“I would, Caddy,” Boom said, turning his back to get back to work. “But every time I close my eyes, I see those bats flying down on my head. I’d just as soon skip that part.”

SIXTEEN

Thanks for trusting me,” Maggie said. “I know this is crazy as hell.”

“You and I decided to get married four months after we met,” Quinn said. “I’d say we’re a long way past just trust.”

“No more secrets,” she said. “I promise.”

“I know,” Quinn said, sitting at the wheel of a Jeep Cherokee Lillie Virgil used to drive. They’d removed the sheriff’s office paint and stickers at the county barn and now it was an extra vehicle to use when Quinn didn’t want to announce his presence. They were about twenty miles from the Tennessee state line, heading up to the Flying J Truck Stop in Olive Branch. He’d called ahead to the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office and they agreed to have a nearby unit on standby. Just in case.

“How’d you see past all my damn baggage and bad mistakes?” Maggie said. “That crazy son of a bitch Rick Wilcox would’ve scared off most sane people.”

“I’m not sane,” Quinn said. “I also liked your pretty freckled face and your cute little ass.”

“Now, that’s true love.”

Quinn reached across the shifter and squeezed Maggie’s leg. She looked nervous as hell that morning, no makeup on her sun-flushed skin, playing with the bracelets on her wrist the whole drive north. Her reddish hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing a sleeveless David Bowie tee with ragged jeans and sandals. The Best of Lee Hazlewood in the CD player, “The Night Before.”

A new letter had arrived two days ago, again signed FOB—Friend of Brandon—promising EXPLOSIVE DETAILS and SHOCKING REVELATIONS. Quinn had told Maggie he didn’t know if they were dealing with a confidential informant or a writer for the National Enquirer. The only thing he’d asked is she not make a move without him, with the questionable suicide, the old body found, and Tashi Coleman stalking her around Tibbehah County.

“I’ve been having dreams about my father lately,” Maggie said. “They are so damn real I sometimes feel he’s still alive. Daddy was the first one to tell me about Brandon, waking me up at five a.m. before school and saying he’d been found. He asked me what he could do for me and I asked him to drive me up to Jericho. That man canceled a big run he had that week to Dallas, unhooked his trailer and we hopped in his semi, The Blue Mule. I felt safe in that truck, riding so high up, Daddy listening to Jerry Reed and Ray Stevens. I woke up this morning humming ‘Everything Is Beautiful.’”

“As long as it wasn’t ‘The Streak.’”

“You don’t like Ray Stevens?”