Chapter 29 Summary

Williams plans his first Christmas party in eight years, hiring a caterer, musicians, a bartender, and waiters. As Williams ponders the guest list, he thinks about various characters' situations. Serena Dawes, depressed and unhappy, has willed herself to die. Though struck by lightning, Luther Driggers is otherwise healthy. Unfortunately, his most recent girlfriend has died from the lightning. Joe Odom has been charged with forgery by Mandy, who had overheard Joe talking of marriage with another woman. Joe was sentenced to probation, and Williams invites him to his party in hopes of the attention focusing somewhere other than on himself.

At the party, Minerva, dressed in a maid's uniform, asks to be taken to an overpass to get some "devil's shoestring," because she feels Danny working against Williams again. After they collect the plant, she says they need to go see Danny's grave...