BooksBarbecue
Back The Heathens
Chapters (33)
  1. ALSO BY ACE ATKINS
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  33. What’s next onyour reading list?

Lots of moaning and crying. A big pool of piss spreading across the concrete floor just before Dusty pulled the trigger. Blam.

Bishop hung limp and heavy off the chains. Dusty Nix nodded to his daddy to start on the cutting.

“Good thing Momma went on back to the house,” Daddy said. “I don’t think she’d want to see what’s coming next.”

EIGHTEEN

The next morning, the day after she’d tracked the kids to Forrest City, Lillie Virgil and Charlie Hodge headed over to Hot Springs, Arkansas. A security camera at a cabin on Lake Hamilton had shown none other than Ladarius McCade breaking in and stealing a freezer full of T-bones. By the time Lillie and Hodge arrived, the PD had sent out patrols to houses around the cabin and connected the kids to another break-in, this time at a big-ass mansion down the road owned by Vince Bloodgood, a fat fella who presented Lillie with his business card straight off. President and CEO of Bloodgood Motors in Fayetteville.

“I think these killers must’ve taken my baby,” Bloodgood said, shaking his head. “She’s a beautiful girl, frail and scared, ran off from home two days ago. Me and my wife have been worried sick. That’s her car right there. Nice little Mercedes G-Wagen. Gently pre-owned. Bought it for her sixteenth birthday. How are you doing for a vehicle, Miss Virgil?”

“Why do you think your daughter joined up with those kids?” Lillie asked.

“Wait till you see the mess inside my home,” Bloodgood said. He wore a dark blue double-breasted suit, a white shirt with a wide red tie, and styled his hair in an exaggerated comb-over. “Police almost finished up doing what they set out to do. House is a real wreck, ma’am. Looks like that Byrd girl had quite the time, sleeping around every bed like she was Little Miss Goldilocks with her pants on fire.”

“Is that what you saw?” Lillie said. “Ain’t that something.”

“Sexual action all over my family home.”

“Mm-hmm,” Lillie said. “And just why’d your daughter run away again?”

“She never really run off,” Bloodgood said. “Chastity got some idiot at the rehab center to drive her to Fayetteville for her vehicle. Don’t you worry about that detail. I called up that center and made sure that ole boy was fired. We’d paid up for two more weeks.”

“And what was she doing in rehab?”