“I knew who he was and that the cabin was his place,” she said. “But he really wasn’t there too much. He’d more kind of host these things, make sure all his boys were having a good time, fine young tail serving them chilled shrimp and gallons of scotch. They’d shoot skeet and ride four-wheelers. The ones who weren’t from Mississippi had the most fun of all. Tibbehah County for them was like going to the far side of the damn moon.”

“How many times did you go to the lodge?” Quinn asked.

“I only did it once,” she said. “Those men creeped me out. Skylar would call us when they’d be having another one of those rich daddy parties and I’d drive Brandon out to the woods and set on a time to meet back. I always got scared we were going to get caught. I think that was most of the fun for Brandon and me. He’d tell me what he’d saw and then we’d go back to the high school and develop those pictures. He’d set a meet and then we’d all split up the money. I guess that was my first dose of reality, the ways of the world. How men will do damn-near anything for sex.”

“How long did y’all keep this up?”

“Maybe three months,” she said. “Brandon was smart. He always had them leave the money in public places. Most of the time, the town square. And he never showed up himself. He had this old black man named Mooney do it for him. Mooney hung out at the pool hall and for five dollars would do anything you asked. Never once looked inside the bag. I remember me and Brandon one time skipped school and blew through five thousand dollars in a damn day up at the Galleria and the Peabody Hotel. He bought me a pair of diamond earrings.”

“What happened to Skylar?”

Ansley looked to Quinn, nodding, black bangs chopped right above her eyebrows. “You know,” she said. “Y’all were the ones who dug her out of that hole.”

“Who did it?”

“It wasn’t Vardaman,” she said. “But it was his people. I was with Brandon when they caught him. We thought we were safe, hiding in that shack. It had a roof then, some kind of damn protection in the rain. We should have kept on running. Brandon walked out to protect me. After they took him away, I ran and ran. I was scared to death and never ever looked back.”

“Did you see Brandon get shot?”

Ansley shook her head.

“But you saw them take him away?”

She nodded, crying hard now, her face a damn mess with the white makeup streaked with black eyeliner. Sobbing, almost retching, as she stood there with Quinn. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close.