“If I can convince him to be a rat.”
“Listen, Sheriff, I just told you why I’m invested in this, but for the sake of total disclosure, the truth is, nobody is interested in this place. No offense, but it’s just a big rock in the hottest, stickiest state in the union. No one I work with would dream of being stuck in this place if your brother wasn’t breaking the law, and breaking it so well. If that stops, we stop. Period.”
Clayton opened the bottom drawer of his desk, the place that used to be reserved for the good stuff when he was drinking, and took out a can of long-cut snuff tobacco. He pinched out a wad and seated it between his lower lip and gum, then spit into an empty Styrofoam cup.
“Nice speech.”
“Thanks. I practiced all the way here.”
“So you got all dressed up in your Sunday best to walk in here and give the brother of the big bad wolf all your plans to take him down, and you’re calling that a better plan?”
“Yes, Sheriff, that’s about the size of it, but in all fairness, my mother would never have let me wear jeans to church on Sunday, and to be honest, I didn’t think you’d be here today. I was going to make an appointment for tomorrow.”
Clayton smiled.
“Well, Holly, in all fairness, I ran unopposed.”
Holly laughed. “I know.”
The sheriff stood up, walked over to the coat rack, and pulled on his jacket.
“Come on, you can tell me more over some biscuits and gravy. I’m starving. This early, we can get a seat at Lucky’s before the church crowd takes over.”
“Sounds good, Sheriff.”
“Call me Clayton.”
“All right, then, Clayton. Lead the way.”
Clayton opened the door to the front office, where Cricket and Choctaw had done everything short of holding a glass to the wall to eavesdrop.
“Cricket, will you call Kate and tell her I’m not going to make it to her mother’s this morning?”
“She’s not going to be happy.”
“I know. That’s why I want you to call her. Choctaw, call up Darby to come swap out watch over your prisoner back there. If we’re all here on a Sunday, he might as well be, too. Then call in to Lucky’s for some breakfast for our guest and I’ll have it sent over.”
“Yessir, boss.”
“And while you’re at it, order up some grub for you and Cricket, too. Sky’s the limit. Eat your backs out.”
“Feeling generous this morning, boss?”
“Nope”—Clayton winked at Holly—“but the federal government is.”
CHAPTER
3
CLAYTON BURROUGHS
2015
Clayton stared at the ceiling. Thirty-five heavy timber logs made of the same white pine that grew not twenty feet outside his bedroom window. He and his father had built the house together as a wedding gift for Kate before she and Clayton were married. His father was nearly seventy then and still worked like a man in his twenties. That was more than a decade ago and not once did that purlin roof ever let in a single drop of rain—not once. Clayton stayed on the top floor of a fancy hotel in Atlanta once, and took notice of the water spots and discoloration growing from the edges of the popcorn ceiling. He thought about that all the time. Two hundred dollars a night in a tower of steel and glass, and they couldn’t do what he and his father had done with a couple of hammers and a few nails. It was a small example, but it echoed through everything he was ever taught, every lesson Gareth Burroughs ever tried to instill.
“You’re gonna need a real house, boy,” his father had said. “If you’re gonna take that woman and give a go at being a real man, then you’re gonna need a house to match.”
A real man.
Clayton’s lip curled at the memory. It was always that way. Every good thing Gareth Burroughs ever did for his youngest son came tainted with what he really thought of him. That he didn’t measure up. That he was nothing like his older brothers, Hal and Buck. Gareth never came right out and said it, but he didn’t have to. It was in his eyes. They were filled with the gray storm clouds of disappointment.