“I’ve seen it,” Shaina said. “But not for a long time after Brandon died. We went up there during Christmas. The Vardamans were having some kind of party and he had the place all lit up like a winter wonderland. I remember he brought in some company from over in Georgia to make fake snow. Kids at school were talking about it, but we couldn’t get in. Got stopped right there at the big gate. It was only for rich folks. People who wouldn’t consort with us. We had to turn around and go home. But I saw it. And then I passed by there a few years ago, just driving on the back roads, thinking on things with Brandon.”

“Why there?”

“Well,” Shaina said. “That place isn’t far from where they found him. Right? If you went as the crow flies and not by any map.”

Quinn nodded. He didn’t want to lead her. But she was right.

“Y’all thinking that man knows something about Brandon?” Rhonda Taylor asked.

Quinn looked down at his boots and back up at the Taylors. “I don’t know,” Quinn said. “But I’m betting he’s never been asked.”

Rhonda Taylor sat down, leaving her smoothie on the counter. She reached across the table and grabbed Shaina’s hand, squeezing her fingers, as she started to cry. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s all we ever wanted. Someone to ask about him. We sure do appreciate this, Sheriff.”

*   *   *

Caddy and Jean were at the high school track, walking laps around and around, as they tried to do at least three times a week. Jean had already lost a ton of weight, laying off the carbs and sweet tea, still not doing so good with her weekly box of chardonnay. The whole thing getting to be a bone of contention with them both. Caddy knew her momma drank too much. And Jean Colson straight out didn’t give a damn and told her so.

“Has he called?” Jean asked, wearing a blue velour tracksuit with a GRACELAND baseball hat and sunglasses. “Maybe he didn’t mean what he said. Maybe Bentley’s just worried about Quinn on his own.”

“We talked it through,” Caddy said. “I asked him a lot of questions at the Huddle House.”

“How’d y’all end it?” Jean asked, rounding the bend of their fourth lap out of eight. For an older woman in her sixties, she had set a pretty nice pace.

“I told Bentley the Huddle House was the perfect place for country trash to break up,” she said. “I told him it’d make a hell of a story for his prep school buddies down in Jackson. Hope they all don’t choke on their scotch laughing.”

“You didn’t,” Jean said.