Brandon seemed to be deep in thought as Quinn joined him at the kitchen table. The kid now officially a Colson after the adoption last year while Quinn recovered from gunshot wounds from the ambush out on Perfect Circle Road. It had taken months to heal before he could take on Fannie Hathcock and her cronies ruling north Mississippi. Quinn and Brandon had spent many hours walking the woods and doing a little fishing on their private lake. The kid still trying to make sense of his biological father, who was both a decorated Marine and a criminal, guaranteed to spend rest of his life at FCI Yazoo City.

“Where’d you go last night?” Brandon asked.

“Just tending to a little business,” Quinn said.

“In the middle of the night?”

“Yes, sir,” Quinn said. “No time clocks for the sheriff. I’m on call twenty-four-seven whether I like it or not.”

“I bet someone is dead,” Brandon said. “You don’t usually go out that late unless something real bad happened. Who died?”

“No one died.”

“You sure?”

“Well,” Quinn said. “I hope not.”

The thing about living in a rural county is that one way or another, almost everyone was connected in some way, big or small. Quinn recalled Brandon was in the same grade as the Byrd boy, and they’d come to blows on more than one occasion. “How are things going between you and John Wesley Byrd?”

“Permission to use bad language, sir?”

“Sure,” Quinn said. “It’s only us.”

“That kid’s a real asshole.”

“How so?”

“He’s always messing with me,” Brandon said. “Pushing me in line. Saying that you deserved to get shot.”

“He really said that?”

“Sure did,” Brandon said. “John Wesley’s dirty and nasty. I don’t think that kid’s ever even seen a bar of soap. Smells like a skunk dipped in cow shit.”

“The Byrds don’t have much money,” Quinn said. “You might want to take that into account. Some folks aren’t as fortunate as us. He may be angry at you for all you’ve got.”

Brandon shrugged and sliced his biscuit in two, sliding in the egg and ham to make a sandwich. He took a big bite and washed it down with some orange juice. Behind him, through the big picture window, Hondo came hobbling up from the cow pasture, panting hard. Quinn let him into the kitchen, the screen door slamming shut with a creaky thwap.

“John Wesley hasn’t been in school all week,” Brandon said.

“Is he sick?”

“I guess,” Brandon said. “I got to say that son of a bitch being gone makes my world a hell of a lot better place.”