Angie ate and complimented and talked about the game and the pig-headed umpire and the weather and the plans for the Fourth of July Jubilee. The game wound up and then down and out, and Angie was just realizing that she was feeling good, really good, for the first time in days, when she looked up to see Tony walking toward them from the direction of Kai and Rob’s place just beyond the trees.

For a moment she just sat there among the Roses, who were still eating while they talked about the game and how the sun really was in Len’s eyes or he would never have missed such an easy pop-up, and thank goodness Tab was right there to pull it out of the fire. The game was over, the day stood on its cusp, and the air was sweet and cooler than it had been in a week, suffused with the gold light of a high summer gloaming.

And Tony Russo was walking toward them, long and lean, scruffy with beard, dark circles under his eyes, a cigarette clamped in the corner of his mouth, and a halo of smoke hovering around his head.

Pearl saw him next, and after her Connie and then Eunice and finally Harriet. The men were standing with their backs to the field and were too wound up in their argument about the last play to notice much at all. Angie was just thinking that maybe she could avert disaster by sprinting off and turning Tony back the way he had come when Connie’s youngest shot straight up into the air. At that moment Angie remembered him on the porch at Old Roses, his mouth pursed as he pulled back an arrow that sent John Grant to the emergency room. He was called Scooter, and he had a voice like a siren.

“Look, Mama,” he screeched. “It’s the cameraman.”

Tab Darling’s smile faded as he turned his head, his whole body following. He hesitated for a split second, and then broke into a jog.

“Russo!” he bellowed.

Tony stopped where he was, looking confused and wary and like a third-grader who has just seen the school bully start toward him on the playground.

Harriet shouted, “Tab, you idiot!” and ran off after her husband at the same moment Tony bolted. For a fraction of a second the rest of the clan looked at one another in horror—and, Angie was sure of it, a deep and primal satisfaction—and then they tore off in pursuit.