Ronnie Pratt shook his head, sucked a tooth, and stood up on his little fat legs. He looked at his watch. “My lunch break’s nearly over, Sheriff,” he said. “Got a woman driving down from Oxford wants to see a real special Expedition. One of them big ones with all the trimmings.”

“Good luck,” Quinn said, nodding to the door.

“You, too,” Ronnie Pratt said. “Sure hope those kids go down in a hail of bullets. Now that’d be better than a sweaty ole Fourth of July. Wouldn’t it?”

*   *   *

Ladarius McCade did not care what anyone might have heard, he was no damn criminal. He was slick. He was good at what he did. And sure, he may have taken a few things over the last few years. But that wasn’t a crook. A crook hurt people, stole from hardworking folks and families. He’d never done that in his life. Rich folks had so much stuff laying around that they barely even missed it. And if he happened to take their vehicle and drive it over to that chop shop in Byhalia, insurance would pay them back. All he was doing was plying the trade that his great-uncle Dupuy taught him.

Ladarius pulled out another steak from the counter, getting softer but still frozen most of the way through. He tossed it into a black skillet, the meat starting to heat and burn, wishing he now had one of those cold beers damn Holly poured out in the yard.

Yeah, this was all right. Maybe they could go home once the law stopped harassing TJ. Until then, TJ needed good people around her, looking after her and little John Wesley, letting her have some time to heal up after what happened to her mother.

Ladarius couldn’t stop thinking about what TJ had told him, about her mother coming home from the Southern Star that night, her shirt soaked in some man’s blood, telling TJ that she’d killed a man out back of the bar. Gina Byrd said she had no idea why she was attacked, but TJ had too much experience with Gina Byrd’s lies and deceit. That woman was out back doing something that she shouldn’t been doing. Maybe trading some of that booty for some pills or to smoke a little of that crystal meth. Whatever she did didn’t much matter now. TJ should’ve gone and trusted Sheriff Colson to find out the truth. Wasn’t no doubt in any of their minds, Miss Gina was killed in some kind of revenge. At first, she’d said one man. And then there were two. TJ said her momma was so damn fucked up she barely knew her own damn name. Talking nonsense. Slurring her damn words.