The Jericho Farm & Ranch sold about everything you needed to survive—fishing gear, shotgun shells, work boots, squirrel traps, vegetable seeds, and fence posts. It was still a few months away from planting season, but Diane was ready to go with stacks of topsoil, manure, and fertilizer. Diane was a good twenty years older than Quinn, with dark skin and black hair streaked with white. Watching the rain from the loading dock, Diane lit a cigarette.

“I wish Gina had called me,” Diane said. “I might could’ve helped. If she needed money, I would’ve given her some. Damn. This is horrible. Just horrible. Have you talked with Chester Pratt? You know they’ve gotten real close?”

“I spoke with Chester last night.”

“And what did he say?” Diane said.

“A lot,” Quinn said. “Man likes to talk.”

“Did he say anything about Gina backsliding?” Diane said. “I saw her two, three weeks ago and she wasn’t doing so great. She’d been clean and sober for six months but looked headed for a fall.”

“I got over to the Southern Star last night,” Quinn said. “Spoke to some folks who knew her. Said she’d been a real regular since New Year’s.”

“Lord God.”

A white van pulled up and they both watched as the Stinson family, all nine of them, climbed out and headed into Farm & Ranch. The wife and three girls all had long hair down their backs. The four boys all looked pasty and pimply, like they hadn’t seen the sun for a long time. The family was part of some kind of Christian sect that only allowed homeschooling and apparently was against birth control. They weren’t Amish, but they weren’t far from it.

Quinn waved to the man, always forgetting his first name and just referring to him as Brother Stinson. The whole family hustled inside to load up on supplies.

“Did Gina say she was having some trouble with Chester?” Quinn asked.

“None I heard,” Diane said. “Hell, you know Chester is about my age. Too damn old for a woman like Gina. But he’s not bad looking, got a nice head of hair and good teeth. He seemed to land on his feet after screwing up every business he tried to open up. He was always taking Gina on trips over to Birmingham or down to Gulf Shores. He had a condo. Maybe a boat down there? She was always posting pictures about it.”

“But no trouble?” Quinn asked. “Nothing she ever discussed with you?”

“You mean was he ever violent?”

Quinn nodded.