Quinn had thought about Wes Taggart every night since they’d found Boom beaten and bloodied and left for dead. He’d had unpleasant thoughts about what he’d do when finally faced with the man. Most of the time the damage would be done with his hands. Sometimes it was just a quick shot. But this is where Lillie had trained him. For all her big talk and jokes, Lillie had helped him make the transition from warrior to peacekeeper. And you didn’t beat a suspect. You didn’t torture them to get the truth. You just let the son of a bitch twist and turn with their lies and eventually hang themselves.

“You and J. B. Hood came into my county to teach Boom Kimbrough a lesson,” Quinn said. “You damn near killed him.”

“I don’t know how many fucking times I have to say this, but I don’t know any SOB named Boom,” he said. “Why don’t you go out and roust some other hardworking folks? Whatever shit you’re trying to frame me with ain’t gonna work. What do you got? You got a weapon? Some DNA? Some blood or shit? You see, I know my business. You can’t let the word of a bleached blonde cooze make it so.”

“Purple,” Lillie said. “Your cooze has purple hair.”

“I want to see my high-dollar lawyer and I want him now,” he said. “I ain’t saying no more to neither of you about something that happened to y’all’s friend.”

“What did you say?” Quinn said.

“Don’t try to fuck me for your friend fucking up.”

Quinn felt his jaw tighten and his eye twitch a little. He thought about reaching for Taggart and pulling his sorry ass to his feet, letting Lillie unlock his cuffs and let them just go at it inside the locked room until only Quinn was left standing. There would be blood and shit on all those pale green walls.

“We’ve got a Louisville Slugger with Boom’s blood and your prints all over it,” Quinn said. “J. B. Hood must’ve kept it as a trophy when he flipped his car.”

“And you shot him,” Taggart said. “You gonna shoot me, too? Call it an accident? Old-time frontier justice like when I used to watch The Rifleman with my daddy?”

“Would it make you shut up?” Lillie asked.

Quinn shook his head, let out a breath, tried to let his fists relax, untighten, let his hands drop to his sides and placed them on his hips. He looked at the muscly man with the craggy face, shaved head, and blue scrawl down his biceps and over his forearms. His eyes were a pale blue and his face had stubble about as long as the hair on his skeletal head.

“Are we done here?” Taggart said.