Dusty figured they’d wait till they saw either TJ Byrd or Chastity. He’d gotten a good look at both online and he had to say that TJ Byrd sure did favor her mother. Dusty remembered a lot about that woman’s features as he held her by the neck and Daddy done bled her out. Lord, how that woman could scream.

He enjoyed doing this kind of work. Was a heck of a lot easier than putting shingles on a two-story house in the middle of winter. Or slathering tar up on top of a barn in July. This was about the same as sitting in a tree stand waiting for a big fat doe to pussyfoot right into a baited field. The only hard part was getting the girl away from the boys inside and making sure she didn’t scream her damn head off. He recalled him and Daddy snatching some woman up in Memphis after she posted pics of her ex-husband’s little ding-dong online. They’d done wrapped her head in duct tape but could still hear her yelling. Barely got her in the truck before some old fella wandered out in his busted bathrobe, pointing a gun and telling them to stop. They had to kill that old fucker, too. Weighted both of them down good and dropped them off an overpass into the Wolf River.

Well, shit. Live and fucking learn.

Daddy crawled back in the truck and slammed the door shut. “Them girls ain’t in there,” he said. “Only three fellas getting high and listening to the devil’s music.”

“We can wait.”

Daddy nodded. He lit up a long-ass cigarette and settled back into the shadow, a brown Carhartt hoodie up over his baseball cap. The old man breathing loud, smacking at his teeth while he settled in.

They sat there a good hour before the first cop car rolled by, goddamn NOPD checking out that house they were watching and then finally moving on. It wasn’t five minutes later that another passed, or maybe the same one, and stopped for a moment on the street, seeming to take note of the goings-on around the block. Everything still and so quiet that Dusty could hear the buzzing of the streetlamps in the cold.

“I don’t like this shit,” Dusty said. “Not one damn bit. What are they looking at?”

Daddy leaned up and squashed his cigarette in the ashtray. He grunted.

Dusty cranked the ignition, turned on the headlights, and headed back down the road. Slow and easy. “Maybe we should call Mr. Stagg,” he said.

“Naw,” Daddy said. “What I’d tell you? When an animal gets wind of you, it’s best to leave a bit. We’ll come back later when the gettin’s good.”

*   *   *

“Listen to me, TJ,” Holly Harkins said. “You got to get the hell out of there now.”