A rottweiler of a muscle car sits in the gravel lot in front of Frankie's. She shines, black paint glsitening like obsidian in the moonlight. Every other vehicle in this parking lot is rusty or dusty. Not this one.

Russell has never seen it before. Must be another lost tourist.

Maybe they're going to Cody...but you don't get lost going to Cody. Or Jackson.

Maybe someone bought a car and drove it down here to show their buddies. Ron didn't say anything about finding a Charger, though. Something about a Thunderbird.

Russell pushes into Frankie's and gazes through the cigarette smoke and neon haze for his friends. They're not at the pool tables, they're not at the juke box, they're not on the dance floor, they're not at the bar...come to see it, no one's at the bar, spare a blonde woman all the way at the end.

He sighs and sits down, drumming his fingertips on the bar top, and turns to look at the car again.

"Hey, Russ!"

Russell turns around and smiles at Trina. "Hey Trin." She's a tall woman, hair as black and glossy as the car outside, russet skin, black eyes, broad smile, built like an ox. If he was in a fight and could call one person, he'd call Trina.

"Happy Friday and all that." Trina leans against the bar with a raised eyebrow. "Usual?" Russell nods.

"Hey, did Ron stop in?" Russell asks. "Or Erin, Lexi..?"

Trina shrugs and shakes her head. "No, none of them. I was with them earlier, I think they said they were going to the mines."

Russell sighs, shaking his head. "Dumbasses."

—one month since the brutal murder of former University of Florida quarterback and 2000 Hesiman Runner Up, Charlie Taylor—

"Charlie Taylor died?" Russell asks, looking away from the television with wide eyes.

"Dude, where have you been?" Trina scoffs, pulling a fresh glass. "He was, like, beaten to death."

"I didn't know he got married."

Trina scoffs. "Washed up college QBs getting married don't exactly make the news."

"Oh, but their murder does," Russell mutters, looking back up to the television. They're showing a highlight reel of Charlie's short career in the college world. "Who would want to do that to those people?"

"His wife," Trina scoffs, pushing his glass across the bar top to him.

Russell frowns at Trina, gesturing to the television. "Wasn't she killed, too?"

"No," she scoffs again, pressing her hands into the wood. "They already came out and said she isn't a suspect. But she's the only other person in the house until the neighbor comes? Please."

"The neighbor found her tied up," the blonde woman two seats over says. Her head is turned away from them, looking up at the television. She takes a pull of dark liquor in her glass, drumming her fingertips on the bar top. "Maybe you should think about what you're saying before you open your mouth."

Trina stops polishing a glass, staring at the woman. Russell hedges. "What the fuck did you just say?"

The blonde woman's eyes snap up to Trina. "I said," she seethes, gravelly voice like venom. "Maybe you should think about what you're saying before you open your mouth."

Trina nods, setting the glass down. "Didn't think you were stupid enough to repeat it."

"I'll even say it a third time." The blonde woman drains her glass and pushes herself up. "Watch your goddamn mouth."

Trina lunges across the bar, but she has no way of reaching all that way. The blonde woman kicks her stool out of the way and grabs two fists of Trina's tank top before dragging her across the rest of the way. She slams her onto the concrete floor, and Trina throws her hands up to defend her face. Might as well have been two pieces of paper to that woman's fist. It bulldozes right into Trina's nose.

"Fuckin' bitch—"

Russell is stunned for half a second. He can't decide what it is that made him hesitate. The sheer rage in that blonde woman's fist, the stone cold fury in her face, Trina's loud mouth...

"Russell!" His name is shouted over at the pool tables, and he lunges to intervene before they can get to the cat fight. Is it really a cat fight?

Russell wraps two arms around the blonde woman's midsection, and he gets a swift, hard elbow to the brow. His hat flies off, and he stumbles back. She's strong. Fuck, that hurt.

Russell lunges again, arms interlocking between hers, and pulls her off of Trina just as the other men are arriving to diffuse the situation. They pull Trina up and she kicks like a damn bronco, bleeding from the face. Russell's woman has stilled in his grip. She's tall, smells like leather and booze and fire and the tiniest hint of vanilla.

"Get the fuck out of my bar!" Trina shrieks, yanking herself loose from the patrons.

The blonde woman laughs, a low, menacing sound. She holds her hands up, fingers extended, and wiggles a little against Russell. His mouth goes dry. "You gonna let me go, baby?" She asks, turning her head ever so slightly to her right. Russell studies her profile, the contour of her face, the angle of her smirk. Russell loosens his grip on the woman until her backside isn't pressed against his front. She reaches into her jacket pockets, and everyone tenses at the sound of metal. Her brows furrow, that smirk widens into a sadistic grin, and she holds up a ring of keys before walking out of the establishment.

And she gets right into that muscle car.

"What the hell, Russ?" Trina spits. Russell frowns at her.

"In what world is all of that shit—" He gestures to the floor, where Trina's blood is sprayed across the cement, "—my fuckin' fault?" Russell snatches his hat up from the ground, drops it onto his head, and stalks for the bar. He grabs his drink a little too angrily and turns his attention to the TV again, jaw hard as he debates kicking Trina's knee out.

Then that blonde woman is on the TV, smiling so broadly he isn't even sure it's the same woman.  Her arms are around her late husband, Charlie Taylor, and they're both grinning at Russell so hard their faces might split.

"Holy shit." Russell whirls around to the window, but only in time to see that car peel out of the lot. "That's his fuckin' wife." He looks at Trina with wide eyes. He's known Trina long enough to know her facial expressions. This one is shock. She knows she fucked up. "That's the fuckin'..." Russell scoffs, shaking his head. "Fuckin' wife." He takes a swig of his drink, and when another realization hits him, he almost spits it out. "She's the woman who fell in Pat's creek!"