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Back The Heathens
Chapters (33)
  1. ALSO BY ACE ATKINS
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  33. What’s next onyour reading list?

He hobbled and ran until he got to the hill, making his way up the way he came, dragging his hurt foot behind him. He heard a man above calling down to him, but didn’t stop, hell, he couldn’t stop. He clawed at the kudzu, reaching for loose roots to hold him up as he got back to the road. He’d nearly made it when he saw some huge black fella looking down at him.

“You all right?” the man said in a deep voice.

The man looked like a damn giant, wearing gray coveralls and a baseball cap. He reached down a big hand to Lovemaiden, only it weren’t no hand, it was a silver hook.

Lovemaiden screamed, a sound he’d never heard in his life, let go of the roots, and slid back down the hill. The black man, still lording over him, called out something that the sheriff couldn’t quite understand. Lovemaiden reached for his gun and fired a single shot into the sky.

“Git!” he said. “Get the hell out of here. Leave me the hell alone.”

There was a long silence. Lovemaiden looked up into the dark sky, the falling rain, and the crazy carousel of black birds. His mouth felt dry as a damn bone. The pistol shot rang in his ears.

“Sheriff Lovemaiden?” the black man said. “My name’s Boom Kimbrough. Came over to take that Nissan back to Tibbehah County. You sure you’re okay down there?”

FIVE

Quinn waited outside Bluebird Liquors for a half hour before Chester Pratt wheeled into the parking lot in his shiny black Mercedes. Pratt crawled out, looking bedraggled and disheveled, and headed straight for the front door as if he hadn’t seen the Ford F-250 painted Army green with a silver Tibbehah County Sheriff star. Quinn pressed off the tailgate where he’d been texting with dispatch and called out to the man’s back, “Hold up there, Chester.”

“Sorry, Sheriff,” Pratt said. “Was just about to get up with you. Been a whale of a day.”

“Getting a little concerned about Gina Byrd,” Quinn said. “Hope you might throw a little light on the situation.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Pratt said. “Her daughter says she took off with some new fella. That’s starting to sound about right. You know Gina. She’s a hot-blooded woman who sure likes to party.”

“You said you saw bloody clothes in a burn pile out back?”

“I don’t really know what I saw,” Pratt said. “Sorry to trouble you.”

“I was over in Parsham County this morning,” Quinn said. “The sheriff over there found Miss Byrd’s Nissan left abandoned on a back road. You know anything about that?”