A little voice had started up in Gus' head the moment Sherry told him about the shooting at Spencer’s Tire and Rims, one he’d ignored until he’d been sat opposite Michelle Lewis as she answered the deputy’s questions. The way she’d shuffled in her seat, her rehearsed surprise, it had all made Gus feel a fool for having blocked that little voice out. Sherry couldn’t have known, couldn’t have seen it, but it was there in Michelle’s body language if you knew to look. Gus was no body language expert and nor was he a detective but he’d known Michelle for a long time. When clean he knew her to be an unshakeable woman that would stop at nothing to see her son safe. Her evasiveness when asked whether she knew Roland had all but confirmed it to the deacon. Something was going on and Michelle was in on it.

From across the table he stared at her unblinking in the hopes that she might confess to her sins. Perhaps every second that Gus didn’t go straight to the sheriff’s department with his suspicions was a sin of its own, but he wanted to hear the truth from Michelle’s mouth first.

“I might not know what’s going on here, Michelle, but I know you well enough to know there’s more here than meets the eye.”

Again Michelle took that faux-surprised tone that she had taken with Deputy Calhoun. “What are you talking about?”

It was insulting enough the first time but this time it grated on him enough that he had to bite his tongue.

“Where’s Roland?”

“How would I know?”

“Yolanda Thomas is dead,” Gus said angrily, prodding a finger into the table on every syllable. “That’s somebody’s daughter, somebody’s granddaughter, somebody’s baby, Michelle. If you know something you had better start talking now before there are any more bodies on your conscience.”

From behind them Antwan Dixon appeared, his face was a picture of confusion and distrust, he hovered in the doorway with his lengthy arms leant against the sides.

“Mom? What’s he talking about?”

Michelle smiled unconvincingly.  “Go upstairs.”

Antwan stared at his mother, unimpressed, and stated as firmly as he could. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Gus watched Michelle’s face as it betrayed her nervousness once more. If he didn’t know better he might have believed that she was using again. She was uncomfortable, fidgety, but most of all she was insincere and that was something that for all her flaws Michelle Lewis usually never was.

“I said go upstairs, Antwan.”

“And I said I’m not going anywhere,” Antwan said forcefully as he walked towards the table and sat beside Gus. “You think I’m some sort of kid? I’m burying my best friend this week. For once in my life, I think I deserve the truth.”

Gus nodded in agreement. “The boy is right.”

The mask slipped for a moment. Michelle’s nervousness disappeared and was replaced with an anger that seemed more in keeping with what Gus knew of the woman. All the feigned surprise and mourning evaporated in seconds and she was pointing an accusatory finger at the deacon that shook with rage. “You don’t get to tell me what’s good for my son.”

Gus shook his head and leaned back in his chair a little.

“What are you mixed up in, Michelle?”

She gazed downwards into the ground and Gus watched on, trying to imagine what her thoughts must have been at the moment, the gears in her head were almost visibly moving into life. Was she trying to construct some lie? Perhaps she knew the game was up and would tell him what it was she was hiding? Whatever was happening in there, Gus had a feeling they were getting closer to the truth by the second.

Abruptly Michelle stepped away from her seat. “I need some air.”

She strode out of the kitchen, through the doorway, and shut the front door to her home behind her with a heavy slam. Gus and Antwan sat in the kitchen in silence for a few moments before Gus gestured to him to follow after his mother to make sure she wasn’t making an escape. Antwan nodded intuitively and left his seat. As he went Gus reminded himself that it had been mere days since Jayson Aaron had been shot dead and here Antwan was assisting him interrogate Michelle. He was a strong boy, much stronger than Gus had been at his age, and the little voice at the back of his head told him that Antwan would need that strength before the day was out.

[b][center]*****[/center][/b]
What the fuck was Spencer thinking? Chew had seen the look in Dante’s eyes that he’d seen that day in Georgia when Spencer told him he worked for Billy Brown and Chew had offered them and him a way out. Maybe Roland had been telling himself that he was the smartest guy in the room so long that he couldn’t resist telling Dante he knew his name. That stupid son of a bitch had ensured Chew and Dante were either going to have to put a bullet in his brain or bunker down and try to last this one out. After watching that girl’s brains being blown out Chew wasn’t sure he had the stomach for the first course of action anymore. That meant the two of them were stuck watching over Roland until the heat died down and with a body on their hands that could be some time. Thank God he knew the Bog like the back of his hand.

Amidst the miscellaneous sounds of the Bog came a violent buzzing noise followed by a piercing, repetitive ringing that Chew at once recognised to be the ringer of his cell phone. It was a huge brick of a thing but Chew had been on the inside for long enough that trying to work a touch screen cell phone would have been redundant.

Dante glared at him. “Are you fucking trying to get us caught? They can track those things.”

Chew fumbled around with the phone for a few seconds in an attempt to stop it from ringing before Dante sighed angrily and strode across the room, snatching it from him, and throwing it into the ground. It broke into several pieces on impact but he stamped on it for good measure.

“What’s wrong, Dante?” Roland said with a laugh. “You seem a little flustered.”

Without turning back to him Dante lifted his Glock and uncocked it again, his hand shook with anger as it settled on Roland, and it was clear the trigger pull was slightly back. “You shut your fucking mouth.”

The tire salesman did as commanded and Dante crossed the room and leant down to whisper into Chew’s ear.

“What are we going to do? He knows who I am, man.”

Chew knew where Dante was going with this. If he conceded that Roland knowing his name meant both of them were done, Dante would put a bullet in him without a second’s hesitation, but convincing him that there was another option was going to be a difficult task. 

“There are probably a thousand guys called Dante between here and Jardin. There’s nothing to worry about. We wait until the heat’s died down, dump him, and then we get out of town for a while. A long while.”

Dante shrugged his shoulders. “Out of town? Norman’s all I fucking know, man, what am I going to do anywhere else?”

“You think I don’t know that? I’m in the same position you are.”

Chew was in a worse position when he stopped to think about it. He’d spent most of his adult life on the inside and what little of it he’d been a free man he’d spent in Norman. Outside of a few brief business ventures into some of the neighbouring counties and one that spectacularly failed into Georgia, Chew had never been elsewhere. Dante, Michelle, Antwan, and Gus Harris were the only people in the world he had some semblance of a relationship with and of them only Dante really counted. Truth be told he hated Dante’s guts. What life could he build outside of Pickett County? Not a good one, but the alternative was being dead and Chew was sure as hell certain that wouldn’t be an improvement. 

Suddenly a wry smile appeared on Dante’s face and Chew knew it had finally dawned on him. “Why don’t we put a bullet in his head and get this over and done with?”

Chew shook his head. “What? Come on, man.”

“Shoot him, dump the guns, burn the car, and get the fuck out of here,” Dante nodded, more and more convinced with every word he spoke. “There’s still time.”

If only it were that simple. Chew looked up at Roland strapped there in his chair and imagined pointing his gun at him and blowing his brains out as easily as Dante had to that girl. Every time, every instance, he found himself incapable of doing so, dogged by flashbacks to Roland’s girl laid on the floor with her brains oozing out. Chew adjusted his balaclava as he tried to force the image out of his mind.

“No, there’s been enough killing,” Chew said in a voice that brooked no argument. “This won’t be another Georgia.”

[b][center]*****[/center][/b]
Antwan had caught his mother outside on the phone calling someone. The second she saw him there she’d put the phone down and tried to hide it from him. He wasn’t proud of it but Antwan, all six foot five of him, had wrestled it from his mother’s pocket and was stood over her with the phone in his hands. In the struggle he hadn’t even noticed Gus had come running out having heard the shouting or the long scratch mark along his left arm. It didn’t matter, none of it mattered, all that mattered was that his mother knew something about what had happened to Mr. Spencer and Antwan was determined to find out what. 

His mother’s phone was password protected but Antwan knew her well enough to know what it would be. He typed in the numbers “1-9-9-8” and hit enter and the phone unlocked. It was the year of Antwan’s birth. He thumbed his way to the call long and stopped as he recognised the name that appeared time and time again. 

“Chew? Why would you ring him?”

Gus sighed heavily at the mention of Antwan's uncle's name. “Tell me Charles isn’t involved in this mess, Michelle.”

Michelle looked up at them from the ground and didn’t say a single word.

Antwan bent down and grabbed his mother by the collar of her top forcefully. “What the fuck is going on?”

Gus placed one of his shaking hands on Antwan’s shoulder to calm him and he relinquished his hold on his mother’s top with a knowing nod. Michelle pushed her way to her feet and sighed wearily before running a hand through the curly black hair that sat atop her head.

“I asked your uncle to speak to Roland.”

Antwan shook his head. “What? Why? He doesn’t even know Roland, Mom.”

Chew had been out of prison for a fortnight and as far as Antwan knew the two men had never met. Even more than that, his mother had poured scorn on his uncle at every opportunity for as long as Antwan could remember but suddenly they were friends again? It made no sense. His mother smiled nervously as she opened her mouth to explain but Antwan knew before she even began speaking he wasn’t going to like what came out of her mouth.

“He wasn’t supposed to hurt him. I swear, he was only meant to scare him a little. After what happened to Jayson, the drugs, it was only a matter of time before you ended up dead because of Roland, Antwan. Can’t you see? He’d already taken you from me and he was going to get you killed too.”

Gus swore loudly from behind him and Antwan shook his head, this time more angrily before, and tried his best to push back the rising rage-induced bile that felt like it was slinking its way up his throat. “You sent Chew after him because of... Jayson? You think Roland had something to do with Jayson getting killed?”

His mother looked at him blankly as if she’d never once considered that Roland might not have been responsible for it. Besides him Antwan could feel Gus silently seething as he stared at his mother so intensely that she couldn’t bear to return his stare. There was an anger to him that Antwan had never seen before, one that dwarfed even his own, but he needed his mother to know how wrong she was about Roland, how wrong she’d been about everything. He walked towards her and stood close enough that he could feel his mother’s faltering breath against his skin.

“It was me,” Antwan shouted. “It was my fault. Roland had nothing to do with it. That boy, DeSean, I humiliated him in front of all of Norman and he wanted to make me pay for it. And Jayson paid for my mistake.”

A confused look appeared on Michelle's face. “I… what? I don’t understand.”

Antwan’s hands balled into fists. He stood there, staring down at his mother, and thought back to the countless times he’d found her near catatonic after having taken drugs and the time Mr. Spencer had taken him to Jardin to pick her up. Most painful of all was that after he’d spoken with Gus that day at the court, after he’d argued with his mother at home, he’d almost forgiven her for all of that and put it behind him. She had all but abandoned him as a child and left him hungry and without supervision and still Antwan had found it in his heart to forgive her for all of that. But this he could not forgive, especially if something had happened to Roland.

He relaxed his hands and took several slow, deep breaths. “Roland wasn’t involved.”

Michelle looked staggered by the revelation and she clung to the porch as she tried to process the information. Antwan turned away from her nonchalantly and threw her phone to Gus. His face was still riven with fury and he caught the phone without taking his eyes off of Michelle for a second.

“You’d better call that deputy back here, Gus.”

Gus nodded and pulled Sherry Calhoun's card from his pocket. He tapped in her cell number then took a few steps towards Michelle and deployed a voice dripping in wrathful contempt. “That girl’s blood is on your hands.”

Michelle started to sob quietly as Gus dialled the number and made his way down the steps of the porch. Antwan could hear Deputy Calhoun’s voice answering on the other side as Gus paced up and down the street, looking back at them from time to time, as he explained what had happened. Michelle’s sobbing drew loud enough that it drowned out her desperate, fawning attempts to plead with Antwan for forgiveness. He brushed her arms away and slammed the door shut behind him as he went back into the house.