Ballencoa stood his ground and kept the camera clicking, capturing the rage on her face as she advanced on him.

“Drop the fucking camera!” Lauren shouted. “Drop it! Drop it!”

He stumbled backward at the last possible second, dropping the camera to swing from the strap around his neck. Lauren ran right into him, shoving him backward.

“You bastard!” She spat the words at him, grabbing for the camera, catching hold of the strap. “How dare you! How dare you look at my daughter! You filthy rotten son of bitch!”

Ballencoa stumbled backward another few steps, trying to push her away, ducking his head as the camera strap pulled hard against his neck.

“Crazy bitch!” he shouted.

“I’ll show you crazy, you fucking pervert!”

Lauren fought and kicked and yanked on the camera strap as Ballencoa tried to pull away from her. Suddenly the strap gave way and she went stumbling backward, tripping, falling, landing hard on the ground. Ballencoa’s camera came with her, bouncing off the hard surface of the tennis court, the expensive lens breaking free of the body of the camera.

“Fucking bitch!” Ballencoa shouted, scrambling for the camera.

Lauren pushed to her feet with the intent of kicking either him or the camera, she didn’t care which. But as she went to move forward she was pulled back, a man’s arms banding around her from behind.

Ballencoa yanked his ruined camera up by its broken strap, shouting, “Call the police! I want her arrested!”

Lauren stared at him, at the rage on his face as he gathered up the camera. It was the first time she had ever seen him express an emotion of any kind. Over a camera. He had taken her daughter, had probably killed her, and he wanted her arrested for breaking his fucking camera.

“Mommy! Oh my God!”

Leah’s voice turned her head. Her daughter and Wendy came running, eyes wide with shock.

Ballencoa came toward her, red-faced, thrusting a finger at her. “You’re going to jail, you crazy bitch!”

The man who had caught hold of Lauren let her go and put himself between her and Ballencoa. Greg Hewitt.

He stiff-armed Ballencoa with a hand to the chest, and shouted in his face. “Back off! Back off!”

“She’s crazy!” Ballencoa shouted. “She attacked me!”

“Calm down!” Hewitt shouted back.

Lauren turned to her daughter.

“Mommy! Oh my God!” Leah said again. There were tears in her eyes. Her face was white as chalk.

Lauren caught her by the arms. “It’s all right,” she said stupidly. Of course it wasn’t all right. She could see a sheriff’s deputy hustling toward the scene of the melee.

Wendy’s mother, Sara, came running across the tennis court. “What’s going on? What’s happening?”

“That woman attacked me!” Ballencoa said loudly to the deputy.

Sara Morgan looked from him to Lauren with shock.