“Do it,” TJ said. She reached down on the glass table littered with an empty bag of chips, an overflowing ashtray, and the silver insulated cup of booze. She snatched up his cell phone and tossed it right in his lap. “Call 911. I damn well dare you. Call Sheriff Colson and let him know some seventeen-year-old girl is gonna shoot you. Because you’d be right. But then at least we might can get straight on all the trouble you caused me and my family. You’re sitting here drinking whiskey and eating Golden Flake chips while my little brother can’t even get breakfast.”

“I can help y’all out,” Pratt said, reaching back for his wallet. “How much you need?”

“All of it,” TJ said. “Eighteen thousand, nine hundred and eighty dollars,” she said. “Plus interest.”

“What’s the interest?”

“Still working on that,” TJ said, still holding that gun on him. That little girl thumbed back the hammer and placed her finger on the trigger. “What’s it gonna be, Chester?”

“I’m not trying to make trouble,” he said. “I just want to find your momma and make everything right. I just need some time. Why won’t anyone in this world give me some goddamn time?”

“Two days,” TJ said. “You better get me my money, Chester, or I’m headed straight to the sheriff. You can lie to yourself all you want, but you’re nothing but a con man and a goddamn thief.”

“What did you and Ladarius do with her?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” she said. “You’re goddamn crazy, old man. She’s safe. And she’s away from you.”

“She was scared of you,” he said. “Scared of her own child and just what you might do to her. I know y’all are hiding something, and I won’t quit till I find her.”

*   *   *

Sheriff Bruce Lovemaiden helped himself to an extra plate of chicken and dumplings, greens, and cornbread for lunch at Momma Jo’s Country Cookin’ before swinging right back around to get that Nissan Sentra hooked up for transport to Tibbehah County. He figured he could’ve easily sent one of his three deputies on duty to get the job done, but Lovemaiden was in the mood to take a little ride in the country and finish his fourth cup of sweet tea. Momma Jo had refilled his cup before he left and he liked to sip on it while he tuned into a talk radio station out of Jackson that gave the news straight and uncut to the working man. As he drove on the snaking gravel road, a little rain tapping at his windshield, the boys discussed all these crazy folks wanting to take down monuments to the Confederate dead all across the South.