LUCY IS IN KHAKI cargo pants, a CFC polo shirt, a baseball cap and dark glasses. She’s near the big magnolia tree with its circular bench, and Desi is standing woodenly next to her. He’s holding what looks like an iPad, barefoot and in Miami Dolphins shorts and T-shirt, and he’s wearing something blue around his neck.

I duck back into the quiet gloom of the hallway as I realize it can’t be Lucy who’s with Desi, and my heart lurches as if I almost stepped on a snake. She’s in Maryland, and even if she magically were back this soon, the androgynous-looking person with short strawberry-blond hair is too thin to be my niece. I realize who I must be looking at as my heart pounds out of my chest, and I go to an app on my phone, turning the cameras on for the house and the property.

I duck into the pantry, where there’s a flat-screen monitor on the butcher block. I zoom in on the backyard, tilting and panning, hoping Carrie Grethen doesn’t know what I’m doing. She should have heard me drive up but maybe she didn’t. Maybe she knows someone is inside the house watching but she might not, and I check every zone monitored by cameras, making sure I don’t see anyone else on the property.

So far it seems Carrie is here alone, and I think of what I assumed was a white construction van parked on the side of the road just past our driveway. I saw it when I was pulling in, and I’m on edge, worried that any second Carrie’s going to notice the cameras move. But she isn’t looking. Her attention is all over the place. On Desi and also straight up at the sky and down at the tabletlike device he’s holding, and across at my sister and Janet, who are out of frame but I know they must be sitting there. I just heard Dorothy’s voice but I didn’t catch what she said.

I turn up the audio on the HD cameras as high as it will go.

“… I don’t want to,” Desi tells Carrie as he shakes his head no. “I don’t want to sting anyone.”

“Of course you do.”

“It’s bad to hurt people.”

“Let me show you how much fun it is. Just click on that arrow key pointing at the word enable. It’s in green on the display, and when you touch the key the color turns red because the TC is armed. A Tailend Charlie. Do you know what that is, son?”

“I don’t want to play with you anymore. And I’m not your son,” he says, and Carrie smiles radiantly.

“When you find out who you are it will be like discovering you’re royalty. Prince Desi.” She places a hand on his shoulder.