BooksBarbecue
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?

“Coming?” Dusty Nix said. “If it’s coming, why’d you call us up in the middle of the dang night? My momma is about to have Daddy’s ass for breakfast for us heading out drinking and raising hell. She doesn’t take too kind to that, especially as she’s been trying to get Daddy into being deacon down the road at the Assembly of God. That ain’t an easy task, Mr. Pratt.”

Pratt watched as the older man pulled his hand away from his side and flashed a bloody towel that he’d been holding against him. The older man just stared at Chester Pratt with hollow black eyes before pressing the towel back to his side and gritting his teeth.

“What the damn hell?”

“Ain’t nothing,” the old man said.

“Looks like something to me.”

“We need to get paid, Mr. Pratt,” he said. “That there’s the deal. You may’ve hired us on a personal matter. But that doesn’t make no difference. Roofing or running roughshod, it’s all the damn same. We did like we was told.”

“You talked to the woman?” Pratt said. “Right?”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “Indeed we did.”

“What happened then?” Pratt asked. “Where the hell did she go? What did she say?”

“After we told her to shut her goddamn mouth?”

“Yes,” Pratt said. “After that.”

“Well,” Dusty Nix said, grinning a little. “That’s a kind of a funny story. You was right about one thing. That woman sure got her an attitude. Me and Daddy didn’t care for it one damn bit and caught up with her for her recklessness.”

“What do you mean?” Chester said. “Caught up with her?”

Dusty licked his lips. The old man, holding his bloodied side, just grinned.

Chester Pratt watched them both and felt as if ice water had been injected into his veins.

SEVEN

Can I get you a Coke, TJ?” Quinn asked.

“Don’t you think for one second I don’t know what y’all are pulling.”

“What are we pulling, TJ?”

“I told you to call me Tanya Jane.”

“You told Sheriff Lovemaiden to call you Tanya Jane,” Quinn said. “I was hoping you and me might be friends.”

TJ laughed at that and shook her head. Quinn smiled, trying to make the girl feel comfortable and at ease. He knew there was no use being tough on a teenage girl who’d probably, almost definitely, just lost her mother. She hadn’t been charged with a crime, and at that very moment all Quinn had were a bunch of stories that Chester Pratt had told them. He didn’t know much. But he sure as hell didn’t trust Chester Pratt.