Charlie looked as amused as ever with Lillie, saying maybe they should head back to the Embassy Suites and get some rest. They’d be up again at five a.m. if not sooner, hoping to maybe catch those kids on a tag reader if they crossed state lines. But she had her doubts. She bet Ladarius would’ve changed those plates straight off, although they couldn’t find any that matched back at the motel by the marina.

“Is this all that excitement and adventure you promised me?” Lillie asked, closing her laptop.

“If I’d told you the truth, would you have still wanted to be a marshal?”

“You bet your ass,” she said.

As Charlie started to shut down his laptop, Lillie got the call from her supervisor in Memphis. She clicked off and set down the phone and turned to Charlie.

“They’re in Texarkana,” she said. “The McCade kid just got caught trying to steal another car.”

TWENTY-ONE

The same night Ladarius McCade got caught in Texarkana, Quinn got a call from Holly Harkins that she was stuck at a Waffle House in Olive Branch and needed a ride home. He met her up there and they talked a great bit, Quinn driving her back to Jericho at daybreak and organizing a tearful reunion with her parents before she was set to go in front of a juvenile judge. He felt for the girl, but she had stolen her parents’ van, broken into a mansion in Hot Springs, and assisted two murder suspects in their run from the law. Quinn promised Maggie he’d do all he could to help the girl, but at the moment she just had to stay in custody until it all shook out.

Quinn was back in the office, no sleep that night, reading through the last twenty-four hours of reports. While he’d been gone, some genius had decided to try and pull the ATM out of the Rebel Truck Stop, making a real mess of the glass doors before getting hung up on a brick wall. Reggie noted in the report the two suspects must’ve been working with low mental acuity since they drove off horizontally from the doors and not in a straight line. The chains dug into the wall and one of the suspects had to get out to free the truck. Quinn read a quick description of the two, dozens of shitbirds he knew crossing his mind.

“More coffee, Sheriff?” Cleotha asked.

Quinn nodded and Cleotha took his cup.

He leaned back in his swivel chair, watching the sun come up over the jail, and reached for a fresh cigar from his humidor. A Liga Privada provided by one of the Rangers in his company who lived in Miami and now worked for a wholesaler. They were expensive sticks and had been used against him on more than one occasion as proof he’d taken kickbacks.