“When we were hiding in the cabin, Brandon told me they made him watch as they buried Skylar,” she said. “When he turned and ran, they hunted him like he was some kind of animal. He said they were having a hell of a time, yelling and hollering, chasing him on four-wheelers. We’d already agreed where to meet, here at the cabin, like always, Brandon hiking in the woods and leaving me with his truck. But they found the cabin. They didn’t even know about me, had never seen me, so Brandon said he’d go out there and I should keep hiding. But they snatched him up, driving him off in his own truck. I guess that’s how they got his hunting rifle. Most days, he kept it up under the front seat.”

“You remember what Vardaman’s people looked like?”

“Not really,” she said. “Everything happened so damn fast and I was hiding when they found us. I tried to make myself as small as possible and didn’t look out until I heard that old truck start up. I prayed that they’d let Brandon go.”

“Why’d you reach out to the Taylors now?” Quinn said. “You’ve spent half your life hiding from the men who did this.”

“When I saw that man’s face on TV, running for governor of Mississippi, some old goddamn piece of me just broke. I had to stop hiding.”

*   *   *

“Help yourself,” Jimmy Vardaman said.

“I think I already have,” Fannie said, reaching for the bottle of champagne she’d ordered from the back room hostess and pouring a second glass. Moët & Chandon imperial rosé. “Want to join me?”

“No, ma’am,” he said. “Little early for me.”

“Since when?” Fannie asked. “Probably don’t screw with the lights on, either. Have the Baptists damn well neutered you, Vardaman? Goddamn. I know who you are. You can be yourself with Miss Fannie. Me and you together, straight fucking shooters.”

“What’s on your mind, Miss Hathcock?” Vardaman said, refusing to sit at the big oval conference table. Only he and Fannie in the back room of the steakhouse, Bentley leaving them alone and heading back to the bar. “Now, how about we get to the fucking point. I had to skip a church fish fry over in Okolona.”

“I heard you got yourself a little trouble and old Buster White won’t man up to handle it.”

“Who’s Buster White?”

“Big, fat son of a bitch who talks like he’s got jambalaya gagged down his craw hole and funds your whole campaign?” she said, tipping her glass. “You were just down at his casino a few days back. I got bitches everywhere. Why? Forget already?”