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DJ shook his head. “My son is dead.” He had a cry in his voice as he ran his hands through his curly hair. “I don’t give a shit anymore! Don’t you understand that? I don’t give a shit!”

William dismissed his histrionics as a man regretting bad behavior way too late. He looked at Joy. He placed his arm around her waist. “We’ll get to the bottom of it, Joynetta. I promise you that.”

Joy leaned into William. He had a way of making her feel as if there was nobody else on the face of this earth. Just the two of them. “Thank you,” she said, as she tried with all she had not to shed a tear.

And then they were back in the SUV and heading straight for the airfield. To William’s plane. And then off to Bridell. They weren’t wasting another second.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

He looked at his bowtie in the mirror, to make certain it was straight, and then he turned to the side to make sure his shirt was tucked in and his pants weren’t bunched in the back from a too-tight belt. All looked okay. He grabbed his wallet, put it in his back pocket, and his house keys. Then he headed for the door to take his twice-daily walk to Maylene’s. He’d already gone there for breakfast earlier that morning. Now he was going for lunch.

He opened his front door and stepped out onto the wooden creaking porch of a home he refused to leave even though William and Joy offered to purchase him the home of his dreams. He made clear to them that his dreams didn’t include a house and he was staying put. He was born and raised in that house. He wasn’t going anywhere. And no, he added before they could ask, they couldn’t fix it up. It didn’t need fixing. And if it ain’t broke down, he told them, what you fixing it up for?

But as soon as he closed and locked the door, and turned around, three SUVs from a fleet of SUVs William purchased and housed near Bridell as soon as he married Joy, stopped in front of his house. Gramps recognized the driver of the middle SUV as William’s driver Ed Rivers. He also recognized the man he knew as Max, William’s chief of security, when Max stepped out of the SUV and placed his hand on the back passenger door handle.

Max waited until the other armed guards got out of one of the other two SUVs, he looked around to make certain there were no apparent threats, and then he opened the back passenger door. That was when Gramps saw William and Joy as they got out of the vehicle.

Gramps’ face suddenly looked flustered, but he remained where he stood.

William and Joy, along with Max and four bodyguards, made their way to the front porch.

Joy looked stricken to him as she and William made their way up the steps. Gramps studied her every movement. She’d heard. Now she was devastated. “What in the sand hell is all this?” he asked them.

“We need to talk, Gramps,” William said.

Gramps looked at all of those armed men. And at that security chief. And at Joy again. Then he looked at his watch. He hated to be late for lunch. But he unlocked his door again, and he, along with William, Joy, and Max, walked inside.

Gramps sat in his favorite recliner while William and Joy sat on the sofa. Max stood at the door, in bodyguard mode. He knew that old man called Gramps, but after what DJ had told them, it was like he didn’t know him at all. He remained on guard.

Gramps listened quietly as William relayed everything Donte Jamison had told them about Gramps’ involvement in that shooting.

“He talked like you were the ringleader, Gramps,” Joy said when William finished. “He said you paid him to kill me.”

William and Max looked at Joy when she said that three-letter word. Joy looked as if her very life depended on his answer.

Gramps wasn’t talking.

“But it’s all a pack of lies,” Joy said. “Isn’t it, Gramps?”

He just sat there.

“You would never hurt me. Would you, Gramps?”

He continued to just sit there.

Joy, rattled, looked at William. He could tell she was beginning to panic. Then she looked at her grandfather again. “Gramps? Why won’t you talk to me? Tell me it’s not true. Tell me none of what DJ said is true. Why won’t you just tell me? Tell me, Gramps?”

But when he continued to leave Joy out on that limb all by herself, William lost his cool. “Answer her, gotdammit!” he yelled. He was panicking too. “You’re her last hope. Don’t you understand that? Everybody let her down. Including me. But you never have, Gramps. Answer her. She deserves to know the truth.”

But Gramps had a look on his face that Joy had never seen before. He looked cold as ice. And when he spoke, he didn’t address her concerns at all. “Where’s my brother?” he asked them.

Everybody in that room were floored. “You’re worried about your brother?” William asked him. “Are you serious right now?”

Then Gramps jumped defensive. “What you gon’ do to me?” he asked William with bitterness in his voice. “The same thing you did to my brother?”

Joy was incredulous. “Gramps, what are you saying?”

“Where my brother at?”