TJ closed her eyes and tried to push away all that pain, thinking they’d head west now and take 90 over to Morgan City and on to Lafayette. They didn’t have no one, didn’t have any money, but maybe she could connect with folks to help on her phone. They had three hundred thousand TJ Byrd supporters out there; at least one or two had to live around Lafayette.

“TJ?” John Wesley said.

“Keep driving,” TJ said. “You’re doing fine.”

“Someone’s been bird-dogging our ass since Leeville.”

“Is it that old beater truck?” TJ asked.

“It’s a gray Dodge Charger with one headlight busted out,” he said. “Damn thing looks like it’s winking at me.”

“Don’t stop,” TJ said. “Whatever you do, don’t stop for nobody. Drive like hell.”

*   *   *

If that kid hadn’t been so damn stupid and would check her Insta messages, TJ might’ve known all Lillie wanted to do was talk. She’d written her as clear as fucking Doris Day that Tibbehah County had arrested Chester Pratt and was charging his sorry ass and the Nixes with murdering her momma. come on in, tj. it sure is cold out there. What the hell else could she do? Write that shit across the sky?

Now Lillie was following that kid Graham’s Land Cruiser straight up Highway 1, TJ Byrd driving not like a teenage hellcat but like a fussy old woman out for a Sunday drive, not hitting fifty miles per hour and swerving back and forth, crossing that center line so many times she couldn’t count. Lillie kept on flicking her high beams at the Land Cruiser, but it didn’t seem to make a difference—TJ had no intention of quitting. Now it was just a question of where she might be headed.

Lillie called up Charlie Hodge and briefed him on the situation. Charlie noted the mile marker and her location and said he’d make sure Louisiana Highway Patrol would set up a roadblock somewhere about Lockport. The thing that concerned Lillie most was TJ trying to bust through that, too, refusing to stop and maybe getting herself and her little brother hurt in the process. Nobody wanted that. Nobody wanted to see a wrongfully accused girl lying dead in a drainage ditch as a bunch of state troopers stood by with itchy fingers.

Lillie knew she had to slow them down, let TJ know she was on her side before they got up to Lockport. Lillie mashed the gas on the Dodge to ride up alongside when she heard from under the hood what sounded like a tumble of junk in a toolbox. The red light flashed on her dash and her Charger turned off and started to slow down real quick. Lillie slapped the wheel, calling the car everything but a Christian.