Troy gave Rod the highlights of what had happened since Grace’s arrival yesterday. Grace’s immediate, possessive behavior toward Monica and his children. His mother’s growing distrust and fear of the woman. And, that morning, the discovery of Duchess’s ravaged corpse in the woods behind their property.

“Monica thinks my mom forgot and left Duchess outside last night,” Troy said. “My mom swears she didn’t.”

“Who do you believe?” Rod asked.

“Listen, my mother would never do something like that. Mom and I had a moment to chat in private before I got here. She thinks Grace set it up, and I believe her. She doesn’t trust that woman as far as she can throw her.”

“I liked that little dog.” Rod was shaking his head. “Who could hurt a cute little dog like that in cold blood?”

A couple of slender, six-foot guys, both of them looking no older than twenty-one, approached the edge of their court.

“Excuse me, old heads,” one of the guys said without a trace of malice. “Can we ball with y’all? All the courts are booked up.”

“Did he just refer to us as ‘old heads’?” Troy looked from the visitors, to Rod.

“I believe he did.” Rod spun the ball in his large hands. “You just woke up a couple of sleeping giants, son. How about we go two-on-two? Me and my old man buddy here against you young cats, to eleven.”

Both of the younger men laughed.

“Yo, we play ball in college,” one of the guys said. “Y’all can’t be serious.”

“He sounds scared to me.” Troy winked at Rod. “I think we’ll have to spot these fellas three points.”

The young dudes laughed even harder. “Y’all crazy, man. But all right, then. To eleven. And you ain’t spottin’ us nothing, ‘cause we don’t want to hear no excuses when y’all lose.”

Troy peeled out of his warm-up jacket, tightened the laces on his sneakers.

“Hope you remembered to take your Geritol this morning,” one of the guys said to Troy.

The comments were all in good fun, but the underlying tone rankled Troy. He was only forty-one, and truth be told, was in the best shape of his entire life. Of course, unlike during his younger days, he had to work hard to maintain peak physical condition, and his body took much longer to recover from injuries and overexertion. And hell, oftentimes only sitting in one spot for an hour or so, and then getting up, made his joints stiff as boards.

Still, the insinuation that he was over the hill, and easy pickings for these young dudes, pissed him off.

“Let’s do this,” Troy said to Rod, and they started the game.