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His voice cracks like a whip inside the vehicle.
I sit back.
Sheriff Miller lowers his voice. “I know exactly what Bo and Joe are. But knowing and proving are two different things. They own two county judges. They have people in nearly every department. Anyone who speaks against them loses a business, a job, or worse.”
My thoughts go to my parents.
Their truck went through a guardrail and plunged into a ravine six years ago. Investigators called it an accident, but my father drove that road almost every day of his adult life.
The week before they died, he told Bo Jackson he would never sell our ranch.
“I always thought they ran my parents off the road.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why? Because it might be true?”
“Because if Bo believes you can prove it, he’ll come after you harder than he already is.”
“He can’t do much worse than this.”
Sheriff Miller looks at me again.
The warning in his eyes sends a chill through me.
“Yes, he can.”
Five months later, I stand in a courtroom and listen as a jury finds me guilty.
Not one person who witnessed Bo attack me testified on my behalf.
Tonya tried.
Two weeks before the trial, someone set fire to her garage. Her twelve-year-old son was sleeping in the bedroom above it. They escaped, but Tonya left Colorado the following morning.
The restaurant’s security recordings vanished.
The metal tray appeared in an evidence bag with Bo’s blood on one corner, even though I never struck him with it.
Five men testified that I attacked the mayor without provocation.
The emergency room records proving I suffered a concussion were called irrelevant because Bo claimed he acted in self-defense.
Joe Jackson personally prosecuted the case.
My court-appointed attorney objected twice.
He looks relieved when the jury returns after only forty minutes.
The judge peers at me from behind his bench.
“Do you have anything to say before sentencing, Ms. Harris?”
I look across the aisle.
Bo sits behind his son, wearing the same smug smile he wore while I lay unconscious on the restaurant floor.
He wants my ranch.
