The game got off to an aggressive start, and Annette nudged the flower basket closer to her. She didn’t want the children in their exuberance to knock it over. The flowers wouldn’t suffer; they were mostly rot. But she’d hate to have to explain why she’d tucked a.25-caliber automatic under the calico cloth lining the bottom of her flower basket.

“Bon matin, ma belle.”

She hadn’t heard his approach. She twisted around, but he was concealed behind the knotted trunk of an olive tree, out of the children’s view. Their game was already getting out of hand. Quang Tai’s six-year-old daughter, Tam, a mite of a girl, was beating the socks off the two boys and loving every minute of it, teasing them in her mixture of English, French and Vietnamese. Jared boasted he’d get her next game, but Quentin, ever the sore loser, accused her of cheating. Tam was having none of it. Jared remained neutral in the ensuing squabble, but then they both turned on him. Four-year-old Rebecca Blackburn amused herself by throwing grass on the three older children, becoming more and more daring until they finally paid attention to her.

“You can’t catch me,” she cried jubilantly as the two boys and Tam chased her.

Blue-eyed, chestnut-haired Blackburn though little Rebecca was, Annette had to admire the girl’s spunk. In another thirty years, she’d probably be as sanctimonious as her grandfather.

Mercifully, Tam’s father called from the edge of the field, and all four little monsters scrambled toward him. Annette promised she’d be along in a while and pulled her flower basket onto her lap. The gun had added weight to it.

“You can come out now, Jean-Paul,” she said.