Parchman Farm Prison, 1992

 

What if I told you I’m no criminal? It may look that way, me being locked up and all, but my crime was a necessary one. A much-needed payday for my sick and dying mama, and a reprieve from the Mississippi Delta’s suffocating poverty. But I got caught, and the payday never came. Maybe that’s why my notorious cellmate is preying on me like he is. It’s the need he senses, a burden I’m wearing like a heavy coat I can’t remove.

 

His name is Earl Gates, but everyone calls him Pearly. A snake-oil salesman if there ever was one. And his idea is ludicrous – to steal twenty million from one of the new casinos coming to Tunica, my hometown. With my brains, backroads knowledge, and big river bloodline, he says I’ll make a perfect accomplice. I don’t know about that, but he’s got me thinking. About risk. About reward.

 

I could lose Layna, who waits for me, probably against her better judgment. Love can tip the scales of logic, I suppose. Then there’s Sheriff Stilwell, whose testimony put me away, who still has me in his sights. And one more thing I keep hearing about – the mysterious Delta Syndicate and Pearly’s possible connection to it. If I listened to my gut, I might avoid this scheme altogether.

 

But it’s the money, you see. Millions of reasons in life-altering cash. An escape from the fate I’ve been running from for as long as I can remember. A promise of salvation.

 

And in a place like Mississippi, you’re best to grab salvation wherever you can find it.