The Blood Red Indian Summer by David Handler Read Free Book Online

questions at Des. She ignored them as she strode toward the front gate. A tall, impassive blond trooper stood guard there.
    “Hey, Oly,” Des said, smiling at him. Trooper Olsen was a pro who didn’t get all weird around her because she was a she. “What are you supposed to be doing?”
    “Nothing,” he replied.
    “Nothing?”
    “Orders straight from the top.”
    “I’m going in.”
    “Are they expecting you?”
    “They are if they’re watching CNN.”
    He pushed a button on the inside of the gatepost. The gate swung open and Des started her way up the long, winding gravel driveway toward the house. The Grantham place had been built during the boom years of the nineties. It resembled a cluster of giant glass Kleenex boxes, some laid out lengthwise, others standing on end. A pair of Cadillac Escalades—one black, one white—was parked out front, along with a silver Range Rover, a blue Porsche 911 Carrera convertible and a tan Lexus SC 430 two-seater. Also a Dodge minivan and a beat-up old Ford pickup. All of the vehicles had New York plates except for the pickup, which had Texas plates.
    Des rang the bell.
    The door was opened by a lanky, way long young black man in a loose-fitting T-shirt and swim trunks. He was long enough to be a baller—six-feet-eight or nine, easy—and sported a retro-eighties high-top fade, a hairstyle she hadn’t known was staging a comeback. “Yo, lookie here, we got us Resident Trooper Des-aye-ray Mitry!” he exclaimed, flashing her a playful grin. “Ain’t nobody messes with you, sister. When you say move along you mean move along. I’m Big Tee’s cousin Clarence. Clarence Bellows. But since you and me’s about to fall in love just call me Cee, awright?”
    It was bright and sunny inside the glass house. From the entry hall Des could see floor-to-ceiling river views. Hear a television blaring. Also hear someone playing jazz chords on a piano. Someone who could really play.
    Clarence stood there with his hands on his hips, admiring her from head to toe. “Aren’t you the cutest thing with your big hat? Girl, you have got to come back when you’re not packing heat.”
    “That will be quite enough, Cee.” A much smaller black man wearing gold-framed glasses appeared next to Clarence in the entry hall. “Resident Trooper Mitry did not come here to lip with you. Pleased to meet you, Trooper. I’m Rondell Grantham. Tyrone is my brother. Half-brother, to be precise. We share the same mother. Neither of us ever knew who our father was. Nor did she. I’m three years younger than Tyrone.”
    “ And a midget,” Clarence pointed out.
    Not a midget, but Rondell Grantham stood no more than five-feet-eight and was so compactly built Des doubted he weighed more than a buck-forty. He wore a white oxford cloth dress shirt, tan gabardine slacks and polished brown Ferragamo loafers. His hair was trimmed high and tight. “I was informed that Dorset’s resident trooper was a highly competent young woman of color,” he said to her. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. We all have.”
    Now a broad shadow fell across the entry hall and the famous Tyrone Grantham stood before her in a tank top and gym shorts, his heavy lidded eyes watchful and curious. The warrior athlete wasn’t nearly as tall as his cousin Clarence. He stood a mere six-feet-three. But he was as wide across as three grown men and it was all muscle. His gleaming shaved head didn’t sit atop his bulging neck so much as it receded into it. His biceps were the size of boulders. His thighs were as big around as an average man’s torso. Tattoos of snarling lions, tigers and attack dogs covered practically every inch of skin that Des could see. So did the battle scars of his brutal profession. His broad, flat nose had been broken countless times. His face scratched and gouged. Jagged surgical scars adorned both knees and both shoulders. His huge knuckles were battered and the index finger of his left hand stuck out