but not until this business is done. As I stare, I see a question in his face: Do you want to stay in here, or do you want to go outside while I do it?

“Wait, now,” Wilma Deen says, as though talking to herself. “Hold up, mister. Don’t do this. I can’t die like this. This ain’t fair.”

“Fair?” echoes Alois, mocking her. “Fair? I am so goddamn sick of your shit—”

Wilma Deen slaps Alois so hard that the sound reverberates through the little shack. For maybe two seconds, the kid gapes at her; then he slugs her in the temple. He looks like he’s gearing up to do it again when Lincoln fires a bullet into the couch an inch from his shoulder. I don’t know if Lincoln meant to miss or not, and I sense that the next bullet is going into someone’s head.

“I didn’t kill nobody,” Wilma says, first softly, then with escalating fear. “I didn’t kill nobody. I threw the acid on that girl, but that’s it, I swear to God.”

She looks up at me, then Lincoln, her eyes imploring us. “I didn’t kill your mama, sir. I never even met her. Snake and Sonny done it—just like they killed my brother Glenn. You hear me? He bragged about it all during that trial!”

Alois’s face is so pale that I know he’d kill her if he had a weapon ready to hand.

“All my life Snake used me,” Wilma goes on, “used me and threw me away, over and over again. I ain’t dyin’ for him!”

Snake hasn’t said anything. He’s calmly watching his minion turn on him, and probably gauging whether anything she’s said could be used against him if he somehow survives this night.

“That tape won’t help you,” Wilma says breathlessly. “I know that much law. But I can help you. I can testify, like Will Devine was gonna do. But you have to protect me, okay? You gotta put me somewhere he can’t reach.”

“There’s nowhere I can’t reach,” Snake says softly. “You know that, baby girl.”