Last Resort

LAST RESORT A JOE DILLARD NOVEL SCOTT PRATT J.D. PRATT © 2023 Phoenix Flying LLC All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Created with Vellum CONTENTS The Joe Dillard Series Acknowledgments Kristy Preface The Summer Before Part I 1. Tuesday, April 12 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 5. Five Days Later Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Part II Chapter 18 Chapter 19 20. Two Days Earlier 21. The Present Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Part III Chapter 40 41. Saturday, April 29, 2:17 p.m Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Epilogue A Note from Scott's Family Also by Scott Pratt About Scott Pratt About J.D. Pratt THE JOE DILLARD SERIES An Innocent Client In Good Faith Injustice for All Reasonable Fear Conflict of Interest Blood Money A Crime of Passion Judgment Cometh (And That Right Soon) Due Process Last Resort ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to Dan Pratt and Andrew Wolfendon for helping me bring this manuscript to life. Also, thank you to Captain Andrew Ford for helping us get an authentic feel for a day in the life of an inmate in Washington County. To Mom and Dad – Save me a seat by the lake and have a Bud Light waiting on me if it isn’t too much trouble. In a bottle. I’ll find you when the time is right. I loved you both before I was born and I’ll love you both after I’m long gone. -Dylan Pratt KRISTY This book, along with every book I’ve written and every book I’ll write, is dedicated to my darling Kristy, to her unconquerable spirit and to her inspirational courage. I loved her before I was born and I’ll love her after I’m long gone. -Scott Pratt PREFACE I have long feared that my sins would return to visit me, and the cost is more than I can bear. - Benjamin Martin (character), The Patriot THE SUMMER BEFORE “Steeee...” called the umpire, lifting his fist to half-mast. Eleven-year-old Abby Pruitt stepped out of the batter’s box and shot a look back at him, not because she disagreed with the call—it was low and outside, sure—but because the ump seemed bored. He couldn’t even bother saying the whole word: steee-rike. Doesn’t he know this is the city championship! So why does he sound like he’s about to take a nap? Abby didn’t usually have a problem with the old guy. He had umped tons of her games and had a decent eye. He walked with a limp and didn’t say much, but there was a game earlier in the season where he had yelled, “Go Abby!” after she got a hit. Abby had shot up three inches in the last six months—all of it in her legs—and her uniform didn’t hang on her the same way it used to. She no longer felt like “one of the boys.” And she was just fine with that. Anything that gave her an edge. She stepped out of the batter’s box and stretched the bat high over her head, playing the moment for all its drama. It was the bottom of the sixth—the final inning in Little League—and Abby’s team, the Detrick Funeral Home Tigers, was down to its last out and behind by one. The small bleacher-style stands at the Church Street ballpark in Elizabethton, Tennessee were filled on this cool Saturday morning. Full or empty, the ballpark was Abby’s favorite place to be. It was the only place where things made sense to her. The only place where she never got that twisty feeling in her chest—that thing her mom called “The Anxiety.” Abby stepped back into the box and dug in for the next pitch. The crowd quieted. “Forget about the strike zone,” she heard Coach Jack say in her mind. “If it’s a pitch you know you can hit, take a swing. I trust you.” I trust you. No one had ever said that to her before. Not once. This was Abby’s second year playing baseball, and she had already learned so much from Coach Jack Dillard. Abby was one of only three girls in the local league. At first Coach didn’t seem to know how to handle her and bent over backwards to pretend he didn’t notice she was a girl. But once he saw the way she played, he started taking a special interest. Until last year, Abby had never felt like she was good at anything or belonged anywhere. She and her mom, Verna, had moved around a lot, living in Hampton, Erwin, and Mountain City before ending up in a rental trailer here in Elizabethton. Abby loved her mom, who worked as a clerk at Food City, but it always seemed to Abby that if Verna didn’t have a kid, she might be happier. But here, in this place, with this coach, Abby felt a sense of belonging. The ball whipped past her, smacking the catcher’s glove. “Steeee…” said the umpire, slightly louder this time. Abby was down in the count, one and two. She looked up at the opposing pitcher in his blue and white Dodgers’ uniform. He was huge and looked