Biscuit was sitting primly to one side when I walked in, pretending to ignore me. She had never been very friendly, and ever since Diego had taken up with me instead of her, we hadn't spoken at all. What surprised me was that the others also seemed to be ignoring me, or sizing me up with sidelong, surreptitious glances. This seemed an ill omen on such an important night. My son had gone on his First Hunt only last night, and this evening would be given his place with the adults among the hunters. Wondering what the strange behavior portended, I walked slowly and deliberately up to Sheila, with whom I had often shared a morning stroll. Her son was already a hunter, and a friend to my Jimmy.

The time for dispensing Easter cheer had to begin today. Allie drug herself out of bed and glared out the window. A clean, crisp day stared back with plenty of blue sky thrown in to shove away any suggestion of snow predicted by the weatherman.

She had no excuse not to go on her annual Easter shopping date with her mother-in-law. A silly tradition Marion instituted long ago, claiming gift giving at Easter more important than Christmas. With invisible armor stitched in place she hoped it would withstand Marion’s critical comments and sharp tongue.

I looked with satisfaction at the message scrawled across my bathroom mirror. "You could die this easy", it proclaimed in bright red waxy letters. I had written the message with a particularly gaudy red lipstick. Not my lipstick, I only wore earth tones. The red lipstick was purely for business. I called the police, and took a nice hot bath.

After the bath, I tossed my robe on a chair, and put on my street clothes. Leather pants, black turtle neck, and my snakeskin cowboy boots. Yeah, cowboy boots. I thought about hiding my gun and badge, but local enforcement types don't react well to out of town cops that try to keep their presence a secret. Best to be open about it, I decided. I waited for nearly half an hour in the humid little hotel room. It must have been nearly eighty degrees in the late summer Florida night, and the stupid air conditioner refused to actually condition the air. Unless frustration and heat stroke were the conditions it was designed for.