“Wasn’t just one sheriff,” TJ said, wiping her face with her coat sleeve. “It was two of them. Some ole fat boy from Parsham County who’d been listening to a truckload of crap from Chester Pratt.”

“Chester Pratt?” Holly said. “He says something about you, and then you’d tell the world about the money he stole.”

“And who’s gonna listen to that, Holly?” TJ said. “Shit. Not if they believe I’m the one who’s done this. He’s an adult in there with those sheriffs saying that Momma and me got rough and into it all the time and that she and Chester had the good and godly intention of sending me to the goddamn Wings of Faith up in Missouri.”

“But that’s a lie.”

“I know it’s a lie,” TJ said. “But a lie told so damn big and nasty that it seems like the truth to those two sheriffs. I saw it in their faces.”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell them about Chester?”

“How am I gonna prove it?” she said. “Momma controlled that money until I turn eighteen. I’d have to show what was hers and what was mine and how she handed that over to her boyfriend. And even if they knew she did what she did, what does that mean? It means she was in love with Chester Pratt and bought into his goddamn liquor store. The things he said about me are much, much meaner. Me and her getting into it on account of Ladarius being a criminal? Or that I got mad as hell about being sent over to that Wings of Faith. I mention the money, it’d just give ’em more goddamn fuel. Those are stories those old boys could believe. I don’t know. I don’t know nothing right now. Only that Chester Pratt has turned on me and I’m about to go to jail.”

“No way,” Holly said. “No. That can’t happen. We can’t let them do that.”

“Yep,” TJ said. “I’ve seen those TV shows. Soon as they confirm that body they found is Momma they’ll be coming for me. Goddamn it, Holly. What the hell can I do?”

“Get a lawyer,” she said. “A real smart one like in one of those John Grisham movies. Maybe a good-lookin’ one, too. Like Matthew McConaughey or Matt Damon.”

“With what money?” TJ said. “Real lawyers like to get paid.”

“Or you can just tell the truth,” Holly said. “That Sheriff Colson is a stand-up man. Most of the women in town got their panties in a twist when he married that crazy hippie woman.”

“Bullshit,” TJ said. “His uncle was a crook. He’s a crook. Easiest thing to do is make it look like I done it.”