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Lizzie turned wide-eyed. “But why?”
“Because if you catch a fairy princess, she must grant you three wishes.”
“Three?” the little girl said in wonder, gazing at the water and the lily pads drifting by. “What’s her name? What will I call her?”
“The princess?” He thought fast, said, “Guinevere.”
“Princess Guinevere,” she said, liking that. She lifted her head and looked back at him with a smile that broke away into fear and confusion.
“Who are they, Grandfather?” Lizzie asked.
He realized she was looking beyond him, back to shore. He looked over his shoulder and saw three men coming over the knoll from the house and down the lawn toward the water.
“Who are those men?” she asked again, agitated.
“Friends, Lizzie,” he replied as he turned the boat toward the dock. “Old friends. No one to worry about.”
“But what about Princess Guinevere?” she complained.
“She’ll be here tomorrow,” he said.
He pulled up to the dock and tossed a line to Starksville’s chief of police, Randy Sherman. Then he handed his granddaughter up to Stark County sheriff Nathan Bean and climbed onto the dock after her.
“Lizzie, run on up to the house, get you some breakfast,” he said.
Lizzie kissed her grandfather and ran barefoot up the lawn, adding in a few precious twirls to enchant him.
“Love that little girl,” he said, then he looked to the third man on the dock. “How’re the kidney stones treating you, Judge?”
“Shitty,” Erasmus Varney said with a pinched expression. “But I’ll survive.”
“Glad to hear that,” he said, “because survival is why I brought you all here this morning.”
Chief Sherman and Sheriff Bean studied the old man. Varney was trying, but the judge looked as if he wanted to pace against the pain.
“Been a good life for all of you, yes?” Lizzie’s grandfather asked.
The three men nodded without hesitation.
“Then it’s important to you that our good life goes on, yes?”
They nodded their heads vigorously.
“Good to hear,” he said, then sobered. “I have begun to fear that the survival of our good life is threatened.”
“By who?” Judge Varney asked.
“This Alex Cross and his family. All of them. His wife. His niece the attorney. His aunts and uncles and cousins too.”
“What do you want us to do?” Chief Sherman said.
“I have made arrangements through
a third party to bring in a lace maker that can never be traced to any of us,” he said. “She is to be given every opportunity to succeed as she’s passing through Starksville.”
“She?” Sheriff Bean said.
“Correct.”
