Chapter 8: Chapter Seven

As Minka and Wes roamed back into the restaurant, they crossed paths with Cael on his way from the restroom. He seemed a little tense when he noticed her, so she offered him a hug and congratulated him again, being more sincere this time. He relaxed in his stature and appeared relieved that he had her approval. She still wished he’d opened up to her beforehand and averted the uncomfortable moment, but she realized she should appreciate having someone in her life who was so sensitive to her feelings.

She extended the same concession to him by refraining from calling him for the whole weekend to allow him to celebrate his engagement. With Autumn’s family in town, she figured they’d have a lot of plans and may even dive into wedding preparations. Still, she kept ruminating about the last development with the watch, and her anger brewed over the thought that her brother had been set up.

His medication had improved his mood, but she discerned the reality of his situation was beginning to sink in on him. Unlike his first few days of staying with them, he didn’t joke around with Wes or watch television with him, and most of his replies to either of them consisted of five words or less. She understood that depression alone caused withdrawal, but his circumstances couldn’t help. In light of Maxwell’s clear fabrication, remorse struck her every time she interacted with Robin, and her conviction of his innocence strengthened.

Desperate to take Maxwell to account for his deceit, she hated having to wait on Cael and Declan to go to Stags Monday morning. Then again, she didn’t hold out much hope that he’d be eager to admit to his actions. Nor did they have any more than Hinckley’s words to prove that the exchange ever happened. She grasped for a strategy to nail him down about it, but she couldn’t settle on one.

After dinner on Sunday evening, a gentle knock tapped on the door. Before she rushed over to answer it, Cael opened it the way he’d always done when they worked together. She half expected Autumn to follow him, but he was alone for a change.

Wes grinned at his brother, his eyes glowing with mischief. “How was the weekend with the in-laws?”

“Tiring. Autumn, Shiri, and their mom seem to think the first forty-eight hours are just as crucial to an engagement as they are to an investigation. We scouted out three venues, and they scheduled us to tour four more this week.”

Wes snickered. “I’m so glad Minks doesn’t have a sister.”

She motioned in the general direction of the garage. “Yeah, my brother has turned out to be a real blessing.”

“Speaking of him, is he within earshot?” Cael asked.

“Nope, we just ate, so he shouldn’t be around until after his seven o’clock nap.” She rolled her eyes. “He needs something to tide him over to play his video games all night long.”

“Good. I wanted to bounce my plan for handling Maxwell off you. I didn’t get to tell you much about Hinckley beyond the basics at the restaurant.”

She perceived his remorse over his curtness when they talked, and though it hurt her at the time, she endeavored to relieve him of a guilty conscience. “You had a lot on your mind.”

He nodded. “We had to charge Hinckley with giving a false report, but he allowed us to search through his phone to prove he doesn’t have a relationship with Maxwell. Thus far, we haven’t found any evidence that says otherwise, so Maxwell shouldn’t be aware that we’re on his trail. That gives us room to be creative, and I’d bet on that as our best strategy. I doubt he’ll be very forthcoming if we just interrogate him from the get-go.”

She approved of his logic. “What role do you intend to play, Detective Avery?”

“In a way, you.”

She gave him a teasing poke on his chest. “We’ve discussed this before, Cael. You won’t fit into my clothes.”

“I don’t need to take it that far. Since the watch doesn’t have any of Robin’s DNA on it anyway, I’m going to unseal it from evidence and carry it into Maxwell’s office. Declan and I will pretend it belonged to our grandfather and that someone referred us to him for a fair appraisal. To make it convincing, I’d like you to give me some background on it.”

Minka had to comb through her memory to recall the details her papa had told her when she wrote a report on the antique in middle school. “I believe it was made around 1865. My great-great-grandfather bought it in Boston to celebrate the end of the Civil War. He handed it down to his son, who gave it to my granddad. He, of course, passed it on to Robin, but I’m assuming you won’t disclose that.”

“Not until we have to. He’ll figure it out when he finds the inscription, but we want to catch him off-guard and proceed from there.”

She liked the ruse and had to suppress her longing to be a part of it. She appreciated his diligence, but she couldn’t ignore the matter that bothered her most. “I don’t mean to irritate you or overstep, but I still don’t understand what grounds you have to sustain the charges against Robin. You’ve determined now that the watch wasn’t found at the crime scene, and even Hamilton said he wasn’t sure if they talked beyond a brief exchange, right?”

Cael lowered his gaze, and her spirits followed suit. “I’d hoped not to mention it until we closed in on more answers, but we had his baseball bat tested. Like the watch, it didn’t have any fingerprints on it, but bleach was detected. We also ran it by the medical examiner, and she said Hamilton’s injuries were consistent with those inflicted by a bat of that size. I realize it’s a pretty broad pool, but with everything else considered, we can’t let him off the hook without something more conclusive.”

The development disheartened her, but she was compelled to address another aspect of it. “Please, tell me you didn’t suspect I cleaned it when I snooped around his place.”

“Never. If you’d done that, you would’ve taken that photo from the trash. I’m sure you didn’t miss it.”

“How could I? It was all he had in there.”

Wes gave them a bewildered frown. “What are you two talking about?”

“You didn’t clue him in on your treasure hunt?”

She shrugged. “He never let me in on his.”

****

Monday morning, Cael and Declan strode into Stags and asked if they could speak with Maxwell. The conversation they faced would be tricky since they couldn’t present evidence of the watch ever having been in his possession. Even if they could, they had nothing to connect him to Hamilton’s assault. At best, all they could gather was that he may have had it out for Robin.

Upon entering the room, they found the accountant had just arrived, still unpacking his briefcase. “Mr. Maxwell?” Cael tapped on the open door.

He raised his head and stepped around his desk. “Yes?”

“We don’t mean to take you away from your work, but we just had a question for you.”

“No problem. How can I help?”

“This isn’t related to your job, but you have quite the reputation for watches. We’ve visited several jewelers, and they all threw out your name. You see, our grandfather willed us his pocket watch, and while we’d love to keep it, we could use some extra cash for his final expenses. Like I said, we’ve been to a few jewelers for an appraisal, but they’re not offering a lot because his initials are engraved on it. Rumor has it you’re not bothered by things like that.”

“Not at all. In my opinion, those features add character.”

“In that case—” Cael dug out the watch and passed it to him. “Does it catch your eye?”

Maxwell admired the front plate and examined the clock’s face inside, therefore missing the monogram on the back. “You have no idea. This is a classic. I’m guessing mid-nineteenth century?”

“1865, as we remember. Our grandfather bought it to celebrate the Union’s victory.”

He continued to marvel at it. “What a timepiece.”

Cael and Declan exchanged a look of surprise that the collector didn’t recognize it. When Maxwell flipped it over and spotted the inscription, though, he didn’t mask his alarm. He almost dropped it upon his epiphany.

“Something wrong?” Declan asked.

“Oh, I just realized this particular model was from a bad batch.” He clumsily handed it back.

“Are you certain of that?” Cael asked. “Grandpa always boasted that he never had to get it serviced for anything.”

“They have a defective regulator, and since it was such a mass issue, you can’t find a good replacement. It’s a miracle it’s still ticking,” he claimed.

“Really? I’ve done plenty of research, and I haven’t run across any complaints like that,” Declan disputed.

“Me, neither. Are you sure there’s nothing else you dislike about it?” At that, Cael whipped out his badge from his pocket.

With sweat glistening from his brow, Maxwell took a moment to respond. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, fellas, but I don’t trust cops who don’t disclose their true identities. I’ll have to excuse you so I can call my lawyer…and maybe your commanding officer.”

****

“So, we’ve entered the ‘attorney zone,’ where everyone shuts up,” Minka stated, folding laundry while Cael ate his lunch at her kitchen table.

“Pretty much.” He again picked up the teething ring Caela kept dropping on purpose to amuse herself. “It could be worse. He could’ve just played stupid and sent us on our way.”

“Which is what his lawyer will tell him he should’ve done, especially when he learns how little you have on him. Do you think he’ll call Gus?”

“I doubt it, considering how we complied right away, but I wouldn’t chance it again unless we have solid evidence against him.” He let out a sigh. “Regardless, I gave the boss a heads-up on my way here. He has our backs.”

With both of them frustrated, they remained quiet for a few moments, until Minka changed the subject. “Does Autumn have a venue tour booked for you tonight?”

“No, but she scheduled us to meet with a wedding planner. I’m not thrilled to have another woman in the mix, tossing out ideas without having to pay for them.”

Minka chuckled. “I had my fill planning one wedding.”

“Thank you. We’re hoping for October. Do you suppose Caela will be old enough to be a flower girl by then?”

As her rascally daughter thrust down her teething ring yet again, she smiled. “I’d say she can handle scattering the petals.”

Their attention was still on the little one when Robin entered the room to inform his sister of what he wanted her to add to her grocery list. Cael greeted him after he’d finished, only to receive a mumble in return. Minka rolled her eyes at her brother-in-law.

“Hey, Robin,” Cael called as he began to dart off with his potato chips. “Would you mind refreshing my memory about that guy who bought your granddad’s watch?”

Robin’s eyes signaled his distrust. “He was just one of my coworkers. I might remember his name now. It was something like Bryan Maple.”

Doubting he’d already forgotten Maxwell’s actual name, Minka suppressed a laugh at his poor acting job.

“I’ll check into that,” Cael said. “Were you two at work when you sold it to him?”

“Yeah, I approached him in his office and asked him what he’d pay me for it.”

“Was he alone?”

Robin nodded. “He was on the phone, though.”

“With whom?” Cael and Minka begged in unison.

“I don’t know. I had a lot on my mind,” he told them in an irritated tone. “Why does this even matter now? I’m just trapped here, waiting to be convicted so I can be trapped somewhere else.”

“Nice way to put it, Mr. Gratitude,” Minka snapped.

“Minka,” Cael rebuked her.

“It’s okay, dude. I’m used to it.” Robin retreated to the garage.

After her brother slammed the door, she ordered Cael, “Don’t even bother trying to exonerate him. He doesn’t deserve it. Jail could teach him a thing or two.”

Cael gave her shoulder a squeeze on his way out. “I haven’t been doing it for him.”

****

At her wits’ end, Minka obeyed when Wes returned home and advised her to stay in their bedroom while he took over with cooking dinner and caring for Caela. Her mind, however, couldn’t rest. Instead, it kept mulling over every syllable Robin had spoken since his arrival, each annoying her more than the last.

Wes joined her after he put Caela to bed, and his presence soothed Minka’s anxieties. After she had finished venting about her day, they reverted back into their normal patter, the foundation of their love. He shared stories from work he hadn’t had a chance to tell lately, all of which made her laugh. He lived up to his reputation of always perceiving what she needed, both emotionally and physically, and for the first time in weeks, she fell asleep smiling.

The romance and levity wore off all too soon, though. Tuesday morning, Cael texted her to say that they lacked the needed evidence to obtain a warrant for Maxwell’s phone records. Since they couldn’t narrow down who he was talking to when Robin offered to sell him the watch, they still had no proof he ever bought it.

Robin’s trial wasn’t set to begin for another three months, so Minka wasn’t optimistic with regards her foreseeable future. The developments with the watch had given her hopes of an early release, but that no longer held any promise. They’d circled back to square one, with his freedom—and her own—gone, unless another guilty party was discovered.

Throughout her day, she replayed the case in her mind over again, much like she had when she was on the force. In light of all that had happened, she could hardly accept that it hadn’t been a month since Hamilton’s assault. In her pondering, she stumbled upon a stone left unturned, a stone that had the potential to break through the brick wall in front of them.

Caught up in trying to find a connection between Maxwell and the watch, she’d almost forgotten her other findings from her visit to Stags, such as Hamilton’s real name and his alma mater. To save time, she typed both into the search box, hopeful it’d weed out the other Percy Hickingtons, if there were any. Just one page of results appeared, giving her hope that she’d locate the information she needed. She skimmed past the typical ads for information on the man, none of which showed any potential to help her, until she spotted an article on his former university’s website.

Written a month before the start of the new millennium, it chronicled the school’s most notorious disgraces in a series of reflective editorials. It was a short list, since the college had pretty much steered clear of controversy, with the exception of a few brow-raising incidents. The majority related to sports, detailing cheating allegations against players and one involved a coach. Even those failed to top the list. The one that merited the most backlash was a feud between roommates, one of whom was Percy Hickington.

According to the report, the occurrence took place in the mid-1980s, when the millionaire-to-be was an undergrad. He and Toby Mead were best buds throughout the semester—up until they began sharing a house. Others in their inner circle claimed there was friction from the start, but none believed it was too serious until Hickington showed up to class one day with a black eye, bruises, and a lawsuit against Mead.

Though Mead had been suspended from the campus, he maintained his innocence. He allegedly did well on the witness stand during the court battle that followed. His accuser, however, did not, changing his story multiple times throughout the case, including in front of the jury. In an unforeseen twist, his lawyer dropped all the charges against Mead the same night after his client’s muddled testimony.

By the time she concluded reading the articles, Minka found it bizarre that someone could “coincidentally” suffer the same injustice twice. After such a harrowing experience, one would assume he’d scram away from a confrontation. Like many back then, she doubted it even happened the first time and was growing ever more suspicious of the second. To her, it was an example of a spoiled frat boy who wanted to submarine a source of irritation, and she could envision her brother being just that to him now. She wondered if Hamilton—aka Hickington—was trying the ploy again, but with more maturity and finesse.

Disturbed to say the least, she had to determine what to do with the information. Cael couldn’t do anything about it, as he bore the responsibility to figure out what happened in the instance at hand, not dredge up the past. True, it opened up the possibility of Hamilton’s injuries being self-inflicted, but that was always hard to prove. It couldn’t be confirmed back then, and it didn’t have a great chance in the present.

More than anything, the account called his creditability into question, and that would have the most value in a courtroom. With that in mind, Minka decided to impart it to Robin’s lawyer, in hopes of helping build his argument. She had her qualms about it, given he was a public defender, and based on her experience with them, she didn’t expect him to offer Robin much more support than sitting next to him during the trial. Nonetheless, she dialed his number and wished he’d surprise her.

His receptionist answered the call and informed Minka that he was in court, living up to her disillusions. She released a silent sigh but related her name and phone number to the woman, who didn’t promise a return call. With fading hope, she was still on her own.

She skimmed over the webpage once more and decided to research Toby Mead. She clicked on his address listing and gazed at his number for a few moments, before she grabbed her phone to place another call. The weight of her action didn’t faze her, though, until he greeted her.

“Toby Mead.”

She hadn’t strategized a plan, so she improvised. “Hi, I’m Minka Avery, and I’m an attorney from Orlando. I have a client who’s being charged for assaulting Perry Hamilton, or, as you may know him, Percy Hickington. I’ve learned that you two have an unusual history and wondered if you could share any details about that with me?”

He paused for a long while, his internal conflict apparent. “You have the wrong number.”

****

Drained by the abrupt end to another lead, Minka put down her phone and laptop on the coffee table. Slouching back in the couch, she covered her weary eyes with her hand. Wes opened the door at that very moment and exhaled when he approached her.

“What’d he do today?”

“Surprisingly, nothing.”

“You’re surprised by that?” Wes retorted, playing on his brother-in-law’s laziness.

“That’s not what I mean.” She sat up as he began to massage her shoulders. “My stress isn’t about him…well, it is, but in more of an indirect way.”

“Huh?”

Minka related her day’s revelations and latest theory. “But without any proof Hamilton faked it that time, there’s no way to accuse him of it now and convince anybody. It’s just my twisted mind, formulating scenarios that might’ve never happened. Even if I had the right resources, people would conclude that.”

“If Hamilton did lie, don’t you think the guy would be eager to proclaim that?”

“Not if he was paid off.”

He nodded in agreement and started stroking her hair. “I guess we’ll have to leave it to chance. It doesn’t mean we’ll end up facing the worst-case scenario. If Robin’s lawyer does his job, he’ll realize they don’t have much against him. Hamilton even admitted he isn’t certain of his attacker.”

“Robin’s lawyer won’t even return a call. All he does is collect the state’s money.”

The two sat in silence, until Wes switched on the television. Already on the news, it showed a highlight reel of the day’s more minor stories. Wes held up the remote to change the channel, but Minka stopped him when the reporter said a familiar name.

“Last week, we reported the Riss Software’s CEO was being charged for embezzlement. Now, the term hardly covers the crimes police are accusing Steadman Rissdale of committing. As we’ve exclusively learned, Rissdale’s criminal activity was discovered before the books were audited, when a local bank received a string of complaints, claiming it was distributing counterfeit money.

“After a thorough investigation, the phony bills—consisting of only twenties in an effort not to be conspicuous—were tracked to Riss Software’s account. That blew the whistle on the CEO’s alleged scheme of depositing the cash into his business account while he funneled the real funds into his own. The audit then confirmed authorities’ suspicions, which led to Rissdale’s arrest.”

“Didn’t you say their sales surpassed Stags’? This explains it. More than half of it may have been phony.”

Wes changed the station, but Minka’s mind stayed on the headline. With Hamilton so involved in his rival company since its beginning, she still couldn’t believe he wasn’t apprised of his friend’s escapades. Could he have been biding his time so he could be in line to take over the company? Perhaps that was why he wanted to build a branch in Orlando. He could have even engineered his friend’s professional demise, all so he could emerge as a conquering hero.

What if Rissdale learned of Hamilton’s plotting and stormed down to stop him? Could he have been the one who attacked him out of rage?

The scenarios swirled through her thoughts, but none of them offered any evidence. With nothing to tie Rissdale to the assault, nobody would investigate him. He already had a minimum twenty-year prison sentence waiting for him. Plus, only time would prove or disprove her theories about Hamilton’s intentions for Riss Software.

A text from Cael moments later showed she couldn’t even count on that.

—Hamilton’s dead. —

****

With Cael pursuing the latest development, Minka couldn’t get much out of him beyond Hamilton was involved in a car crash on his way home from work. Cael was leaving for the scene, but he didn’t even disclose where that was. She consulted both her computer and television screen for further details, but nothing surfaced. Maybe Hamilton wasn’t as famous as he considered himself to be.

The twist sent a blow into the case against her brother, since Hamilton wouldn’t have a chance to execute his hidden agenda. They lacked evidence to clear Robin’s name, including the possibility of Hamilton “miraculously” remembering who attacked him. Robin would go down as somebody who’d recently assaulted a now-deceased man, which would no doubt provoke a jury against him from the start.

Minka tempered her reeling mind, telling herself maybe it’d all sort itself out, and Robin’s suit would be dropped. Regardless, she needed answers and couldn’t peel her eyes away from the news reports the entire evening. A lone article was published online after the evening news concluded, but it didn’t relate much past the fact that the businessman had been killed in a traffic accident after he ran a stoplight. The driver and passenger in the car he’d collided with were rushed to the hospital, both still in critical condition.

She was rereading it when Robin shuffled into the room. “Did you wash my sheets?”

“Yeah, they’re in the dryer if you want to grab them.”

“No, you can.” He employed the technique he’d used on their mom to get out of doing his own chores.

Uneager to carry on tradition, his sister countered, “Thanks, but I can do without unloading one load of laundry.”

His scowl revealed that he understood her message but, as usual, he didn’t hurry to do the physical task. Instead, he squinted at her computer. “Man, that’s pretty banged up. Did a pop star get into another wreck?”

She hadn’t planned to inform him about his former boss’s demise right away, but Minka reckoned it didn’t matter. “No, Hamilton did, and it killed him.”

“Ha! Serves him right for trapping me here.” His reaction didn’t surprise her, but she gave him a look of reproach. He was quiet for a moment, absorbing it. “Could this make them let me go? He’s dead; does it still make a difference who attacked him?”

She couldn’t admit to wondering the same but shared the conclusion she’d already made. “Assault is a crime, whether the victim’s here or not. It’s the DA’s job to act on that.”

Robin said nothing in reply, his disappointment clear. A part of Minka wanted to express her sorrow, but her continued distrust of him restrained her. She recalled Cael’s statement about the bleach on his bat, and even if it wouldn’t help his case with the law, she wanted to give him a chance to explain it to her.

“The police have deduced that he was beaten with a baseball bat, so they checked yours. They found a residue of bleach on it. What were you trying to clean off of it?”

“Noth—”

“Skip the deflection. I need an answer.”

He ground his teeth. “This crazy squirrel jumped through the window of my apartment complex and made an absolute mess of my kitchen. When I came home and discovered it, I trapped it in a corner and whacked it. It was foaming at the mouth, so I figured it had rabies or something and was scared it was going to bite me. As you can imagine, it left a mess, so I used bleach to clean off the blood and the—”

She held up her hand to stop him from elaborating. “I get the picture. Did you tell anyone else about it?”

“No way. My neighbors are all hipsters and would judge me as cruel.”

Having grown up in the same family, she believed his story. Their dad had taught them both that it was wrong to let a sick animal suffer, and she believed it had to be in sore straits to retreat to his pigsty. She resisted the urge to ask her brother what constituted an absolute mess in his estimation.

She let him leave to get his laundry, and once he withdrew to the garage, she giggled at his fear of the tiny critter. Having always been husky, his size often made him appear tougher than he was. The account reminded her of his sensitive nature, and it angered her more to contemplate the scenario of Hamilton pinning this on him just to be able to fire him. Now, Robin’s termination wouldn’t even matter to him.

She closed her laptop, apathetic to the details of Hamilton’s demise for the moment. When Cael’s car stopped in the driveway an hour later, however, her curiosity surged.

“What happened?” she asked as she opened the door to him.

“He ran a stoplight.”

“You drove out here at nine-thirty just to tell me that?”

He forced a grin and entered the house. “You’re welcome.”

“If he was on his way home, that corner wasn’t unfamiliar territory. He would’ve expected it.”

“Maybe he just sped up, hoping he could make it in time.”

“I’m not buying it.”

“Unfortunately, neither is his eighty-year-old mother.” Cael sat down on the couch in the living room, brushing aside one of Caela’s toys sticking half in, half out of a cushion. “She’s insisting he suffered from permanent brain damage caused by the assault, swears that’s what led to his accident, and plans to go after Robin.”

“What? How can she do that? His physician cleared him to drive, didn’t he?”

“We’ll be investigating that. I’ll warn you, though, she’s out for blood.”

Minka was rubbing her temples when Wes trotted downstairs. “Who’s out for blood?”

“Shirley Hamilton.” His brother clued him in on the rest. After he finished his play-by-play, he shifted toward Minka. “Have you told Robin what happened?”

“He caught me researching it online, so I had to. Hamilton deserved it, in his opinion.”

“As a crime fighter, I’ll ignore that. Just do me a favor, and don’t warn him about this one. I’d pay for it if he bolted again.”

Both of them agreed to keep quiet. She considered telling him Robin’s story about the bat as a last-ditch effort, but she deemed it useless. Long after he headed home, she continued to despise the injustice of it all. She wasn’t anxious to go to bed, where she’d just suffer through another sleepless night. Whether staring at the television or the ceiling above her, her mind would remain on her brother. For the first time in many years, she ached to protect him. She was at a loss, however, on how to do so.

After her indignation subsided, she chose to set her mind on the brighter side. She reasoned the investigation into Hamilton’s death could provide them with what they needed to crack the assault case. Perhaps Cael and Declan would be granted information that would expose his true identity, if he had one to hide. For that matter, Robin’s lawyer should have access to some of the victim’s files, especially concerning his health. While such may not reveal his business schemes, it would be a start to gleaning insight into his life. Hence, Minka decided to follow Wes’s advice and give Attorney Floyd Chemway another casual nudge in the right direction.

She had ample opportunity to do just that when the lawyer called and asked to meet with Robin, no doubt to share the bad news. In spite of the meeting taking place at her own house, she didn’t have much of a chance to speak, with her brother not in any mood to listen.

“What do you mean, she’s trying to get them to up the charges?” he yelped. “I was in that stinking garage when he died! I didn’t run the red light—he did!”

“Calm down, son,” the older man replied. “We can fight this.”

“No, we can’t. I’m as good as sentenced for life, because he’s some millionaire mama’s boy, and I’m a nobody.”

Minka and Floyd said nothing, both having enough experience to appreciate his statement held more truth than they cared to admit.

Minka focused on the facts. “What charges does the mother want them to pursue?”

“First degree murder.” His declaration made both their mouths drop.

“Are you kidding me?” Minka shouted in outrage. “Even if Robin did assault him, the guy lived for almost a month, and it happened on the road. That’s involuntary manslaughter, at best.”

“Thanks, sis,” Robin snorted. “Manslaughter would read so much better on my record.”

Floyd veered the discussion back on topic. “It can be classified as first degree under the felony-murder rule. Since it followed the assault charge, a felony, it can be termed first degree if the two are found to be connected.”

“But I didn’t do it.”

“This hasn’t been issued by the police, mind you,” Floyd reminded them, keeping his cool. “Mrs. Hamilton is just rallying for it.”

Robin crumpled his fists. “And I’ll bet she has a boatload of supporters, too.”

Without warning, he rose to his feet and sauntered to the door.

Inferring his intentions, Minka leaped off the couch. “Don’t do it. You’ll only make matters worse. If you violate your house arrest, they’ll put you in jail.”

“Let ‘em!” he hollered and slammed the door behind him.