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I turned to Christy and asked, "Can you come with us?"

Both Jan and Ron looked somewhat annoyed. This was for different reasons, but I was amused to note that their mouths quirked in exactly the same way. They were standing out of Christy's line of sight, of course.

My employer was annoyed, very mildly, because she still chafed at the rule that she couldn't leave U-town without security. She complied with it, but not always gracefully.

Ron had never liked Christy. It had taken a while to find out why, but it turned out to be because my wife occasionally, for reasons which are outside the scope of this story, teased me about my supposed lust for Christy (who was, I admit, quite attractive). Ron, being very young, had not known how to take this type of banter. Given what I had learned about her family history, I wasn't surprised. Ironically, it had been Christy herself, who was the mother of a teenage boy, who had alerted us to this possible type of confusion. I hoped she didn't know that the main way it applied in our family involved her.

I had not been watching closely when Christy had arrived, and I just hoped Ron had been polite when Christy had offered condolences. Given Ron's feelings about her sister, and her feelings about Christy, and her rather sketchy set of social skills, I could easily imagine that it hadn't gone smoothly.

In any case, Christy smiled and said, "Of course. I'm glad I can help."

If you're wondering whether Christy really qualified as "security," I will just mention that she was a member of the Jinx, a local motorcycle gang, and I knew her to be quite skilled in both hand-to-hand fighting and in the use of the pistol that was concealed somewhere within her leather jacket.

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