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expected.”
    “So?”
    “I received a call from Frannie Wilson this afternoon. She was driving by the Teen Center and saw our daughter being...she was...that boy was...”
    “What were they doing?”
    “He was rubbing against her, Dermot! Luckily it was Frannie who saw such a disgusting thing! We can count on her to be discreet.”
    “I wish I had a dollar for every time I rubbed against you before we were married.” Dermot chuckled. When Deirdre hissed, he reminded her that nothing had gone beyond that touching and he was positive it hadn't with their daughter. “I don't like it, but she's going to experiment, DeeDee. That's the way things are today.”
    “She won't experiment with that Cullen bastard!” Deirdre shouted.
    “Just let me handle it. I'll go have a talk with him.”
    “And if he won't listen?”
    Dermot's voice turned hard. “He'll listen, Deirdre. Believe me, he will.”
    “But what if he doesn't?”
    There was a moment of silence, then Deirdre heard her husband take a long breath.
    “I have people who owe me a favor or two,” he said. “If I need to, I'll call in those favors. The Cullen boy won't be allowed to be a problem for us.”

CHAPTER 4

    Tymothy Cullen was just closing the doors to his butcher shop when Dermot pulled into the parking lot. Seeing the fancy car and the man with the expensive suit who exited the pricey foreign job, Cullen unlocked the door and opened it. “Need a few lamb chops for the grill tonight, sir?”
    Dermot stepped into the shop, his nostrils quivering from the sharp aroma of meat and animal blood. He looked at the white porcelain meat counter with its array of sliced and diced flesh. “Thank you, no. I'm looking for Sean. Is he here?”
    Cullen narrowed his eyes. “You're looking for my boy?” His mouth tightened. “Why?”
    “I am Dr. McGregor,” Dermot informed man, knowing that should be explanation enough and it was.
    Cullen folded his brawny arms over a thick, barrel-like chest. “I wondered when you'd get around to coming after the little idjut. I told him he ought not to be messing with no doctor's kin.”
    “Is he here?” Dermot inquired. He was ill at ease in the presence of a man he considered one step up from Neanderthal.
    “No, he ain't. He's over at Griffin's, I'm guessing.”
    Dermot took out his handkerchief and covered his nose. “You should do something about the odor in here. It is very offensive.”
    Cullen grinned. “You one of them vegetarian people, Doc?”
    “No,” Dermot snapped, “but the stench is overpowering.”
    “Sean, now, he's one of that kind. Wouldn't eat meat if you pinned him down and pried open his mouth. Reckon he'd as likely choke on it as swallow it.” He shrugged. “Been that way all his life. Ain't that a helluva note for a butcher's son to be a candy-assed vegetarian fool?”
    “Perhaps he finds this odor as putrid as do I. I can certainly see why a person would abstain from eating meat if he or she got a whiff of this every day!”
    “A man what don't eat meat ain't much of a man to my way of thinking,” Cullen sneered. “Got that silliness from his Ma, he did. She don't eat meat, neither.” He shook his head. “It ain't right and I've told them so many the time. I've tried to show them the error of their ways, but neither one seems inclined to listen.”
    Dermot glanced at the red-haired man and shuddered. He could well imagine how a man as coarse and uneducated as this one would go about trying to indoctrinate his family into eating meat.
    “You say he's at Griffin's?” he asked, wanting desperately to get out of the shop.
    “Griffin Motors,” Cullen snorted. “He's working over there in the afternoons.”
    “I see. Well, thank you, Mr. Cullen,” Dermot said through clenched teeth. He turned to go.
    “Don't want him near your baby girl, do you, Doc?” Cullen laughed.
    There was something nasty in the way Cullen asked the question that rubbed Dermot the wrong way. He stared into the