Prologue

Deputy Carl Cook sighed unhappily as he trudged back to the cell block. He wasn't looking forward to what he had to do. It was bad enough that Sam Avery was in the clink…now he had two more fellows to worry about, and they didn't really seem the criminal type at all. One was tall and lanky, shaggy blond hair hanging over two of the biggest, most innocent-looking blue eyes Carl had ever seen on a man. And the other…well, that was the problem. Shorter than his friend, dark, with a solid build, radiating steady confidence. Fit the description to a tee.

It was a shame, really. The two young men had been traveling through the small town of Washburn at just the wrong time, and now it wasn't looking as if they'd ever get to leave.

That's the night that the lights went out in Georgia

That's the night that they hung an innocent man

Don't trust your soul to no backwoods Southern lawyer

The judge in the town's got bloodstains on his hands

Chapter One

"To Flee or not to Flee?"

"Bo, ain't we gonna stop soon? I'm hungry."

"We've only been on the road an hour," Bo replied, looking at Luke out of the corner of his eye. "You should've ordered more breakfast at the diner. I'm not stoppin' for another good hour at least."

"That fella back there might disagree with you," Daisy remarked coolly from the back seat. Both young men glanced back, startled to see the all-too-familiar flashing red and blue lights of a patrol car.

"What? Aw, man, you're kidding me!" Bo groaned.

Daisy reached forward to swat her younger cousin on the back of the head. "I told you, you were going too fast!"

"I'm not speeding!" Bo protested.

"Heard that one before." Luke grinned.

"I'm not speeding this time."

Daisy leaned forward to stick her head between the two front seats. "Betcha can outrun him."

Bo scoffed. "I know I can. Question is, do we try it?"

"Mmmm…" Luke made a face. "We're still pretty far from Hazzard County. Plenty of time for our friend back there to call ahead and get some real cops out on the road."

"And that's all we need…rollin' up in front of Boss Hogg with a parade of black-and-whites on our tail. He'd never let us forget." Bo sighed gustily. "S'pose I should pull over, although I hate doin' it."

"Can't do any harm," Daisy said. "You boys didn't do anything wrong this time."

The General Lee drifted to the side of the road and stopped with a lurch. Daisy tapped her nails on the seat, Luke frowned, and Bo fidgeted while they waited for the cop to drag himself out of his car and up to their window. To their alarm, not one, but two officers hopped out, ducked behind the open doors of the squad car, and drew their pistols.

"I need everyone in the car to get out and move away from the vehicle. Keep your hands up where I can see 'em!"

"What?" Bo yelped. He gulped as his heart started to pound just a bit faster. "What the heck did we do?"

"I dunno, but I think we'd better listen to 'em," Luke said. The boys slid out of the car first, praying that the two men behind them weren't as trigger-happy as they sounded. They stepped away from the car as Daisy climbed out the passenger side window. All three Dukes lifted their hands in the air.

Luke sidled a bit to the left, putting himself between Daisy and the guns. "What's this all about?"

"Get down on the ground, mister," the officer replied. "All of you. Slowly, now. Lie flat on your face." The three young people exchanged hasty glances. They knew enough about cops to know that this one wasn't kidding, and it was the wrong time to argue when you were staring down the wrong end of a gun. So even though each of them had to struggle to bite back a nasty retort, they swallowed their pride and obeyed. The policemen hurried forward, frisked them, and finally told them they could stand up again.

Bo gave Daisy a hand up before turning his blazing blue glare on the two cops. "You mind tellin' us what this is about now?" he demanded. Daisy crossed her arms, flushed with anger and embarrassment while Luke glowered beside her. Now that they could get a good look at the officers, they saw that they had been stopped by a sheriff and his deputy. The sheriff was pot-bellied and stone-faced. He ignored Bo's question and pulled out a small pad of paper.

"What're your names?"

"We ain't tellin' you nothin' until you—"

Luke hastily clamped his hand on Bo's arm to shut him up. "Our name's Duke," he replied. "I'm Luke, this is Bo, and that's Daisy."

"Mmmm-hm." The sheriff made a note on his pad. "Where you from, boy?"

Luke bristled at being called "boy", but he controlled his temper and said, "Up in Hazzard County."

"Where you been the past week?"

"We were in Atlanta to see a car show. Just headin' home today."

The sheriff glanced dismissively at the General Lee before saying, "You stayed in Washburn last night."

"Yeah, at the motel." Luke pulled out his wallet and produced a folded piece of paper.

I'm guessin' you'll want to see that next." He nudged Bo, prompting the other man to retrieve a similar paper from his own pocket.

"Hmph. Permits from a probation officer?" The sheriff's eyes narrowed as he scanned the documents. "What are you boys on probation for?"

Bo sighed, debating whether or not he should try and explain the short, tubby, and slightly corrupt force of nature in Hazzard that was Boss Hogg. He opted out and settled for the shortest possible reply. "Runnin' shine a few years back. And a few, uh, minor traffic violations."

"That's all I needed to know." The sheriff snapped his notepad shut. "You're under arrest. Cuff 'em, Cook."

It was so abrupt that Bo didn't fully realize what had been said until the deputy was pulling his arms behind his back. "Hey, what the heck did we do?" he demanded.

"Quit yer struggling, Mr. Duke, or we'll have to use force," the sheriff threatened, gesturing with his pistol.

"You can't do this!" Luke protested angrily as the deputy slapped the cold cuffs onto his wrists. "We don't even know why you're arresting us!"

"You'll find out when you get back to Washburn, if you don't remember," the sheriff said snidely. He looked at Daisy. "Don't worry, Little Sister. We ain't arrestin' you. Yet."

"Well, what'n the world am I supposed to do?" Daisy demanded, planting her hands on her hips.

"Why don't you follow us back to town?" the deputy suggested. "Sheriff Parker'll sort out everything when we get there."

"He'd better!" the young woman snapped back. She stormed off and slid nimbly into the driver's seat of the General Lee. Bo and Luke were hustled into the back seat of the police car, and their strange trip back to Washburn began.

The hour-long ride seemed interminable. The back seat of the squad car was uncomfortably warm, and both young men were beginning to feel slivers of pain creeping up their arms as their hands and wrists began to cramp from being confined behind their backs. It was just a little reassuring to look out the rear window and see the General Lee staying close behind.

Daisy chewed nervously on her lip as she passed the Washburn city limit. Sure, Bo and Luke did just a little too much flirting with the law, but they never meant any harm. Usually any trouble they got into ended up fixing things rather than making them worse. Laws weren't really broken…just bent a little bit. And if you took a good, honest look at the goings-on of Hazzard, you'd see that the boys were the ones who straightened the law out, not the ones that did the bending.

She let out a sudden growl of frustration as the cop car in front of her sped through the tail end of a yellow light. She slammed on the brakes and managed to stop in time, but sat and tapped her nails on the wheel as she impatiently waited for the light to change. By the time she was able to move through the intersection, the police car had disappeared. Washburn was a small town, though, and it didn't take her long to find the police station. When she walked inside, the front room was empty. Because of her delay, her cousins had already been hauled off to a jail cell before she could see them. She was about to go looking for them when an office door opened and the sandy-haired deputy emerged.

"Glad you made it," he greeted her.

"Save it," she snapped back. "Where are Luke and Bo?"

"Sheriff Parker had to lock 'em up in the back."

"Why?"

"I can't tell you anything yet," Cook replied somewhat sheepishly. "You'll have to talk to the sheriff. He'll be along in a minute…he's finishin' up on the phone."

As if on cue, the door to the sheriff's office opened. "Ah, she found her way," he remarked casually as he noticed Daisy. "Carl, you can go take care of things like we discussed."

"Yessir." Carl hopped up from his desk and headed back towards the cell block. He was relieved to leave the room after seeing the look on Miss Duke's face, and took a bit of guilty pleasure in the fact that Parker was stuck with her.

He could hear the Duke boys talking to each other as he approached their cell. His mouth twisted as he mulled over exactly what he was going to say to the two strangers. He and Parker had come up with a temporary strategy, but it didn't seem quite right, or quite fair to the Dukes. But it was too late to change his mind right now, and he was already at the cell. The two men fell silent at once when they saw him, rising from the narrow bench and advancing to the front of the cell. The hopeful gleam in their eyes made him feel even worse.

"You comin' to let us out?" the one called Bo asked.

"Well, son, you can go free," Carl replied. He ignored the puzzled glances he got as he unlocked the door, gesturing for the young man to step outside. Luke took a step forward, an uncertain frown marring his face as the deputy slowly but deliberately shut the cell door again.

Bo scowled. "Hey, wait a minute, why can't he go?"

"Sorry, son. I've got to keep him here. We're holding him as a suspect."

"A suspect?" Luke blurted out. "What for?"

Carl gave him an apologetic glance. "Murder."