Thoroughly 10 - What Are You Wearing to Die? by Patricia Sprinkle

too!”
    “The sheriff isn’t about to leave it alone, and you know it. He’s going to scour this county, and the whole state of Georgia, if necessary, to bring them in. And so help me God, if you are protecting them—”
    Her voice rose again. “I ain’t protecting nobody! I tried to help. I even loaned her my clothes, but look what they did to her!” She stomped around to the other side of the horse and pressed her forehead against its neck, not even pretending to groom the beast any longer, merely using it for support. It stood and twitched, offering what comfort it could.
    “Do you know who she was going to talk to?”
    She took her time about it, but finally she nodded. “She had a secret meeting all set up with the DEA, over in Augusta. She said that now that Bradley was safe, she could talk. She thought they might help her get clean again and put her in a protection program somewhere. It like to killed her to think about leaving Bradley even for a little while, but once D-Facs took him, she made up her mind. ‘I’m gonna clean up my act and get him back,’ she told me, ‘and then I’m gonna ask them to put us in that witness protection program and send us far away from here.’ It like to killed me to think about losing her like that, but now…she’s gone for good.” The last words were a wail. Missy laid her head on the horse’s neck and bawled.
    I gave her time to recover. The sun was warm on my shoulders, the air fragrant with scents I grew up with: horses, pasture, barn. Two horses nuzzled each other by the feedlot fence. The three riders were headed back our way from far across the pasture. The only discordant note in the pastoral scene was over at Trevor’s, where—barely screened by the skimpy forest—the head of the big animal was finally being carried through the double doors.
    “Do they often unload them outside like that?” I asked, trying to introduce a more neutral subject.
    Missy looked over her shoulder as if she hadn’t noticed the activity next door. Her shrug confirmed that it was a common occurrence. “They have to. Can’t drive a truck into the shop. They even butcher deer out there, if somebody wants the meat for eating. Too many chemicals inside, Mr. Knight says.”
    “I don’t guess any of you saw Starr take Robin’s truck that day, did you?”
    She blinked and fumbled in her jeans pocket for a tissue. “Starr wouldn’t take Robin’s truck. She hated that woman.”
    “Why?”
    “She never said.” Missy sniffed. “My mom claimed Starr was afraid Robin would marry Trevor and they’d get custody of Bradley. That might have been it. I know she wouldn’t let him play with Robin’s girls, and they’re sweet kids.”
    “Maybe if she hated Robin, that’s why she took Robin’s truck—to hassle her.” I was fumbling in the dark and we both knew it.
    Missy shook her head. “Starr wouldn’t drive a vehicle with an automatic transmission. She had a big thing about that. Said they were for wimps and sissies. Besides, Uncle Jacob saw two men at her truck—”
    She broke off and gave me the glare of somebody who’d been tricked into saying more than she had intended. “He won’t talk to the sheriff. You’d be wasting your time sending him out here to try to talk to any of my family. We stay clear of the sheriff and he stays clear of us.”
    “You could at least go tell him where Starr was headed. Was she wearing your clothes?”
    She gave me a grudging nod. “I told her she needed to look respectable for them to take her serious.”
    Without meaning to, I glanced down her muscular torso, which was several sizes larger than Starr’s. Correctly reading my expression, she added hotly, “The pants had an elastic waist. They were a tad big, but they didn’t fall off her.”
    I remembered that the deputy had said the pants were baggy. I wondered if either the sheriff or the coroner—both males—had considered the significance of the fact that Starr’s clothes