The Blood Red Indian Summer

CHAPTER 3

“I may not be a football star but I have rights, too,” proclaimed Stewart Plotka, who was holding an impromptu news conference on the shoulder of the road just outside Tyrone Grantham’s driveway. The camera crews practically engulfed him. “I’m here for some justice. And I’m staying here until I get it.”

Plotka was short, tubby and on the whiny side. As photo-op proof of how grievously he’d been injured by Da Beast he wore a highly theatrical black eye patch over his left eye and a splint around his right hand. Picture the world’s shlumpiest pirate and that was Stewart Plotka. The man looked about as dashing as a baked apple standing out there in the hot sun in his sweat-stained knit shirt and rumpled Dockers. His slickly tailored power lawyer, Andrea Halperin, towered over him in her stiletto heels.

Des stood there watching them, fuming. She was pissed at herself for letting Bob Paffin move her around. Not that the old weasel had left her a way out. He knew how to get ugly when he needed to. And, with a rich resident like Justy Bond climbing up his ass, he needed to.

“I have a right to be here,” Plotka went on. The news crews were pretty much blocking the entire road now. The trooper on traffic detail-a big, empty uniform-had lost control of the situation. “And I’m staying here until Tyrone Grantham owns up to what he did to Katie O’Brien.”

Des strolled on over and said, “I hope you don’t mean here here, Mr. Plotka. Because you’re impeding the flow of traffic.”

“Mr. Plotka has a legal right to speak,” asserted Andrea Halperin, who had sleek auburn hair and an intensely self-important air about her. “We’re on public property.”

“And I work for the public. I’m Resident Trooper Desiree Mitry and I’m informing you that you are creating a safety hazard. Please move along.”

“My client is not going anywhere. He has taken up residence at the Saybrook Point Inn and he intends to show up here each and every day until Mr. Tyrone Grantham owns up to what he’s done.”

“I said please move along.” Des kept her voice calm for the cameras. If she wasn’t careful it could bottom out on her and she could come across like Barry White on a bad hair day. “Move along.”

Andrea Halperin knew how to get her client on TV. She also knew when to cut and run. She steered Plotka toward a black Mercedes that was double-parked on the shoulder of the road. They climbed in and sped away, Andrea behind the wheel. The media throng promptly began shouting questions at Des. She ignored them as she strode toward the front gate. A tall, impassive blond trooper stood guard there.

“Hey, Oly,” Des said, smiling at him. Trooper Olsen was a pro who didn’t get all weird around her because she was a she. “What are you supposed to be doing?”

“Nothing,” he replied.

“Nothing?”

“Orders straight from the top.”

“I’m going in.”

“Are they expecting you?”

“They are if they’re watching CNN.”

He pushed a button on the inside of the gatepost. The gate swung open and Des started her way up the long, winding gravel driveway toward the house. The Grantham place had been built during the boom years of the nineties. It resembled a cluster of giant glass Kleenex boxes, some laid out lengthwise, others standing on end. A pair of Cadillac Escalades-one black, one white-was parked out front, along with a silver Range Rover, a blue Porsche 911 Carrera convertible and a tan Lexus SC 430 two-seater. Also a Dodge minivan and a beat-up old Ford pickup. All of the vehicles had New York plates except for the pickup, which had Texas plates.

Des rang the bell.

The door was opened by a lanky, way long young black man in a loose-fitting T-shirt and swim trunks. He was long enough to be a baller-six-feet-eight or nine, easy-and sported a retro-eighties high-top fade, a hairstyle she hadn’t known was staging a comeback. “Yo, lookie here, we got us Resident Trooper Des-aye-ray Mitry!” he exclaimed, flashing her a playful grin. “Ain’t nobody messes with you, sister. When you say move along you mean move along. I’m Big Tee’s cousin Clarence. Clarence Bellows. But since you and me’s about to fall in love just call me Cee, awright?”

It was bright and sunny inside the glass house. From the entry hall Des could see floor-to-ceiling river views. Hear a television blaring. Also hear someone playing jazz chords on a piano. Someone who could really play.

Clarence stood there with his hands on his hips, admiring her from head to toe. “Aren’t you the cutest thing with your big hat? Girl, you have got to come back when you’re not packing heat.”

“That will be quite enough, Cee.” A much smaller black man wearing gold-framed glasses appeared next to Clarence in the entry hall. “Resident Trooper Mitry did not come here to lip with you. Pleased to meet you, Trooper. I’m Rondell Grantham. Tyrone is my brother. Half-brother, to be precise. We share the same mother. Neither of us ever knew who our father was. Nor did she. I’m three years younger than Tyrone.”

“ And a midget,” Clarence pointed out.

Not a midget, but Rondell Grantham stood no more than five-feet-eight and was so compactly built Des doubted he weighed more than a buck-forty. He wore a white oxford cloth dress shirt, tan gabardine slacks and polished brown Ferragamo loafers. His hair was trimmed high and tight. “I was informed that Dorset’s resident trooper was a highly competent young woman of color,” he said to her. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. We all have.”

Now a broad shadow fell across the entry hall and the famous Tyrone Grantham stood before her in a tank top and gym shorts, his heavy lidded eyes watchful and curious. The warrior athlete wasn’t nearly as tall as his cousin Clarence. He stood a mere six-feet-three. But he was as wide across as three grown men and it was all muscle. His gleaming shaved head didn’t sit atop his bulging neck so much as it receded into it. His biceps were the size of boulders. His thighs were as big around as an average man’s torso. Tattoos of snarling lions, tigers and attack dogs covered practically every inch of skin that Des could see. So did the battle scars of his brutal profession. His broad, flat nose had been broken countless times. His face scratched and gouged. Jagged surgical scars adorned both knees and both shoulders. His huge knuckles were battered and the index finger of his left hand stuck out at an odd angle.

Tyrone Grantham was an utterly savage-looking man. Yet he seemed totally relaxed and at ease. “Glad to know you, Trooper,” he said, a boyish smile creasing his face. “Did you meet my little brother, Rondell? I’ll bet he didn’t tell you he has a graduate degree in business from Wharton. He isn’t one to brag. I can’t tell you how proud I am of him. When we were coming up I looked out for him. Now he looks out for me. Right, little man?”

Rondell gazed up at his brother worshipfully. “That’s right, big man.”

“Damned right. Little brother manages my investments and various ventures. I’m presently expanding into the music business. We’ve installed a recording studio right here in the house. Cee’s a sound engineer with skills. We got us some big plans. Hey, what are we standing out here for? Come on in.”

There was an immense fieldstone fireplace in the glass living room and a sunken seating area of white leather sofas. A very pretty, very pregnant young black woman was plopped on one of the sofas watching CNN on a sixty-inch flat screen TV-a live report on what was going on right now outside this very house. Which was, Des decided, a tiny bit surreal. The focal point of the living room was the hugest home aquarium she’d ever seen. Half a dozen pale gray sharks were swimming around in a water world of brightly colored coral reef.

“It’s two thousand gallons,” Tyrone said, following her gaze. “Saw a tank just like it one night at a club in Tribeca and said I’ve got to have me one. An outfit in the city designs them, installs them, everything. Those are black tip reef sharks you’re looking at. I can watch them for hours. Always want to make sure you have six. It’s all about team. Fewer than six and they prey on each other. More than six and you’ve got a jailbreak. Turn off that TV, will you, Cee? We have a guest. Trooper Mitry, say hello to my lovely wife, Jamella.”

Jamella eyed Des with a gaze that was anything but friendly. It was guarded, streetwise and extremely protective of who and what was hers. “Hey,” she said.

“Glad to know you,” said Des, who’d read all about Da Beast’s twenty-three-year-old bride. Jamella Jameson was a professional dancer out of Houston who’d toured with Beyonce before she’d snagged the NFL’s biggest, baddest star. She was a natural beauty with smooth skin and sculpted lips. Her strong jaw and high hard cheekbones gave her a distinctly Native American look. She wore her hair long and braided. The maternity shift she wore was an unusual, brightly patterned patchwork design that was quite lovely.

Tyrone settled himself on the sofa next to Jamella and took her slim hand in his big, battered one. “Sit, sit, Trooper. Can I get you anything to drink? You hungry? Moms just got back from the store. She can fix you anything.”

“I’m good, thanks.” Des perched on the edge of a sofa, big hat on her knee. Somewhere in the house someone was still playing a piano.

Rondell sat directly across from her, watching her alertly. Clarence sprawled his long self out next to him.

“Take your big feet off my sofa,” Jamella scolded him.

He obeyed her at once. “Sorry.”

“Let me take a wild guess,” Tyrone said to Des. “The powers that be sent you here to tell me to behave myself, am I right?”

“No, you are not.”

He frowned at her. “Then what are you doing here?”

“Trying to head off trouble.”

“You can’t,” he stated flatly. “Trouble’s going to find you. It always finds me. Like that clown Plotka out there. The man’s nothing but a lying shakedown artist looking for a cheap payday.”

“Our attorney calls it nothing more than civil extortion,” Rondell said. “A thorough criminal investigation was conducted. Tyrone was cleared of any and all criminal assault charges.”

“Damned right,” Tyrone agreed. “Plotka intruded on my private space, okay? Came up to me in that Dave amp; Buster’s when I was having lunch with Jamella after practice. Started claiming that I done this and that to his fiancee. Who, I swear, I’ve never met in my life. He got very abusive. His language was inappropriate. It’s a family restaurant. Our fans bring their young kids there. He was way out of line. Jamella can tell you.”

She nodded. “He called my man ghetto trash. And me a skanky ho.”

“He got in my face,” Tyrone continued. “I simply tried to excuse him from my face. Did I put my hand on his chest? Yes. Did I shove him? No. The man slipped and fell. Did he suffer any injuries as a result of falling? No. I guarantee you he has a perfectly healthy eyeball under that patch he’s sporting.”

“That so-called doctor of his is a quack,” Rondell said. “When an independent physician examines Mr. Plotka as part of the civil proceedings the man’s injuries will be revealed as utterly bogus. That’s why we’re refusing to settle with him. He won’t get one nickel out of us.”

“But the damage is already done,” Tyrone said regretfully. “The Players Union wanted me to fight my suspension. I’m accepting my punishment. Never should have put my hand on the bastard. A man my size has to learn how to control himself. Mind you, that’s easier said than done. I don’t know how to dial down. I get paid to never dial down.”

“But he’s learning how,” Jamella pointed out. “When we’re together he’s just a gentle teddy bear. And he has never once put his hands on me without it being about our love for each other. The Tyrone Grantham I know is a good man.”

“And I intend to be a good father to our baby. I haven’t been to my other babies. Truth? I don’t even know what it means to be a father.”

“But he’s going to learn that, too,” Jamella said. “That’s what this time off is all about-learning.”

“It’s been a wake-up call for me, no question. I let my family down, my teammates down. I miss the game like you wouldn’t believe. But everything happens for a reason. This is my opportunity to change how I go about my business. I’m all done being bad Hercules. I’m not looking to get in any more fights. Not looking to rip any more pub. No more trash talking…”

“I make sure he drinks his glass of shut up every day,” Jamella said.

“No more clubbing. No more partying. No more drama. That’s why I rented out my place in Glen Cove and moved us here. It’s quiet here and that suits me just fine. I’m happy. My priorities are straight now. We’ll have us our baby. And I’ll walk the walk. Represent my family the right way.”

“What about the way you play the game?” Des asked him. “Aren’t you afraid Da Beast will lose his edge?”

“Da Beast is never afraid. Next season I’ll be a stronger, more dependable leader.” He studied her from across the coffee table. The piano that someone was playing fell silent. There was only the gentle gurgle of the shark tank now. “So why are you here?”

“To inform you that you’ve got some rich neighbors who are used to getting their way.”

He let out a laugh. “Hey, I know that. Justy Bond, right? I haven’t met him. Only know him from the pissed-off letters and phone messages he keeps leaving me. But it would appear he has himself a problem with a brother taking up residence next door. I pay him no mind. I’m not looking for trouble. Or attention. That’s why I said no to the reality show they wanted me to film.”

“We had two offers,” Rondell put in proudly. “Firm offers.”

“That whole media circus out front is Plotka’s doing, not mine. I’m strictly looking for peace and quiet, like I said. No muss, no fuss. And for damned sure no parties.”

“That’s probably a wise thing,” Des said.

“You telling us we can’t have a few friends over?” Clarence demanded.

“I’m not ‘telling’ you anything. Just advising you to be smart. Otherwise, I can guarantee you that we’ll have a situation. You know how to reach me if there’s trouble. How do I reach you?”

“I’ll give you our unlisted number.” Rondell reached for a notepad and pen on the coffee table and wrote it down for her.

Tyrone shook his shaved head. “These folks out here are terrified of me. I’m their worst nightmare. Your worst nightmare, too, right, girl?”

Des shoved her heavy horn-rims up her nose. “I don’t think I understand.”

“Sure you do. You’re one of those nice, polite girls. Did your homework every night. Stayed away from bad boys like me. Where’d you go to college?”

“West Point.”

He raised his eyebrows, impressed. “You saw action?”

“I saw action.”

“The real kind, too. Not a game like I play, hunh?”

“It was no game,” Des said, hearing footsteps approach them on the hardwood floor.

Rondell’s face lit up. “Resident Trooper Mitry, this is Jamella’s sister Kinitra.”

“Hey,” Kinitra said shyly. She was seventeen, maybe eighteen, and real cute in a baby-faced, dimply sort of way. Big, doe eyes. A soft young mouth. Actually, her face looked soft all over, as if it were constructed out of marshmallows. Kinitra wore her orange-streaked hair in a short, punky updo. She was petite, no more than five-feet-four, but she had a lovely, curvy figure. The brightly patterned top and shorts she had on were of the same patchwork design as her older sister’s shift.

“You ain’t heard singing until you’ve heard this little girl,” Clarence informed Des.

Rondell continued to glow in the girl’s presence. It was plain to Des that little brother was ga-ga over little sister. Des wondered if it was mutual.

“She’s not just a sister with a set of pipes,” Tyrone pointed out. “She hears a song one time and she can sit down at the piano and play the whole thing by ear. Been that way since she was, what, ten?”

“Younger. Five, six years old.” Jamella smiled at her. “My baby girl’s a prodigy.”

“Stop it,” Kinitra demurred as she sat down next to her. “You’re embarrassing me.”

“Don’t be bashful,” Tyrone said to her. “Be proud. Trooper Mitry, this little girl is going to be the next Rihanna. Except with class and decency. No photos of her naked titties on the web. And no thug’s ever beating the crap out of her. We’re taking our time and doing it proper. She’s only eighteen. A fresh young sister from Houston. But she is going to be huge. Tell her, little brother.”

Rondell nodded his head enthusiastically. “She has an incredibly diverse repertoire-hip-hop, jazz, blues, folk. What’s critical now is how we fuse all of those flavors together. We intend to craft her sound before we present her to a label so as to retain full creative control.”

“And her career will be a family enterprise all the way,” Tyrone explained. “I have the resources to launch her. She’s why I installed a recording studio in the west wing. Cee knows everything there is to know about sound mixing. Rondell will manage the business end. And Jamella is choreographing her whole image-her dance moves, what she wears.”

“I’m designing a clothing line for her,” Jamella said. “Similar to what we have on now. I made these. They’re inspired by our mother’s Bahamian ancestry. Mama passed two years ago. It’ll be our way of honoring her.”

“I like the look,” Des said admiringly.

Jamella arched an eyebrow at her. “Do you really?”

“Absolutely. I’d wear it. It’s not as if I always go around in a uniform.”

“I’d like to see you in a bikini,” Clarence said.

“Oh, shut up, Cee,” Jamella snapped.

“Put on her demo for the trooper to hear,” Tyrone told him. “That old Joan Baez song. The one Bob Dylan wrote.”

“Do you have to?” Kinitra protested.

“Get used to it, girl,” Tyrone said to her. “People all around the world are going to be listening to you soon.”

Clarence reached for a remote control device on the coffee table and powered up the house’s sound system. Des heard a bluesy piano with a bit of a hip-hop beat. And then she heard Kinitra singing “Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word,” the folk hit from the sixties that had showcased Baez’s amazing vocal range. Kinitra’s own range was equally astonishing. The girl could soar way up there into Minnie Riperton territory. And she didn’t just have range. Her voice was so angelic, so achingly beautiful that the hairs on the back of Des’s neck stood up.

When the song was over Clarence flicked the system off, smiling hugely. They were all smiling. It was something magical. This bashful young girl who couldn’t take her big brown eyes off the floor had it.

“She’s the real thing, am I right?” Tyrone asked Des.

“Yes, you are.”

“Hell, yes.” He squeezed his wife’s hand and said, “How do you feel, baby? Can I get you some orange juice?”

“That sounds good.”

“I’m on it. You just hang right here with your girl. Come on, trooper. I’ll show you around.”

Tyrone led Des back toward the entry hall, Clarence and Rondell tagging along. He had a bodybuilder’s rolling gait, arms out wide to his sides. And he limped slightly on his surgically repaired knees.

“Do they give you trouble?” she asked him.

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“No pain, no gain?”

“No pain, no pay. Our bedrooms are up those stairs right there. Except for Cee’s. He’s down there in the east wing. This here’s our home theater,” he pointed out as they passed a plush screening room. Next door to it was the recording studio. The piano was in there. “And this here’s my game room.” He paused so Des could check it out. The game room had a pool table, poker table and a half-dozen old-school arcade games. His many trophies and awards were crowded into a floor-to-ceiling glass case that filled an entire wall. “That there’s Rondell’s office,” he said, continuing down the hallway past a closed door. “And this here’s my weight room.” Training center was more like it. Not just free weights but Nautilus machines, treadmills, stair climbers and exercise bikes. “I work out here every day with Cee. He used to start at small forward for Clemson until his scholarship was revoked due to an unfortunate misunderstanding.”

Clarence’s jaw muscles tightened but, for once, he had nothing to say-joking or otherwise. Des made a mental note to run a criminal background check on him as soon as she got near a computer.

“I’m taking it easy right now. Giving my body a chance to repair itself. Two hours of lifting in the morning. Two hours of cardio after lunch.”

“That’s your idea of easy?” Des asked.

“The game doesn’t get any easier after you turn thirty. I’ve been watching my carb intake, too. Eating a lot of chicken and fish. Kitchen’s down this way.”

It was a commercial-sized kitchen with a six-burner Viking range, two ovens and the biggest refrigerator Des had seen in anyone’s home in her life. It was very sunny in the kitchen. A set of French doors opened out onto the patio, swimming pool and pool house. Des could also see the dock where his cigarette boat, Da Beast, was tied up.

A mountainous gray-haired woman was putting groceries away in the walk-in pantry. She wore a lavender fleece sweat suit, sneakers and somewhere between six and eight chins.

Tyrone smiled at her. “Hey, Moms. You made it back from the store.”

“That I did, praise the Lord,” she replied, wheezing slightly. She needed to lose at least seventy-five pounds. Take off a hundred and she’d still qualify as meaty.

“This here’s Trooper Mitry. Came to say hello.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Grantham.”

“It’s Chantal, honey,” she said to Des warmly. Chantal Grantham had attracted a great deal of attention after her son was selected in the first round of the NFL draft. The lady was a recovering crack whore who had totally neglected her two young boys until she found God and fought her way back from the gates of hell. “Skinny thing, ain’t she?”

“I think she’s cute,” said Clarence. “We’ll have to get her out on Da Beast. ”

Tyrone nodded in agreement. “You like boats, Trooper Mitry? I took Moms out one time but she won’t go again.”

“ Never again,” Chantal said emphatically. “You bounced me up and down so hard I swear I lacerated a kidney.”

“Well, I ain’t going out either if Rondell’s behind the wheel again.” Clarence mimicked a bug-eyed Rondell gripping a steering wheel tightly in the ten until two position, swiveling sharply left, right, left, whipping his hands back and forth spasmodically. “He almost flipped us, I swear.”

“I was merely familiarizing myself with the boat’s handling capabilities,” little Rondell said defensively.

“You was merely freaking out!” Clarence laughed.

Des heard footsteps on the stairs that were next to the kitchen door. A barefoot girl in her late teens or early twenties came tromping down. She was a heavy, homely girl. Moon-faced, pimply and dull-eyed.

“This here’s Monique,” Chantal informed Des. “Daughter of a dear friend of mine who passed last year. I look out for her now. Monique’s not well suited to being on her own.” She tapped her own forehead to indicate that Monique was intellectually challenged. “But she’s a good girl. Helps me around the house. Keeps me company. It works out well for both of us.” Chantal smiled at her. “Monique, what were you doing up in your room?”

“Nuthin’ much, Chantal.”

“We need to finish stocking that pantry, hon.”

“Yes, Chantal.”

Clarence stepped in front of the girl and began to tickle her playfully. “ Hey, Monique.”

She giggled. “ Hey, Cee.”

“Leave her alone, Cee,” Chantal ordered him.

“I’m just funning with her.” Clarence tickled the girl some more. “She don’t mind, do you, Monique?”

Des heard a strange noise next to her. Turned to discover it was the sound of Tyrone Grantham breathing in and out very hard and very fast. A vein was throbbing in his forehead. “Don’t you disrespect my mother!” he roared at Clarence, his eyes bulging with fury. “Don’t ever do that!”

In all of her years of law enforcement Des had never seen a man flare so hot so fast.

Clarence backed down at once, cowed by fear. “I-I didn’t mean nothing, cuz. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me! Apologize to Moms!”

“Sure, sure…” Clarence moistened his lips with his tongue. “Sorry, Moms.”

“It’s okay, Clarence,” she assured him.

And with that Tyrone relaxed instantly. Seemingly, the man was an emotional roller coaster. His gaze fell on Des now. He seemed to be measuring her. “You have family?”

“I’m an only child. My mom lives in Georgia. My dad’s with me right now. He just had some surgery.”

He processed her answer carefully, nodding his shaved head. “You’re taking care of him?”

“Just until he gets back on his feet.”

“That says a lot about you. Your folks must be real proud of you.”

“I’m proud of both of my sons,” Chantal pointed out. “They’ve come so far. You got yourself a man, Trooper Mitry?”

“Of course she does, Moms. She goes with that movie critic’s on the TV all of the time. Jewish guy with those funny eyebrows.”

“Wait, she who?” Clarence was aghast. “Why you want to be doing that for when there’s a fine available brother right here?”

Tyrone let out a laugh. “Give it up, Cee. She’s too smart for you.”

The patio door opened now and a middle-aged black man stood there gaping at Des in horror. Or, more specifically, at her uniform. He was quick to recover, grinning as he strolled on in. But he was too late. Des already smelled yard on him.

“Trooper Mitry, this here’s my father-in-law, Calvin Jameson,” Tyrone said. “He came up from Houston as soon as Jamella got pregnant. Lived with us in Glen Cove over the summer. Now he’s staying out in the pool house.”

“Pleased to meet you, miss,” said Calvin, who was in his late forties or early fifties. Hard to tell exactly because he dyed his hair an inky black. And wore a half-jar of pomade in it. He was a bit of a peacock. The sports shirt and slacks he had on were loud and louder. His cowboy boots were snakeskin. He was not very tall. And he was for sure not very fit. His gut hung way out over the waistband. He fetched himself a can of Bud from the fridge, popped it open and took a long drink, smacking his lips. “You get my smokes, Chantal?”

“Get your own damned smokes,” she responded, her face tightening.

“Chantal, why you all of the time got to be busting on me?”

“Because you’re no good freeloading trash. Don’t do nothing all day but sit around drinking beer and watching porn.”

Calvin shook his head at her. “Can’t we just get along?”

“I don’t get along with punks.”

“I’m no punk. I’m a grown man with two grown daughters.”

“You’re still a punk.” Chantal turned her attention back to Des. “I hope you’ll watch out for my Tyrone. The people don’t like him, you know.”

“Which people?” Des asked her.

“I worry about him day and night. Pray to the good Lord that no harm will come to him.”

Des glanced at Tyrone. “Have there been any incidents or threats I should know about?”

“Not a thing,” Rondell interjected. “We’re fine.”

“Moms is just being Moms,” Tyrone agreed. “Pay no attention.”

“No, pay attention! I ain’t no crazy person. I know what I know.” Chantal reached over and clutched Des by the wrist. She had a powerful grip. “I have nightmares every night. Keep dreaming that something awful’s about to happen.”

“Lighten up, Moms,” Tyrone said. “You’re freaking everybody out.”

“Do you keep any weapons in your home?” Des asked him.

“I have a Glock 19 for my personal protection. It’s the preferred pistol of the NYPD. I’ve got a permit for it.”

“In Connecticut?”

His face dropped. “New York. Why, is that a problem?”

“Now that you’ve established your residency here you’ll want to swing by Dorset Town Hall and apply for a local pistol permit. Once you get that you can apply for one from the state-if you want to be in complete compliance, I mean.”

“Oh, he does,” Rondell assured her. “Absolutely.”

“Are there any other weapons around?”

“No, ma’am,” said Clarence, who would not go down in history as one of the world’s great liars.

Chantal still had not let go of Des’s wrist. Des’s fingers were getting numb. “ Promise me you’ll watch out for my boy!”

“There won’t be any trouble, Mrs. Grantham. Not if I have anything to say about it.” Des smiled at her reassuringly. “And it just so happens that I do.”