Programmed for Peril

squeezed till her knuckles popped.
    Foster’s companion was Lois Smith-Patton!
    From the street-side door emerged a huge man in a business suit. He led the way up Trish’s flagstone walk. Behind came the couple. There was something slow and Painful in Foster’s walk. Not so with Lois. The petite woman strode like a conqueror.
    What was going on here?
    She stepped onto the big porch and opened its screen door. “Foster, hello!” she called.
    He pointed at the beefy man. “Let Branch go inside first could you, Trish?”
    Branch’s moon-wide face split with a thin smile. His nose had been broken more than once. “Pardon, ma’am,” he grunted, pushing by her.
    “There’s nobody home. Melody is at a neighbor’s.” She felt foolish for saying it.
    “I’ll have a look anyway,” he said.
    “For what?”
    “Trouble,” Foster said, drawing closer.
    “Good morning, Patricia.” Lois smiled.
    As she greeted the woman Trish’s apprehension grew. Something was very wrong that Lois should appear on her doorstep in Foster’s company. Something very wrong.
    She held the screen door open. “Come in,” she said. Foster looked beyond her. “All clear, Branch?”
    “Looks okay, Mr. Palmer.”
    Trish frowned. “Of course it is. I told you—”
    “Let’s get this over with,” Lois snapped.
    Trish offered lemonade or coffee. Declined. Foster and Lois sat together on the couch. Branch stood with his back to them, looking out door and windows. “He’s a bodyguard, isn’t he?” Trish said. “What do you need a bodyguard for?”
    “I have reasons.”
    She took her first good look at her fiancé. She could barely suppress her surprise. The man had aged and stiffened. Unfamiliar lines etched his face. A new patch of gray lay in the hair above his left ear. She moved toward him. “Darling, are you all right?”
    He flinched at her approach!
    She stopped dead. Her eyes turned to Lois. “What did you do to him?”
    “Me? I didn’t do anything at all, Patricia. It was your ‘admirer’ Mr. Carson Thomas we have to thank.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    Foster began to speak, haltingly at first, then more rapidly. Now and then he paused and nibbled left-hand knuckles. She realized he was boiling with unfamiliar emotions. Overlaying all of them was profound shock. Later she would remember with special vividness that late August Saturday morning. The sunlight angled in through the eastern windows. The genuine reproduction grandfather clock’s ticks sounded loud as detonations. In the air hung the faint scents of departed Melody’s crepe and jelly breakfast.
    More than once Foster’s voice snagged. Worse was Lois reaching over to touch him on the shoulder like a concerned mother. How dare she! Foster continued to talk, each word filing like a weight on Trish’s heart. The poor man! All that had happened to him! His mastiffs! The Emerald Lady! His financial resources! The humiliation of reporting all to the police.
    She grasped something past the words, something in the angle of his shoulders, the looser set of his jaw. As he talked on, her anguish grew. She was coming to understand what lay now at his core.
    Carson had broken him.
    “He got into your accounts?” she asked.
    “I don’t know what kind of equipment he used. Or how he could pierce security screens. None of the investment ñrms know either. They’re frightened to death. If Carson could do it..
    Could anyone do it, Trish wondered. She doubted it.
    Foster continued, “Your friend Carson—”
    “He is not my friend!” Trish shouted.
    “He’s a man for this age, isn’t he?” Foster asked. “Way ahead of us? Airborne on the electron while we’re like ox carts on paper. My attorneys, my investment advisors, the best professionals can’t make me any promises about recovering nearly four million dollars.” His voice, already dulled, sank to a monotone. “Luckily the other family members have resources that weren’t touched. And of course I still have my real estate.” His grin was skewed, disturbed. “One of the many things with which he threatened me was that those other resources would be touched unless—”
    “Unless you canceled the wedding!” Trish said, her eyes filling.
    Foster ignored her. He hadn’t finished his story. “Branch, could you go out on the porch for a short time? Thank you.”
    He waited till the huge man was out of earshot. “I want you to hear everything so you’ll understand why—”
    “It’s more