Chapter 24: The Bar

Boone took the cut brake line to the county deputy that evening.

He took the bike's front fork too, wrapped in a tarp, and he made me promise to stay on the ridge with the road captain's nephew on the porch.

"One hour," he said at the truck. "Lock the door. Don't open it."

"Three knocks."

He kissed me hard and drove down the hill.

I stood in the kitchen with my phone in my hand and listened to the truck fade.

The oath was a lie.

Someone who rode for Amos had cut that line hours after forty men said the words.

Amos had stood in the president's chair and smiled while they said them.

If I waited for the deputy and a warrant, Amos would have time to make a better lie.

I put on my good boots.

I braided my hair tight and put the phone in my jacket pocket, with the recording saved.

I told the nephew on the porch I was going to Birdie's.

I took the Ford, and I did not go to Birdie's.

It was Friday night, and the clubhouse lot was full.

I parked at the back and walked in through the kitchen door that I had used for nine years.

The room was loud.

The long table was crowded, and music played from the speakers over the bar.

Half the line was drinking.

Amos sat at the head in the president's cut, with Joelle at his elbow.