“Looks like someone got themselves kilt,” Phil Jr. said. The truth never lost on Phil Jr., as being number two at the Captain’s Table made him the king of useless information. Make sure you smile if you want a tip. Make sure to wash your hands after you use the commode or you’ll make a customer sick. Always clean and dry your official T-shirt before coming to work or you’ll look sloppy. Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain. Ever!

“How does a person get themselves killed?” Becky said.

“Drugs,” Phil Jr. said. “If it happened in Parsham, it’s got to be drugs.”

Holly shook her head and lifted a pack of wintergreen gum from the counter while Phil Jr. and Becky weren’t looking and slid it into her jean pocket. She was about to turn and head back to the dirty tables when she saw the footage of the blue car being loaded onto the back of a wrecker and being driven away. There was no mistaking it for a blue Nissan just like the one Gina Byrd drove. Something in Holly just gave out at the sight of it, her legs feeling like they might buckle, as she reached for the phone in her back pocket and speed-dialed TJ.

The phone rang and rang.

Where was that damn girl?

*   *   *

The black deputy named Caruthers had picked TJ up on the Jericho Square, where she’d been cruising with Ladarius, going round and round, playing her old CDs and waving to friends, after grabbing a strawberry cheesecake shake at the Sonic and riding past the old high school. At first, she thought it had something to do with the business from the other night, but the way the deputy had approached the minivan with such a sad humble face had placed a rock in her stomach. He didn’t even need to tell her that something had happened to her momma. But all he said was there had been some trouble and some concerns and that the sheriff needed to talk to her. She’d left Ladarius there with Holly’s minivan and rode with the deputy to the sheriff’s office, the man not saying two words to her until he walked her inside and told her to take a seat in a big empty conference room with a windowed wall. She must’ve stayed there for thirty minutes until Quinn Colson walked in with two men who said they were from Parsham County, Sheriff Lovemaiden and his special investigator Bobby Peden. Lovemaiden looked like a big blimp, the special investigator kind of doughy, with brown hair and a short goatee that did a poor job at hiding his weak chin. Both of them wore tan uniforms.

“We found your momma’s car, TJ,” Lovemaiden said.

“And Momma?”