Page 47 of Can You Stand the Rain?

Joy nodded. “Right,” she said. “Thank you, William,” she added, and hugged him again. They stayed that way, with her on his lap in his arms, for several minutes.

But when Joy could feel William getting hard beneath her, she eased off of his lap. William managed to smile. “That obvious, hun?”

She smiled. “Kind of, yes.”

Then he nodded. “Good move,” he said of her decision to get off of his lap, and they both laughed. Their laughter was so out of character given the somberness that had permeated the SUV, that Ed Rivers and Max glanced at each other.

And then everything settled back down.

For the remainder of the long ride to their destination, William was on the phone with his office as he conferred about everything from clients to contracts and the never-fading matter of Diana Davenport that was still big news. She was expected to make an announcement in the coming days about whether or not she would suspend her campaign, and social media was filled with speculation. William and his senior executives were still dealing with that fallout too.

But Joy was a junior executive in William’s firm, and she was on a leave of absence. William didn’t have that luxury. There were certain decisions that only he could make. He was hard at work making them.

But when they arrived at yet another house that William owned, this one in rural Beecher, Illinois on farmland, it was Joy who was suddenly hard at work. She was working hard to contain her emotions. She had to go into that house and listen to a man tell a pack of lies about Gramps, and she had to keep her cool so that they could get all the information they could get. It was a tall order.

As soon as Max got out and waited for the bodyguards to get in place on either side, he then opened the back passenger door and William and Joy stepped out.

William placed his arm around Joy’s waist as they made their way toward the house. But he could feel her tense-up with every step they took to get to that front door. That was why he removed his arm from around her waist and held her hand. And squeezed it. She looked at him. And he looked at her. And they connected. Which helped. She knew he had her back.

Although it looked like a normal farm house from the outside, as soon as they walked in, Joy could tell it was far from normal. There was very little furniture in it for one thing. From what Joy could see, there was only a long table with chairs around it and a TV in the front part of the house. And for another thing Donte “DJ” Jamison, a slender, light-skinned, freckled-faced black man around William’s age, was seated at the table.

Because of the delicate nature of DJ’s claims, nobody entered the house except for Max, William, and Joy, and the guards that were inside the house with Donte went outside.

William and Joy sat across from DJ. They wanted a good look, although his look was distorted because he’d been beaten so badly that his eyes were almost swollen shut, the right side of his lip was busted, and his face looked as if it was almost twice the size it normally was. Joy was horrified by his state. William looked at Max for an explanation.

“He wasn’t cooperative,” Max said as if that said it all, and then he sat down at the head of the table and got the questions started. “Did you hire Tim Jamison?” he asked DJ.

It was obvious that he knew he’d be beaten further if he didn’t answer the questions. He answered without delay. “Yes.”

“Who hired you?”

“My brother.”

“Who’s your brother?”

“Delvin.”

“Delvin who?”