© 2025 Duleigh Lawrence-Townshend. All rights reserved. The author asserts the right to be identified as the author of this story for all portions. All characters are original. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental. This story or any part thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the expressed written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a review or commentary.

This is an all-new addition to the Stormwatch series. If you haven't read Stormwatch Chapter 1, through Stormwatch Chapter 10, please take this chance first. All chapters are listed in the correct reading order in the Stormwatch Series List. Chapters one and two are updates to existing chapters with 50% new material in each, and a corrected timeline. Chapters 3, through 9, are all new and hopefully they rekindle the joy of the series and expand on the story.

Chapter 11 starts with Josh and Veronica returning home to find out that Paul had been kidnapped after the big party where Josh proposed to Veronica.

For comments, questions, or merchandise, please contact the author.

Stormwatch Chapter 11

Kidnapped

Josh's head spun. Kidnapped? It doesn't happen! Not in Springville. "When did this happen?"

"Wednesday night, after they got back from a dinner downtown," said Julissa Tanaka.

Josh put his arm around Veronica and pulled her close. The entire world was upside down! Their frumpy old barmaid is wearing a senior detective's badge and claiming that Paul was kidnapped. "What happened?"

"After they got back, Paul and Andi dropped John and Macy off at home and came here. Paul walked Andi into the house, then went back outside to park the van in the garage. A vehicle pulled into the driveway behind him. He turned to find out what that person wanted when three people came out from next to the garage and grabbed Paul. At some point, somebody shot the dog, and they drove off with Paul."

"Wonka? They shot Wonka?" If Josh weren't so angry, he'd be crying. He loved that dog. You don't just shoot a dog unless he was in the chickens, but Wonka hated the chickens; they made him sneeze.

"So now somebody is running around putting Andi's name on Paul's election lawn signs? That's horrible!" gasped Veronica.

"Who would do something like that?" demanded Josh.

"Andi, Macy and me," said Julissa. "With Paul missing, Samael Windecker was the only one left in the race. John announced to the church that he was going to run for mayor..."

"He can't do that," said Josh. Veronica looked at him in shock, and Josh said, "I pay attention in church. Remember that marathon sermon about the new church bylaws?"

"That wasn't a sermon, that was a congregational meeting," said Veronica.

"If it comes out of a pastor, and he's in a church, it's a sermon," insisted Josh. "So, Andi stood up and said, 'you're not going to run, I'm doing it.' Right?"

"Pretty much," said Julissa. "She's inside practicing a speech for tomorrow."

"Just like Andi. 'Ah got all these signs, ah can't let em go to waste,'" said Josh as they headed for the front door.

Julissa led them into the house, and they found Andi with a music stand, reading a speech to her six-year-old twin daughters, who were sitting on the loveseat with Danny and Katarina on their laps. Cholly sat at their feet, playing with two of the biggest puppies Josh had ever seen. Wonka was curled up on a dog bed behind Andi. Wonka saw Josh, and his tail started thumping the bed, and he whined pitifully.

"Momma! Wonka's crying again," said Sandy, interrupting Andi's flow.

"He needs a pain pill," said her twin sister, Madeline. "I'll go get it."

"You're holding the baby, remember?" said Macy, Andi's tall, elegant sister-in-law.

"Oh yeah," shrugged the little blond. "She's sleeping. I forget."

"Wonka doesn't need a pill, right, boy? He just needs a buddy." Josh sat down on the floor next to Wonka, and the bandaged chocolate lab rested his head contentedly on Josh's lap while Veronica hugged a trembling Andi. Veronica was easily a foot and a half taller than Andi's diminutive four foot eight, and Macy was even taller. While the two former fashion models hugged Andy, Josh told the twins, "A couple of years ago, I was there when Wonka sniffed his first porcupine. That was a tough week, wasn't it, boy?" Wonka's tail thumped in agreement.

"What kind of speech is this?" asked Veronica.

"A press conference," sighed Andi.

"Who's coming?"

"We got a 'maybe' from WNED," grimaced Macy.

"What about WKBW? WIVB? WGRZ? Any radio? WBEN? WGR? WHLD?"

Andi and Macy frowned and shook their heads. "That bastard is going to win," whimpered Andi.

"Even after he broke in here," moaned Macy.

"He what?" demanded Josh from down on the floor by the fireplace.

"The night they took Paul; we had a houseful of cops and he forced his way in here and offered his condolences to Andi. He started calling her 'widow Jarecki', which set Andi off. Meanwhile, his top park pig was up in the attic going through Paul's office."

Veronica whirled on Julissa, who said, "Don't look at me. I was at the bar making sandwiches. They didn't call me back until the next morning."

"Wait! Somebody just waltzed into a house where a kidnapping was being investigated by the Town of Concord and the FBI?" demanded Josh from the floor where he stroked Wonka.

Macy nodded sadly. "He was calling Andi 'Widow Jarecki' and she didn't like it. As a pastor I don't condone violence, but as her sister, Andi caught him in the nose with a great right hook."

"And the Erie County Sheriffs and the State Police," said Julissa, "everyone who was assigned to watch the back door was suspended without pay.

Josh looked up at Julissa and said, "I thought you were suspended indefinitely."

"That means only until they need you."

Veronica turned back to Andi and said, "Hire me."

"For what?" asked a confused Andi.

"Media relations."

"Huh?"

"You're hired," said Macy, and she dug several quarters out of her purse.

"A dollar fifty," said Veronica, looking at the coins that Macy handed her. "Here, I don't want anyone accusing me of price gauging." She handed back a quarter to Macy.

"Gouging, not gauging."

"I didn't work on that woman's campaign. You can tell by the way she's not president." Veronica took out her phone and made a call. "Don? Veronica. Thank you so much for the airtime you gave me for the Adoption Advocates agency. How would you like a juicy plum served up on a silver platter?"

The familiar voice on the other end said, "How juicy?"

"Springville is having an emergency election to find a successor for Mayor Horton. As head of the village board. Samael Windecker has been filling in since Chester Horton had a heart attack and quit. In the seven months since taking office, he's turned the park police into his private gestapo and ransacked the village budget. Last week, the top contender for the race, Doctor Paul Jarecki, was kidnapped. While the police were investigating the incident, the Mayor and one of his policemen forced their way into Doctor Jarecki's house and ransacked his office and tried to make off with a list of donors and the doctor's personal laptop."

"I heard rumors about this. Can you verify any of it?"

"I'm standing right next to Detective Tanaka of the Town of Concord PD, who witnessed the whole thing," said Veronica.

"This is the first verified report that I've heard."

"Here's the sugar coating. Doctor Jarecki's wife is running in his stead and has 24-hour protection from the Town of Concord PD protecting her from Windecker. She is holding a press conference tomorrow."

"Can you get us an exclusive?"

"Get me your calendar..." she whispered. Macy handed Veronica a desk calendar with about six appointments on it, mostly for the twins. She studied the calendar a bit and said, "She's booked up all weekend, but I'm sure you can follow her around and get some B-roll. How about noon Monday, a live stream for Noon Buffalo?"

"You're on! I'll get Sophia Morello to cover it."

"See you tomorrow at the press conference. It will be at the Springville Village Hall briefing room."

"See you then, angel."

"Who was that?" asked Macy.

"Don Pesola," said Veronica as she dialed another number.

"Sandy Beach?"

"He's only Sandy Beach on the radio. He's Don Pesola when he's Station Manager at WIVB."

And so it went. Veronica made six calls: three to the three TV station managers of the three big stations in Buffalo, one to the local politics editor of the Buffalo Evening News, one to the top afternoon radio talker in Buffalo and one to a hot shot podcaster. The podcaster was a hot car fanatic, and when he found out that Paul and Andi own Jarecki Motors, he begged for an interview in front of that beautiful Mustang in the front window.

"We're full up for a week and a half," said Macy as she and Veronica went over Andi's calendar.

"WHAT?" squeaked Andi, and she fought her way between Macy and Veronica to look at her calendar. "I can't do that! That's too much!"

Macy whirled on her diminutive sister-in-law and said, "How many pre-med classes have you lectured in front of?"

"I-I-I but... they were students! They didn't know anything."

"And the press knows even less," said Veronica. "Believe me, I know them."

"But this... a live interview with Don Bowerly? He's the top talk show on the Niagara Frontier."

"How do you know that?" said Veronica.

"He says so."

"Do you believe everything you hear on the air?" asked Macy.

"Don't worry about Don Bowerly. He's a pussycat. He's going to get all weepy over your story. Just be honest with him. He can spot a phony a mile away," said Veronica. "If you lie to him, he'll figure it out and be all over you."

"What's Mayor Windecker going to do?" said Andi in a total panic.

As Andi panicked over the sudden flush of media engagements, Cholly scooped up a sleepy Newfoundland puppy and carried it over to Josh. Jolie was the largest, heaviest thing he's ever lifted in his short, pain-filled life, but Cholly made the trip from the loveseat to Josh, grunting under the burden of a puppy that seemed to enjoy being so big. He laid Jolie in Josh's lap next to the contented snoozing Wonka, then went back for the other puppy, Chiot.

Andi practiced over and over with Macy and Veronica, and her attempts seemed to get worse and worse. Yi stepped into the parlor. The house looked so sad and empty, with the beautiful Christmas decorations gone. "There's got to be something I can do," said Yi to nobody in particular.

*Comfort food. It always works for me.*

*Something warm and savory from North Dakota, perfect! Thank you, dear,* was Yi's silent reply.

They practiced Andi's speech long past the point where the twins abandoned the babysitting job and went upstairs while Grandma Heather and Grandpa Howard took over babysitting and listening to Andi's press conference. When she was comfortable with her speech, she was subjected to questions from the press. Veronica and Macy drew up questions on slips of paper and gave them to Harold and Heather to ask. Veronica turned to give some to Josh, but she could only say, "Awww..." and she sniffed.

"What?" Andi asked and turned. Josh was leaning back against the wall, completely asleep. He had a peacefully sleeping Wonka's head on his lap and two huge Newfoundland puppies curled up on his lap. One was asleep and one was sleepily licking Wonka's cheek. Josh had his arm around a snoozing Cholly, who leaned against Josh with a sleepy smile.

When Andi finally got back on her podium, they began firing questions at her. In most she did pretty well at answering, others she stumbled. "Is it true that your first husband used you as a prostitute?" asked Macy.

Andi looked shocked, then said, "The problem isn't about my past. We have problems today in Springville that need to be addressed. Take the park police, for example..." but Veronica flagged her down.

"No, that will work on policy questions. I know I said, don't answer the dumb question, answer the smart question that wasn't asked, but in this case brutal honesty is needed or it will look like you're hiding something."

"I am hiding something," said Andi.

"We know what you're hiding, but you have to answer these questions honestly," said Veronica. "You don't have to answer completely, but you do have to answer honestly. Let's try it again." Veronica pointed at Macy.

"Is it true that your first husband used you as a prostitute?" asked Macy.

Andi thought for a moment, then said, "Yes, it's true. I was bound and blindfolded and couldn't escape. After therapy and the love of a good, honest man, I'm now running for mayor. My ex-husband is now running to keep his virtue in Upstate Penitentiary."

Macy and Veronica laughed so hard they couldn't ask another question. "Too much?" asked Andi.

"Way too much," said Veronica between chortles.

About an hour later, John decided to call it a day after a long day of building cabinets. Gus was due back any day, and John wanted to show that he was capable of producing large amounts of quality work in a short period. The cabinet hulls were all complete; the doors, drawers, and shelves were ready. It was time for staining, which he was going to start tomorrow.

He stepped outside and locked up the building. He heard a loud crack, which to John sounded like a dry branch snapping in the woods behind him. He looked back at the woods, then got in his car, started it up. As it warmed up, he brushed the snow off the hood and scraped the windshield. As he worked, he heard another branch breaking in the woods behind him. He shrugged it off and got in his car and left. He never noticed the two bullet holes in Gus's workshop wall.

As he drove home, his phone rang. He was listening to a sermon on his earbuds when Yi called him. "Yes ma'am, can I help you?"

"The girls are still working, the FBI is still waiting, and you're eating with us tonight, Rocky."

"You think this shiner makes me look like Stallone?" asked John.

"I was thinking Graziano."

"Thank you dearest," groaned John.

"Your car is unsafe at any speed. I just thought you might like to know," said Yi.

"Thank you again, my dear. I suppose it doesn't matter how fast I drive it then."

"I like how you think, Mister Preacher man. See you in a few minutes."

He was driving an old relic he found and got for a bargain price, a 1964 Chevrolet Corvair Monza convertible. It had a four-speed transmission, and sometimes finding reverse was a long process, but first through fourth shifted perfectly. It needed tires, and he had to put a few bricks in the trunk to give it some traction when steering on snow-covered roads. (The trunk is at the front of a Corvair.) The heater didn't work well, and it was an AM-only radio, but he put in his earbuds and listened to podcasts while he drove.

When John reached Andi's house, he showed his ID to the cop at the end of the driveway and then pulled the Corvair in. He was stepping in the door when Cholly and Chiot rushed and met him at the door. "Comment va mon gars préféré?" (How is my little boy?) said John happily as he scooped up Cholly.

Cholly began chattering in a rapid-fire combination of French, English, and baby talk. The only words they caught were "Poppa" and "Chiot." He wriggled his way out of John's arms and ran off shouting, "Mama!" with Chiot happily chasing him. "I guess he's ok," said John as he took Katarina from Josh's arms. "How's my little squirt?" He said, tickling Katarina's chin. She responded by falling asleep.

"That's quite a shiner you got, pastor," said Josh. "How did you get it? Did your latest sermon touch a nerve?"

"No, I invited a park policeman to leave Amelia and Dexter alone and they hit me."

"What?" Josh was astonished that someone would hit John. "Who was it?"

"I'm not saying. I know you. You'll go looking for him."

"Hunting for him is what will happen. Who was it?"

"Josh," said John in a warning tone.

"It's ok, Pastor John," said Josh. "I'll give him a full five-minute head start."

"NO."

"Fine then. I'll find out through the process of elimination." Josh got up and started pacing. "I'm tired of these thugs treating this village like 1939 Poland. And you know that Gus is going to be on my side of this."

"Please, just let it be," ordered John.

"Were they still looking for that cash box?"

John looked up from his sleeping daughter's angelic face. "Cash box?"

"Paul found a cash box in a little secret compartment under Séraphine Lévesque's bed."

"Where is it?"

"I don't know. Paul took one look inside and closed it and he hid it somewhere. Only Gus knows where it is."

"Get to the table!" ordered Yi, and the conversation ended there. The dining room table was set up for everyone, including the two FBI agents who were in the library all day waiting for a call. "In honor of your anticipated victory, I made a special dinner for you Madam Mayor."

Andi followed her nose into the kitchen and found a feast set out, the likes of which her grandmother in Bismark North Dakota, would serve. Boles of knoephla, a German potato soup with dumplings, Tater Tot hot dish, a casserole made with a layer of ground beef, a layer of Tater Tots covered in shredded cheese and cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup and baked to perfection. There was also lefse, a Norwegian potato tortilla often served at holiday gatherings, green beans with vinegar, onion and bacon, and for dessert - cookie salad! The twins started chanting, "Hot DISH! Hot DISH! Hot DISH!" This was clearly one of their favorite meals.

"Girls! Stop banging your forks on the table!" scolded Andi. It's hard to scold them when she wanted to join in the chant with them. It's her favorite meal too, and always has been. She eyed the Tater Tot hotdish. It was baked until the tops of the tater tots were crispy and the cheese melted down between them. Perfect for a cold winter evening.

"I got coaching from Grandma Heather on the hotdish and from Grandpa Knute on the knoephla," said Yi. She was with them in Bismark almost a year ago, and she struck up a friendship with Andi's grandfather Knute. The kind old man let her in on all his cooking secrets so the twins would have a "proper culinary upbringing."

Andi dug in with relish. She hadn't eaten or slept properly since Paul was taken from her and only knitting and concentrating on the campaign kept her alive. The knoephla was perfect. The lefse was good. She and her mom and a bunch of ladies from the church made tons of lefse during the holidays, and dozens of the potato tortillas were in the freezer. Green beans with vinegar, onion, and bacon bits went with everything, and the cookie salad was perfection. Who knew that canned fruit salad, crushed Fudge Stripe cookies and Cool Whip could be so good?

<><><><><>֍<><><><><>

After dinner, Sammy Wynn, Paul and Andi's attorney, showed up with the dreaded legal documents that were needed in this situation. When Paul first ran for mayor, he saw how dirty Samael Windecker's handlers were. They were playing to win at all costs, which confused Andi and Paul. Who would play blood sports over a tiny village like Springville? Just in case something like what happened to Paul happened to Andi too, they wanted their assets and children legally protected. Sammy had the legal documents to make the transfers if something should happen, and Andi started signing. While she did that, her mother had a fit and began screaming.

"NO!" demanded Heather. "NO! I'm not losing Daniel and you too!"

"It's too late mom; I've already registered to run for mayor. This was Paul's dream, to clean up the political mess in Springville. When he comes back, we'll do it together, but first I have to take office."

"What if they come for you too?" demanded Heather. "The night they took Paul, this house was full of cops and they walked right past those damn fools! They were digging around in the attic. They could have killed us all!"

That's when Josh slipped out. Somebody had to do something, and he had an idea of where to start. Josh pulled on his field jacket and headed over to where the problem began. Fifteen minutes of walking and considering his options and he was at Amelia Hernandez's house. He knocked on the door, and after a few minutes, it was answered by Dexter Hewlit. "Hey Dex," said Josh as he breezed into the house. "Is miss Amelia able to converse?"

"And just what would I be doing?" demanded Amelia as she came out of the bedroom, pulling on a bathrobe.

"You could be doing laundry, taking a shower, all kinds of things people do."

"Why are you here Sergeant?" demanded Amelia.

Josh frowned. He didn't want to interrupt Dex and Amelia, but here is where it all started. "When those fake cops came here to serve an eviction notice, who hit John?"

Dex and Amelia looked at each other and shook their heads.

"Who hit John?" demanded Josh. "You were there; you saw it."

"They all did," said Dexter sadly. He was ashamed he couldn't step in and stop it.

"Who hit him first. Those ignorant sheep aren't man enough to do it themselves. Someone started it." Josh glared at Dexter, trying to wear him down.

"We promised Pastor John we wouldn't tell anyone," said Dexter. "I can't go back on that promise."

Amelia nodded and took Josh by the elbow and urged him toward the door. "We promised. He knew you'd come gunning for them and he made us promise."

"You know I'm going to find out who it was, and I'm going to find out who shot Dennis Howe."

Dexter stepped out onto the formerly sagging porch with Josh and said, "I hope you don't hold it against me, but I was truly scared."

"I don't hold it against you Dex," said Josh. "They can be pretty scary with their belts and guns and night sticks."

"They were big and mean, and the one that started it was like a giant hockey player," said Dex.

"Yeah, like in that movie," said Amelia, and she shoved him out the door.

"Thank y..." Slam! The door banged closed, ending the conversation. "Oh well," sighed Josh. He made his way back home. Veronica was in a groove, and she probably wouldn't be home before Andi and Macy had dropped from exhaustion. WAIT! Did Amelia just wink? She wasn't the type to brag up the fact that something is going on with Dexter. Why would she wink?

A light snow began to fall as Josh trudged home. The day had been warm and melted the snow on the sidewalk into a slushy morass, then it froze solid, so it was like walking on sharp rocks. As he crunched along, he pondered what she was saying about a big hockey player. The only hockey player he knew was John Jarecki, and he wasn't big by any means.

John got home and fired up the Gladiator and drove to Jarecki's house to pick up Veronica and maybe go get a snack out at the 279 Grill, but John came storming out of the driveway and he raged up the street. Macy was calling for him to come back, but he said, "I need to pray on this," and kept walking.

"John, please, get in," said Josh as he drove along slowly.

"I need to pray."

"Pray in here where it's warm. I'll keep the sacrilege to a minimum... please?"

"Josh, please..."

"John, don't make me come out there after you. I'll wash your face in the snow."

John turned and said, "you'd do that to your pastor?"

"What... that makes you special or something? Come on, I have work for you. It will keep your brain busy." John climbed into Josh's Jeep Gladiator and sat staring at the dashboard. "Seat belts," said Josh. John fastened his seat belt, and Josh headed out of town.

Ten minutes later, they pulled into the driveway at Josh's cabin, and Josh shut down the jeep. "Come on, we have to walk." He unlocked the cabin and reached inside and turned on the porch light, then handed John a pair of snowshoes. "It's a bit of a walk."

"Where are we going?" groaned John.

"I'm going to show you my idea. Put your snowshoes on. I'm not going to carry you."

As John put on the snowshoes, Josh got a text from Veronica explaining what caused John to storm out of the meeting they had with the lawyer. Andi begged John to bury her in the little church cemetery next to John and Paul's parents, and John freaked out and stormed out of the house. "Ready? Let's get to work," Josh gave John a flashlight, then led him out into the woods. "I think the pond is frozen hard enough to walk across, but I haven't checked the ice depth and I don't want to risk it." He led John down the main path; past the big cabin they fixed last year. "Anthony has seven kids and they all fit in this cabin perfectly. The heat exchanger we put in the fireplace makes it toasty warm in there."

He led John to the ruins of a large cabin. "I think... no, I know I have enough logs from other vandalized cabins to rebuild this."

"I don't do roofs anymore," said John, as he looked at the big snow-covered wreck of a cabin. It was originally built to hold an entire scout troop, with a kitchen at one end and a bedroom at the other end. Two picnic tables set end to end and seven bunk beds filled the main room with room to spare. The fireplace is twice as wide as a normal fireplace, so 32-inch-long logs will fit in it.

"I had the chimney and fireplace inspected, it's good. This will be the last one," said Josh. "With the backhoe on Baby Deere, we can hoist the logs into position. I figure about twenty will finish the walls and cross beams. After that I just need a roof and floor, like we did with Ant's cabin. Gus has a contractor building the rafters, and I have a roofer coming out to finish the roof. I'm contracting you to build the substrate and the floor." Josh and Veronica had collected a stack of logs from cabins that had been vandalized in the past. The logs that were charred too much were put aside, but the logs in good condition were stored for this purpose.

"That was a lot of work," said John. They had to replace the roof and the floor of Ant's cabin as well.

"I need it before the fund raiser," said Josh. "This is for my quartet when we have practice camp. I'll even pay you for this one."

"Will the baby Deere lift a log that high?"

"The backhoe won't but the front hoist will." He led John down a path that was hard to see between the trees, but they eventually came up to cabin #5. "We figured out what this one was for. It's even smaller than my cabin."

"Grounds keeper's cabin?" asked John.

"I don't think grounds keepers at a scout camp get a cabin," said Josh. His property used to be a scout camp with several log cabins and many areas for tent camping. "I'm thinking the upper ranking scouts... what do they call them... order of the eagle?"

"Order of the Arrow," chuckled John as they entered the cabin and their flashlight beams landed on a large arrow carved into a log.

"I wanted to rent this out as a fishing cabin; it's right on the lake." He opened the other exterior door, and they were on a wooden porch facing the pond. At the moment, the lake was a large, flat, snow-covered area. The only clue that it was a lake was the bank on the far side of it and the two docks extending out from the two cabins. "I need to fix the roof on this porch, maybe extend it out a bit like on my cabin over there," and he pointed his flashlight across the lake to his cabin. "I want the dock to be the primary way to get here. You can park at my cabin and row across."

John studied the porch roof with a flashlight. "This is probably a three-day job, but why do you want to pour your money into a little cabin like this?"

Josh stared at the frozen lake for a long time, then said, "I asked Veronica's dad to come live with us. I want his retirement to be perfect. I want to hand him the keys to this cabin and a fishing pole. Picture it, waking up, stepping out the door and your rowboat and a lake full of fish are waiting for you." Josh's words drifted off as he stared at his cabin across the pond. "What right do I have to any of this?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" asked John.

"Ant is paying me a shit ton of money and keeps threatening to raise my pay. I'm just doing a job I'm good at and I enjoy." He stared at the porch and the snowflakes that were accumulating on his boots, and he slowly continued. "In my life, I've had three men I could call staunch friends. One died in my arms; the other one has been kidnapped. It should have been me; I have nothing to leave behind... If it wasn't for Veronica, I wouldn't have anything... hell, I wouldn't be alive right now. She's going to get tired of telling me not to kill myself one of these days. But with Paul... we'd watch a hockey game, not even talk, and by the third period everything was ok. We'd go fishing down on Cattaraugus Creek for a little while and all would be right with the world."

"I'm sorry Josh, I didn't realize," said John as he tried to comfort the guy everyone called 'Redneck.'

However, Josh whirled on John. "Never walk off on a grieving woman like you did to Andi! I shoulda knocked your punk ass down. She's terrified her husband is dead. She's afraid she's next and she wants to honor your parents' memories, and rest with them because we know that's where you're going to set Paul to rest... but you just walked away. Yeah, you're hurting, but you're not alone! You owe that little woman an apology. She needs to know she's not going to be excluded because she was used as a whore! She lived in hell and Paul rescued her. We need to gather 'round her and take over for Paul and not stomp off because of a little butthurt!"

"You!" John threw himself at Josh and knocked him off the cabin porch into the snow. All the pain and anger built up in John; he had to do something to burn off the pain. The men wrestled about, working off the anger and pain of the past few days. Then Josh took a handful of snow and "washed" John's face, and the wrestling got silly. They tumbled around like little kids until they were done and lay panting in the snow, looking up through the trees into the sky.

"Did you bring me out here just to chew me out?" demanded John as he tried to catch his breath.

"No, I'm multi-tasking. I want to know what you think of the cabin."

"You mentioned you had three staunch friends," said John. "Who's number three?"

"I just had a potentially gay scene with him," said Josh, panting in the snow. John responded by washing Josh's face with snow.

"Let's get back there, I'm sure the girls have the battle plan figured out," said Josh, and the guys hiked back to the truck talking about what work would be needed on the cabins. They planned to work on the big cabin as soon as the snow would allow it, and the small one needed to be ready after the lake thawed. Both had to be done before the fundraiser. "Hey, do you know any good hockey movies?"

John grinned. It was a guilty pleasure, but he would occasionally re-watch it. "Slapshot is the ONLY hockey movie. Why do you ask?"

"I was told I'd get a kick out of a hockey movie."

Back at Andi Jarecki's house, they were practicing interviews with Andi. She had a string of interviews scheduled, and Veronica had scheduled them from the easiest questioner to the most aggressive to give Andi a chance to work her way up to the tough ones. "How goes it Nicca?" asked Josh as he kissed his wife.

"Did you tell John?"

"No," said Josh, "not until he can talk to both of us." Their plan was to reveal their marriage to John and Macy before anyone else. But right now, with Paul's kidnapping and Andi's campaign, there was no time to sit down for a quiet discussion with John and Macy.

"I'll be home late," said Veronica. "I've talked to Anthony and Marjory and they gave me the time to work here."

"Ok, make us proud and make Andi mayor. I'll keep Andalon afloat." sighed Josh. He wasn't used to sleeping alone.

"Good plan," and with a kiss, Veronica went back to work and Josh went home.

He entered the house, and Tigger purred and yowled, welcoming him home. The cat was an odd one; he wanted attention until his attention quota was filled, and then he walked away. He'll be back, thought Josh, who then went and checked in on Pancho and Morris. Pancho, the tiny comet goldfish, was growing noticeably, so Josh gave him a pinch of food that Pancho went straight after. Morris, the black moor goldfish, came up after the food slowly. "I think I'm going to get y'all some buddies," said Josh. He had an idea that what happens in the tank is reflected outside the tank. He got Pancho, then added Morris, and now he's married to Veronica. What would happen if he added a couple of guppies to the tank?

Josh lit a small fire in the fireplace and sat down in the recliner with the snapping and popping of the fire being the only sound and light in the house. He awoke a few hours later with the fire extinguished and a quilt draped over him. Veronica must have come home and put the quilt on him. Josh tried to get up, but Tigger was curled up, asleep in his lap. He tried again to get up but fell asleep in the process.

<><><><><>

Josh stepped out of his office with a steaming cup of coffee and smiled. It was good to be back. It was only a few days off, but this place, with all its headaches and work, was like home to him. Good friends, good bosses, good workers. "Gather round troops!"

"Yay! Daddy's back!" groaned Nick Taub sarcastically.

"What's up bossman?" asked Jen Combs as she and Terri hid something behind their backs.

"Just TCB," said Josh. He knew that none of them knew what TCB was. Taking Care of Business predated memes. "I want to thank you all for being so kind to my guests at the party. They were highly impressed with y'all, and Pastor John said he'd be happy to help you on to salvation."

"Pastor... that guy with the Canadian wife was a pastor?" cried Terri.

"They're both pastors."

"I was drinking with a pastor?" cried Terri. "I thought she was a fashion model."

"She did that too. Anything else before we get started?"

"Are you and Miss von Köster going to have a baby for next year's party?" asked Larry Clark, one of Jen Combs' field techs.

"We'll work on that. Ok, we're going to get a new client, Sisters of Mercy hospital downtown. They want all kinds of magic out of us. I'll be in meetings for the rest of the day. Fearless Leader has volunteered to be project manager," said Nick as he pointed at the VP of Production, Fabian Bernsdorf. "I want Moose and Squirrel to head down there and get a tour." He pointed at Rasheed Davis and Jen Combs to fill the positions of Moose and Squirrel. "While they are hanging out with habit forming nuns, Dave, Larry, you have work orders! Fullbright Insurance wants to trade in their dumb terminals for smart terminals. Terry, Nick, and Cole, let's get eleven PC's up and running for Dave and Larry."

A dumb terminal looks like a tiny PC, but it connects to a server and only shows the employee what the server shows it. You can't check any email other than business; there's no internet access, and there's no solitaire game. A smart terminal is a full PC that can cruise the web and also connect to a server and act like a dumb terminal when it needs to. Dumb terminals are best for cashiers and inventory managers, but business owners love them because they do the job and they're cheap. Employees hate them because you can't view porn.

"We have a present for you," said Terri. She and Jen handed Josh a wrapped gift; it was clearly a large picture frame. He opened it, and it was a framed photograph of him in his uniform proposing to Veronica on the dance floor. In the background, you could see the stunned co-workers. Some in shock, all collectively holding their breath, waiting for a surprised Veronica to say yes. "That is going to look great over your fireplace."

"Yes, it will," sighed Josh. It was a beautiful picture, and it brought back the fun and love they felt that night... but he noticed someone in the background who looked sad. It was Audrey Mitchell. Was she jealous? "Thank you all, I can't tell you how meaningful this is." He held it up for everyone to see. "We both want to thank you for sharing this evening with us." He set the photo down and then got serious. "Has anyone here been contacted by the FBI yet?"

"Why?" asked Cole Reagan. "Did you give her a diamond that went missing from the Louvre?"

"No, Paul Jarecki, the other fellow in the Air Force uniform, he was kidnapped moments after he got home. I thought the FBI would question the folks who saw him just a few minutes before..." Josh shook his head. He had heard that there were questions about the FBI's eagerness to investigate Paul's disappearance; something was wrong with this picture.

<><><><><>֍<><><><><>

Josh spent much of the day with Mark Post, Brandon Mitchell and Anthony Friedman and a room full of IT guys from Sisters of Mercy trying to logically fulfill the promises that Brandon's salesman made to the Sisters of Mercy. The salesmen didn't go completely overboard, and most of the stuff they promised actually existed, but one-hour on-site service would not happen, because it didn't exist. On-call phone support would happen... and Josh was nominated to go to the contracted call center and train the call takers.

"Thanks Ant," groaned Josh. "What's the plan?"

"You go tomorrow, spend Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday doing train the trainers and setting up the software. On Monday you start to train the technicians and on Wednesday afternoon you go live with Faith Hospital in Gowanda."

"TWO DAYS?" yelped Josh. "You're expecting almost as much from these kids as you expect from me!"

"They're all experienced IT phone technicians. Most are poached from a Microsoft account that expired," said Anthony. "The call center was tripping over themselves to land our business."

"So where is this call center?" said Josh. He knew it couldn't be in New York; the cost of living was getting so expensive a call center wouldn't be economically feasible. "Mumbai? Manilla?"

"Minot."

"You're shitting me."

"You used to live there!" said Anthony with a grin. "You should be used to it."

"I USED to live there; I volunteered to be a target in every war zone we could find just to get out of there. I'm free now. You have no idea what it's like up there in the winter. I don't own warm enough cold weather gear."

"I want you up there starting training on Wednesday," said Ant in his 'I'm the boss' voice. "If this works we may end up offering 24 hour support to the other contracts."

"I get it, this is a plot," said Josh. "It's some kind of money making scheme."

"You figured that out all by yourself?" said Ant with a grin. "This is big. Take one of the programmers with you to explain the support software."

"Wait... THEY get support software? We don't get support software here; we have to make it up as we go."

"That's why they're paid nine bucks an hour and you're not. Make us proud Sergeant."

Josh sighed. When Anthony called him sergeant, there was no turning back. "Ok, my choice of programmer?"

"Mateo Buran and Lois Frankel are the two that wrote this software," said Anthony. "Go see Sophia in HR, she's got your travel itinerary then go pick a programmer."

"Gotcha," said Josh. Sophia was a good troop. She's not one of those HR monsters that have a beef with the male half of the human race, and she filled in for Veronica when Ronnie was out doing other things. She gave him the flight information, and Josh gave her his and Veronica's updated W4 with their new last names, then he headed over to the Programming bullpen.

Mateo and Lois worked at a common desk, and they were the perfect pair. Lois hated men, and in her eyes, Mateo was a wimp. "One of you gets a magic flight ticket to the land of enchantment; the other stays here in dreary Orchard Park ready to support us in our hour of need. Who's ready for an adventure?"

Lois looked at him with disgust. "I know you're not going to New Mexico; that's the land of enchantment."

"Have you ever been to Clovis, New Mexico? No? Then keep your uneducated opinions to yourself. I'm headed to the land of three suns, where sunrise and sunset can both be seen on the same shift. A land where coffee can turn into a cloud and fly away. Who's willing to travel to the Land of the Mouse?"

"Orlando?" asked Mateo hopefully.

"No, better, Minot!" Both programmers looked at him in confusion. "We're going to be rolling this software of yours out in two weeks. It goes live for testing next Wednesday. One of you is coming with me to help train the support staff and the trainers. I want someone who can talk intelligently with the programmer back here if there is an issue and work remotely to get it fixed."

The programmers looked at each other. Finally, Mateo said, "Lois designed the system, I just wrote the supporting interface."

"Congratulations, you're going to Minot," said Josh, and he handed a boarding pass to Mateo.

<><><><><>

Josh Gravely-von Köster finished up his work at Andalon and begged Mr. Friedman to see if he could go home early and spend time with Veronica before he had to leave, and Mr. Friedman let him go. Veronica wasn't in the office; she had taken time off to manage Andi's campaign. She struck a deal with Mr. Friedman, allowing her to do community work like that when needed. Besides, Anthony Friedman was angry that Paul had been abducted, and he wanted it pinned on Samael Windecker in any way possible.

Ant had met Samael Windecker at a political function in Orchard Park and considered him a dribbling idiot. Then later in the evening, Ant had the revelation that Samael Windecker was not a dribbling idiot, but he played one quite well. That made Samael Windecker very dangerous politically. It was far too easy to underestimate someone acting like a dribbling idiot when they do it as well as Samael Windecker.

Josh wanted to talk to John about the upcoming wedding between him and Veronica. They were so involved in their conversations about the cabin and Andi that Josh never brought up their own wedding. They did not know when or how, but Veronica wanted to be married in the woods on Josh's property. More than anything, Josh wanted to talk to John. Josh was a loner. In the USAF he was a team player and he made the kids laugh with his down home humor, but to be honest he had two friends in the Air Force, and one got killed by a shoulder-fired missile over some shithole populated by sheep fucking assholes. That was Josh's last gunship mission, and it was a disaster. He almost "bought the farm" himself on that mission. In Korea, he allowed himself to get close to a fellow that worked for him named Wedge Donovan. He hadn't thought of old Wedge and his sidekick Roxie in years... He wondered how they were doing.

Paul Jarecki was the closest thing Josh had to a buddy, but he was gone, and that left a hole in his life that burned. Maybe talking to Paul's little brother was what he needed. He hit the speed dial on his phone. John answered his call immediately. "Hey Josh, what is happening?"

"I got sprung from work early, so I was wondering what you were up to."

"I'm in Gus's wood shop, finishing up a few cabinets," said John.

"Oh, lordy, do I love working with wood... I could watch it all day long. Mind if I come out and distract you for a while? I want to know what you think of the cabin I showed you."

John chuckled and said, "Sure, come on out."

It wasn't like Josh to actually want to hang out with someone other than Veronica. Two years ago, Josh would stroll into Paul's cabin, and Paul would serve dinner. They'd eat in near silence, talking only about the stew Paul made and the hunt that produced the meat they were eating. Then they would spend a couple of hours watching the fire burn down in the wood stove while Paul played the guitar, or they would watch a Buffalo Sabres game on TV. Then, Josh would head back to his cabin. Maybe a dozen words were exchanged, but that's how their relationship worked until that fateful day when Andi ran into a ditch in a blizzard.

When he was alone, Josh didn't care about anything. He would sit in his cabin and watch the fire burn down in the big fireplace, letting the horrors of his past replay over and over in his head. The fireplace would go out of focus, and Josh would find himself in a smoke-filled gunship. His crew were all injured, one dead, with an immense hole in the plane's side, their load master outside dangling from a safety strap waiting to be dragged to death when they land. It was a horror show that played back over and over, and Josh was almost looking forward to the final episode. It would end with him holding the business end of a.45 caliber Colt M1911 to the roof of his mouth and bringing an end to it.

During the summer, his demons left him alone. He would work himself into utter exhaustion rebuilding the old cabins on his property or cutting firewood. He would collapse onto the couch in his cabin and sleep. But in winter, he was alone with his past. His demons would return the minute he was done with work and torture him in his little apartment in Orchard Park or in his cabin in Springville.

Last year, a late-winter blizzard changed everything. He was trapped in his office with Veronica, and their nearness forced them to be honest about their feelings. The entire world changed, and Josh had to change with it. Now he wanted to grow old with Veronica, and the only way to do that was to kill off his demons. He relied on Dr. Macy Jarecki to talk him in off the ledge on bad days, and Paul Jarecki to keep him off the ledge in the first place. When Veronica became a part of his life, Josh realized he needed a full-time shrink, and he asked Macy to find one that specialized in CRPTSD (Combat Related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

Josh pulled into Gus's driveway and saw a car with a North Carolina license plate parked in front of Gus's house. It was obviously a rental. That was odd because the house was sealed up and there was no snow on the rented Toyota. There was a sign that said Didomissio Construction and Woodwork that pointed to the Quonset huts further back on the lot. The driveway was plowed. John's sky blue '64 ragtop Corvair was parked back by the wood shop, so the driveway was obviously plowed by John when he started work, but the footprints from the rental car didn't follow the driveway. They went off into the trees behind Gus's house.

Then his phone rang. It was Kenny Johnson calling him. Kenny was a great kid. Josh would have been proud to fly with him had he enlisted in the Air Force instead of the Army. Josh and Kenny have had long talks about guns, ammo, hunting and shooting, but they were held at the gun and ammo counter at Kenny's feed store, where Josh bought his ammunition. They rarely talked outside of the feed store and never on the phone. "What's up, young man?" asked Josh.

"Three guys just tried to kidnap Paul and Andi's twins from the school," Kenny said. He sounded out of breath and angry. "We stopped them, and the cops have all three."

"The girls! How are the girls?" demanded Josh.

"They're fine, Yi and the girls are fine. Yi is still recovering, but she hit the three thugs with her taser and they're all locked up, and probably still twitching. She drained two batteries on them," said Kenny with some pride.

"What happened? Where are you?" Josh asked. His blood ran cold with anger. When you mess with kids, a swift execution was in store in Josh's mind.

"The twins had show and tell today," sighed Kenny. "Sandy showed a rag with Wonka's blood and waved it around screaming that her dog was shot. Madeline drew a picture of her daddy's kidnapper burning in hell. They had all the kids crying."

"Oh, dear god," groaned Josh. It sounded funny, but Josh was in tune with the agony the girls were going through.

"Then they both started screaming, 'He's coming for us!' and the teacher freaked out and took the girls to the office and called for Yi. When Yi got there some guys showed up claiming that Andi sent them. The twins freaked out without seeing the guys. Yi pried a window open and they jumped out and ran for Saint Aloysius church, but they were grabbed and shoved in a van. The guys drove back through the field behind the school to get away."

"Did they hit the crik?" The crik was a drainage ditch through the center of the field. Anyone with a snowmobile knew about that steep-sided ditch.

"Yeah, that's how we caught them."

Josh got out of his truck and inspected the footprints around the rental car. It appeared they got out, clustered around the trunk of the car, then headed off into the brush. "Where are you at right now?"

"I'm with Yi and the twins. They're pretty worked up and Andi's folks are freaking out. Now I have to tell Andi."

"I'll tell Andi. You let everyone know at that end that Ol' Josh will tell her. Ok?"

"Thanks pal, it's just a sucky day all around," said Kenny. He told Josh about the twin's meltdown during show and tell, including the teacher's shock when Yi told her everything the twins said was true.

"Oh lord," said Josh. He started to laugh, but something gold in the snow behind the rental car caught his eye. He bent down and picked it up. The gold was the brass of an unfired 9-millimeter round. "I'm going to drop in to Gus's hut and say hi to John real quick before talking to Andi. I'll let him know too." He slipped the 9mm round into his pocket.

"Tell him that they shot Father Juan, too."

Josh went ice-cold, and his vision dimmed. Now it was shooting the bad guy in the head serious. Father Juan was to Springville as the White House is to Washington, DC. Father Juan was a Springville legend, a kind and loving soul. He was the heart of the village. Every time Josh spoke with Father Juan, Josh wished all priests could be like him. "Is he...?"

"He was alive when the ambulance took him away," said Kenny.

Kidnapping, beating a pastor, trying to throw old people out of their house, targeting children, invading a school, shooting a priest, chasing a woman carrying two kids across a snow-filled field... Josh could feel the hate coming back, the hate that propelled him through some of the roughest missions he ever flew. Hate that brought him home alive when his ship was shot up, his friend dead, his loadmaster bleeding out... People were going to pay for hunting his friends, and for reawakening the beast within. "I'll tell John," said Josh softly.

"Thanks, guy," Kenny sighed in relief. He clearly didn't want to tell Andi that her babies had nearly been kidnapped. "Father Juan is over in Bertrand Chaffee," said Kenny, naming the local hospital. "I'm going to go see him later."

"Hey, those guys that tried to nab the twins, were they in a rental car?"

"Yeah, a rented Toyota, and they stole a van from St. Aloysius. Why?"

"No reason," said Josh. "You just calm everyone down. I suggest ice cream. Look in the freezer in my garage and see if there's a Friendly's Christmas log left, the twins love that."

"Thanks."

Josh called Veronica next. "Hey darling, what are you guys up to?"

"We're at Jarecki Motors. Andi and Macy are meeting with Min Sun and a few of the managers, then we're going to shoot a few interviews."

"When Andi gets a break, tell her that Yi took the kids home from school. They weren't quite ready to go back."

"Oh?" said Veronica, which to anyone that knows her means "Tell me more." Josh told her about the twins' exhibitions at show and tell. "That's a good hint that they're not ready."

"Let Andi get her interviews done before you tell her. The kids are fine and Yi's filling them up with ice cream."

"Will do, I love you Effi."

"Love you, Nicca."

Josh hung up and sighed. He thought of the God that he had recently started to believe in again and thanked Him for that woman, then got back into his Jeep Gladiator and parked it very, very close behind the rental car. The nose of the rental was tight against a huge mound of snow from the driveway being plowed. And now the bed of Josh's Gladiator was inches from the trunk of the rental Toyota. There was no way that the Toyota was going anywhere.

Josh got out and opened the rear door of the truck and folded up the rear seat. As he did, the snow started to fall. He looked under the seat and found that the space that normally holds his 30-06 rifle was empty. He forgot to put it back in the truck after cleaning it. "Shit!" he sputtered, but then, that's too much gun for close fighting. Maybe it's better that he left it in the gun locker in his cabin. But the Remington 870 twelve-gauge shotgun was there. "Perfect," he hissed happily. He remembered when he used to carry the M870 in the Air Force. He thought it was ridiculous, then he discovered the things you could do with a shotgun. A vengeful grin spread on his face as he remembered 'playing around' on the firing range at Minot AFB, learning about the other things a shotgun was good for.

His gun had a capacity of four rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. He had an extension tube that gave him seven rounds in the magazine, but he hadn't installed it yet. He loaded three rounds of double-aught buckshot into the magazine, then a round of BB shot. He cycled the pump and jacked the round of BB shot into the chamber and slid another round of BB shot into the magazine and filled his pockets with 00 Buck. The first two shots he fires will be BB shot, not to kill but as an invitation to stop. The next rounds he puts in the air will all be double-aught buckshot, ensuring that stopping has occurred. Each round broadcasts nine lead balls, each a third of an inch in diameter, traveling at twelve hundred feet per second.

Stopping will happen.

He took his faithful Colt M1911.45 caliber pistol, the gun he's affectionately named The Hand Cannon, slammed a loaded magazine in and jacked a round in the chamber. He wore a belt over his parka, but he didn't holster his gun. He tucked it in the belt so he could draw it quickly. He was ready; it was time to go hunting. As the snow began falling heavier, he quietly tracked the footprints into the young trees. The prints took a winding route through the brush and juvenile woods to come up behind Gus's workshop. There were three sets of tracks, and it looked like the idiots were wearing running shoes...

He put in one earbud and tried to call John, but John wasn't answering. He had said he would be staining cabinets. He should have heard the phone ring. Come on John! He urged silently, but John never answered.

Josh came up behind two men. They were crouched down in the trees near the shop and shivering; the third person must be inside the building with John. The men were wearing lightweight Gore-Tex, which is good if it had been raining, but the temperature was in the teens. It would be a month before it was warm enough to rain. Morons. Just for crossing Josh's path, they became walking dead meat...

Josh calmed himself. Time slowed to a crawl, and he focused more intently than he had in years. It was killing time. Slowly he rose to his feet. It seemed like it took an hour to raise his shotgun up to his shoulder, and he was about to shout a warning when a huge hand clamped down on his shoulder...

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"Hi and welcome to Car Talk Two Point Oh. I'm your host Mike Rutkowski..."

"And I'm your host Dave Rutkowski. We're here in this display of Western New York love to talk with a very special guest."

"HA! If Western New York loved us that much it would bring us a Lombardi trophy," said Mike.

"As you can see, my brother Mike still hasn't gotten over that creative call in the fourth quarter last Sunday," said Dave, laughing. "We're here in this outburst of Western New York solid sunshine to talk to a very special guest, Doctor Adriana Jarecki."

"She's married to Paul Jarecki, owner and CEO of Jarecki Motors," said Mike. "And he always greets us with a special welcome..."

"Git off my property!" cried Dave, causing both brothers to laugh, including Andi and the crew.

"Everyone knows that Paul's a fan of the podcast," said Dave. "Whenever he has a special car to show off he welcomes us here to look over the car and show it to the world."

"It's called free advertising," laughed Mike.

"That's why you're here today," adlibbed Andi, and she got a thumbs up from Macy and Veronica, who were standing off camera watching.

Dave put his hand to his ear and said, "I'm getting word from our production staff in New York..."

"Cheektowaga, New York!" laughed Mike.

"... that the snow is covering the view of this beautiful guest we have with us today. Would it be alright to move inside Missus Jarecki?"

"By all means," said Andi.

"And Cut! That was good, I liked it, said Jeff Rutkowski, youngest brother and producer / director / cameraman / gofer / driver of the Car Talk 2.0 pod cast.

"Can I get down now?" asked Andi from atop her milk crate. Both Mike and Dave were as tall as Paul, and Andi finally put a milk crate under the mistletoe (missile toast!) so they could enjoy longer vertical kisses. The milk crate came in handy, lifting her up so she wasn't talking to their nipples and could look them in the eye without neck strain. Veronica and Macy both helped her off the milk crate as Detectives Tanaka and Moris kept themselves between Andi and anyone on the production team while the cameras weren't rolling. The snow was heavy and getting heavier, but the cars the guys wanted to see were inside the showroom.

The three Car Talk guys picked up their equipment and carried it inside, where they were able to plug some of the recording equipment into 110 volts. They shook the snow off their coats, and Veronica touched up Andi's hair while Macy did Andi's makeup. "Any chance we can introduce your team on the podcast?"

"It couldn't hurt," said Veronica. "We're not dressed or made up for video."

"Your clothes are fine, and you have enough makeup in that kit to do everyone here in the dealership," said Dave Rutkowski.

Macy and Veronica looked at each other, then shrugged and touched up each other's makeup and were done in minutes. "Wow! That was fast. My wife takes two and a half hours to do her eyebrows," cried Mike.

"We were both models at one point, so we got used to doing quick touch ups between takes," said Veronica.

"And how do you want to be addressed," asked Jeff, ready to take notes.

"Veronica Gravely," said Veronica.

"Pastor Macy Jarecki," said Macy.

"Wait, you're married to Paul too?" asked Dave with a laugh. "Some guys have all the luck!"

"Non, non, non. I am married to Paul's brother Jean. I just work for Paul; I am his executive assistant."

"I am the executive assistant to Marjory Friedman at Adoption Advocates and her husband Anthony at Andalon Data Systems," said Veronica.

"Wow, and what do you guys do on the campaign?"

"Macy is my campaign commander, what she says goes," said Andi. "And Veronica is my press secretary." She clutched Veronica's hand and said, "She just stepped in and really... AHHH!"

"What?" asked a worried Jeff.

"You did it!" cried Andi. "When were you going to tell us?" she was shouting and looking at Veronica's hand.

"We did it on New Years Eve, when we were down in West Virginia."

"Did what?" asked Macy, then she looked at the hand that Andi was holding and smiled. Along with that beautiful diamond that Josh put on her hand on the night of the party, she was wearing a wedding band on the same finger. "That's my girl," said Macy happily. "How long did it take you to convince him?"

"I didn't have a thing to do with it. I got in the car on the thirtieth and he said, 'Oh, we have an appointment with the judge tomorrow at eleven, so wear that white dress you were dancing in.'" Veronica shrugged. "My dad was Josh's best man and his new quartet showed up and serenaded us."

"Wait, what new quartet?" gasped Andi.

"We ran into the gang from the quartet Pennsy down there. Their lead singer has cancer and has to quit, so Josh stepped in and it's a really good fit. By their second song the guys had a nice sound."

"Pennsy? The winners back at Kleinhans?" asked a confused Andi. "You guys are going to the international championships?"

"Yeah, guess who gets to do hair and makeup," said Veronica.

"He needs to sing in church more," muttered Macy.

The podcast guys watched in amusement as the three beautiful women gushed over Josh and Veronica's New Year's weekend. "Why didn't you say anything?" asked Andi.

"No, not with all that is going on. When Paul is back we can watch the videos of the wedding and you can see Josh's show with his new quartet and old quartet," said Veronica. She was clearly proud of Josh's singing.

"The Gentlemen's Disagreement was there too?"

"Yeah, word got out that Josh was asked to join Pennsy and they rushed down to support him. They were on one side of the stage and Pennsy was on the other side. Josh walked back and forth doing a song with his old quartet as baritone, then over to Pennsy to sing lead. It was incredible!" gushed Veronica.

"Uh, can we talk cars?" asked Mike.

"Yeah, we were waiting on you," said Andi as she stepped up on her milk crate. As Jeff video recorded Paul's immaculate 1971 Mach 1 from all angles, Mike and Dave talked about the car with Andi, who was well versed in Paul's car. "This is a 1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1 with a 429 Super Cobra Jet engine, four speed with a Hurst shifter, four eleven Detroit locker gears in the rear. If you notice, the front end is much larger than previous Mustangs, this is because in 71 they redesigned this body to hold that massive four twenty-nine engine. Paul added the Holley spread bore four-barrel carburetor with vacuum secondaries and the Hedman ceramic tuned headers..."

Dave, Mike, and Jeff were shocked that the tiny woman knew this car. "Can we take it for a ride?" asked Dave.

"No, this is a sunshine only car. If it's raining it stays in the garage. If it's snowing it stays in the showroom window. That fastback collects snow and the driver has no rear visibility," Andi pointed out.

"So you're saying that this car was built for some fantasyland," said Dave.

"Like Southern California," added Mike with a laugh.

"Exactly."

"Can we at least hear her?" asked Mike.

Andi looked at Macy, who turned and saw most of the sales and office crew standing in the showroom watching. "Tony? S'il vous plait?"

Tony Witlock, the sales manager, reached into the key locker and pulled out a set of keys and hurried over to the showroom window where the beautiful Mustang sat. He climbed into the Mustang and settled in with a huge grin. He pushed the gas to the floor and released it, then pushed it in halfway to set the choke and turned the key. The Mustang caught almost immediately and sat running with a deep-throated rumble that. "Awww, listen to that lope!" gushed Dave.

Macy nodded to Tony, who grinned and put his foot into it. Tony was the only person who had permission to start and, if needed, move the pewter and black Mustang. As he added fuel to the fire, the Mustang roared; the banshee bellow echoed through the building. The sound was so incredible, so pounding, that a listener could feel the thunder roll through their bodies. Veronica shrieked and covered her ears, but Macy was used to it because Paul liked to show off his car and fired it up weekly. And to Andi, this was the sound of her husband. When Tony finally shut down the Mustang, everyone who had gathered on the sales floor broke into applause. Jeff got great footage over that.

Then they reset into the other front window showroom, and as Jeff filmed, they talked about Andi's beautiful burgundy-red Porsche 911. "This was my dad's car. He bought it when he was promoted to Captain... he was dead in Iraq a year later. Mom stored it until I was old enough to drive it, but I was afraid to touch it after it sat for so long. When I married Paul, he trailed it back here as a gift for me, then he had the guys here at Jarecki Motors rebuild it from the ground up."

"A mint condition 1970 Porsche 911, how many miles on it?"

"Dad bought it used, it's got under five thousand miles on it. The first owner only took it to shows."

"And the Alpha Romeo?" asked Mike.

"That is my first car," said Macy. "I bought it when I was a model, years later when I married John, this was our family car until we finally had children."

"I love your accent," said Dave. "Can I come to your church?"

"Oui! I'll reserve you a seat."

They did another reset. Andi moved her milk crate into the main showroom, in front of a new Ferrari 849 Testarossa. "Ready?" asked Jeff as they set up the camera on a tripod.

"This is why I'm here."

"... two... one..." and Jeff pointed at Mike and Dave.

"This showroom is becoming a second home for us," said Mike. "And here we are in front of my dream car, a brand new, fresh off the boat, Ferrari 849 Testarossa, and normally Paul Jarecki would be here to try and sell this car to me, but he's not here today. Where is Paul?"

Andi steeled herself. This would be the first time she spoke of Paul's abduction publicly. Veronica was able to get Jeff to agree on what his brothers would ask Andy, and hopefully they'll stick to the script. "On December twenty-ninth, Paul was abducted from our home. As he put the car away in the garage, three or more people grabbed him, shot Paul's dog, and disappeared. There's been no word from the kidnappers and we're praying that they come to their senses." She looked into the camera and said, "please, return my husband, give my children their father back and if you're caught I will not press for federal charges."

It was silent for a moment before Dave could get out the next question. "What makes this crime so horrible?" What a stupid question! Who wrote this? He was ready to shout these questions, but Andi spoke softly to the viewers and listeners of the podcast.

"The Paul Jarecki you knew, the car guy, the Mustang nut, was a deeply lonely man. He was very happily married, but his wife, an Air Force F-15 pilot was raped and murdered by her commanding officer. For years Paul was shattered... and then we met. My ex husband left me when I was pregnant with twins, and on our first vacation Paul and I met." Andi sighed and hugged herself. "It was magic! Paul made a home for us and my girls... Paul adopted them, and they flourished. We finally had the son Paul always dreamed of, and to spread his joy, he decided to run for mayor of Springville and hours after his announcement, he was kidnapped."

"Gold!" Jeff whispered to himself at the camera. "Pure gold. We'll be topping the podcast charts on iTunes!"

Mike asked the next question. "Andi, it's no secret that the man currently acting as mayor disliked Paul and was worried he would lose the election to our friend Paul. Do you think he's responsible for Paul's disappearance?"

Andi collected herself, just on the edge of tears. Hours and hours of coaching from Veronica got her through this point. She didn't answer the question that Veronica gave to Mike. She answered the question Veronica gave her. "Paul had some marvelous ideas for the village, plans that would allow growth but maintain the small-town feel and pride. He wanted Springville's festivals to be the pride of western New York. He didn't want Springville to become a bedroom community like Williamsville or Depew, but a self-sufficient hamlet like Arcade and Ellicottville. Those ideas didn't die when Paul was abducted. On this past Sunday I clearly threw my hat in the ring and am running for mayor. If something happens to me, my lawyer has been instructed to file an injunction to halt the election until my successor steps forward for the people of Springville."

<><><><><>

Kenny came into the Jarecki house, and it was a sad, weepy sight. Yi and Andi's mom, Heather, were sitting at the kitchen table feeding the babies, Danny and Katarina, while the twins were up in their room crying. Andi's stepfather, Howard, was sitting at the table looking helpless, and Cholly was aimlessly carrying around one of the huge puppies. Kenny placed a bag on the table and went straight to Yi. *I wish I could have been more help.*

Yi shuddered at the memory. She had got the girls out of the school by prying open a window and tossing them out, then climbing out after. A thug tried to come out the window, and she jammed her taser at his throat and fried his brain. Then she scooped up the twins and ran through the knee-deep snow toward St Aloysius church but then the mound of snow exploded, and the church's ancient blue van dove out into the field right in front of them. Then that jerk leaned out and shot Father Juan. The sight of Father Juan sagging to the ground played over and over in her mind; it's something that will wake her in the middle of the night over and over. *I could feel you there... I knew I was safe.*

Their foreheads touched, and their noses occasionally rubbed together, but no words escaped their lips. Heather looked on oddly as she fed a hungry Danny. She couldn't hear, but Yi heard loud and clear. *Did the girls eat their ice cream?*

*They didn't want any; they're too shocked.*

*Uncle Kenny has the cure.* Kenny gave Yi a little kiss and shouted up the back staircase, "Hey girls! Santa left something for you on the roof last week! I got it down. There's no tag, come see who this is for!"

"That'll do it," said Yi. "A little greed always helps. How did you get so smart?"

"Three younger sisters," said Kenny as Sandy and Madeline came downstairs still in their school uniforms.

"What is it?" said Sandy with a pout.

"Yi said you may not like it, but Santa found this for you." He opened the sack, and inside there was an ice cream box.

The twins looked at it reluctantly at first, then gasped. "CHRISTMAS LOG!" The Christmas green box with the red Friendly's Ice Cream logo and the image of the delights within cheered them up. Sandy dashed and got spoons while Madeline shoved a chair to the cabinet, climbed up and got plates down.

What the twins called "Christmas Log," was, in fact, a Friendly's Ice Cream Jubilee Roll. The Jubilee Roll is a log-shaped treat made from chocolate ice cream surrounded by chocolate chip ice cream, topped with fudge, chopped nuts, and a decorative ribbon of strawberry ice cream with brightly colored candy chips. It's a feast for the eyes as much as the mouth. It's something Paul used to win the twins over when they first met.

Kenny opened the box all the way, so it was lying flat, and then cut slices for everyone. Sandy wanted to say, "Save some for mommy," but her mouth was full every time she thought of saying that. "Oh, this is so good!" said Heather. "I never saw it in Denver."

"It's sold in the Northeast only," said Kenny around a spoonful.

*It certainly helps* were Yi's thoughts. They were about to kiss again when Yi's phone rang.

"Miss Carlson, there's a woman out front demanding to come in." It was the cop out front guarding the house.

"Who is it?"

"Her name is Evangeline Didomissio."

Yi was shocked; she didn't know that name. "Evangeline Didomissio... I know a Gus Didomissio... but I can't think of a..."

"Lucy," said Heather as she spoiled Danny with a drop of melted ice cream.

"OH! Yes, send her to the back door, we're all in the kitchen." As they waited for Lucy to run up the length of the driveway, Kenny sliced her a piece of the Jubilee Roll, and Yi said, "They have two more days of honeymoon scheduled."

"They must have heard," said Kenny as they heard Lucy open the storm door.

The newlywed doctor burst in and demanded, "Where's Andi! Is the all right?"

"No, she's not all right," said Heather as Kenny handed Lucy a slice of ice cream roll. "She's sick in the head. She's running for mayor in Paul's place!"

"Where is she?...this stuff is so good..."

"She's at..." Yi looked at her copy of Andi's schedule... "she's filming a podcast at Jarecki Motors today with Mike and Dave Rutkowski."

"Filming what?" gasped Lucy. After Andi's first husband's abuse, the only pictures she would pose for were with the twins. And video? Never! Not after that bastard Frank Rosetti released dozens of porn videos on the internet of Andi tied up, blindfolded, getting fucked by Russian mobsters. "When will she get back?" Lucy demanded.

"Hard to say, she and Macy have a meeting with Paul's COO Min Sun and a couple of site managers. It's supposed to be a short 'keep on keeping on' meeting while the lawyers figure out who is actually in charge."

"Christ," groaned Lucy. "How could it get worse?"

"We had a bad day at school," said Sandy...

<><><><><>֍<><><><><>

The moment that huge hand landed on Josh's shoulder, he whirled around ready for a fight and Gus Didomissio found himself staring down the barrel of a twelve-gauge shotgun and a 45-caliber pistol. Josh froze, then relaxed. Gus leaned in and whispered in Josh's ear. "What is happening?"

"Three men, armed, nine mill," replied Josh in a near-silent whisper. "Two outside, one inside. John doesn't answer his phone."

"Cover me, I'll go inside." said Gus. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "try not to kill them." Gus patted Josh on the shoulder, then moved quietly to the parking area end of the grove. Josh moved quietly toward the rear of the shop. When Gus heard Josh call out, "Hey y'all," he moved quickly to the shop entrance. He crept into his shop and saw a man with a pistol who was searching for something. Gus guessed he was looking for John.

Next to the door was Gus's shalaylee, a gnarled length of oak root with a large knob on the end. It was a natural growth that fascinated Gus, so he sanded, polished, and soaked it in linseed oil, then varnished it glossy. It was the best walking stick he had ever owned, and he even named it. He called it "Billy Baroo," the name that Judge Smailes gave his putter in the movie Caddyshack.

Gus picked up Billy Baroo and held it by the bottom. That big knot of Western New York oak became his Louisville Slugger. He even took a few practice swings, and the guy never noticed.

Outside, the two fellows heard movement in the trees. They turned toward Josh, who stepped out of the woods and cheerily called, "Hey y'all!" When they turned toward Josh, they missed seeing Gus head for the front door. Josh emerged from the woods with the shotgun. He was holding it, pointing it down at a 45-degree angle, like a relaxed farmer out hunting quail.

"Hey y'all, you got permission to hunt here?" demanded Josh. "This is private property."

The two thugs suspected that they faced a pansy-ass New Yorker who would be cowed at the sight of two pistols pointed at him. They grinned as they stared at Josh, and they waited a long time for Josh to flinch, but the flinch never came. In his career in the USAF, Josh had much bigger things pointed at him than a nine millimeter 'pop gun.' MUCH bigger. "Y'all hunting rabbit too?" he asked cheerfully.

"Run away," one of the thugs said. "I might let you live."

"You gonna shoot me with that big scary pistol?" asked Josh.

In response, the thugs raised their pistols. "Yes," said the uglier of the two.

"Ya shouldn't a said that," said Josh, but they probably didn't hear him because the Remington 870 twelve-gauge shotgun roared. Josh never raised the barrel; it never moved. He held the gun pointed at the ground and pulled the trigger, and the snow on the ground between Josh and the thugs exploded upwards in a fluffy white cloud, and the would-be murderers' lower legs and feet were peppered with BB shot that ricocheted off the frozen cement sidewalk under the snow. They screamed and fell to the ground, grasping their bleeding legs.

Inside, Gus had crept up behind the man with the pistol when Josh's shotgun roared. The would-be assassin flinched and caught the sight of Gus out of the corner of his eye then his vision was filled with bright flashing stars and his head was filled with a sharp explosion of pain as Billy Baroo connected with the back of his head for an infield double.

Hearing the commotion, John Jarecki stepped out of the spray booth and took off his Bluetooth headphones and breath mask. He had been spraying the cabinets with polyurethane and listening to a sermon by John MacArthur on Macy's iPad. "Oh, hey Gus! Welcome back, what cha up to?"

Gus checked the knob of Billy Baroo for blood and hair. "Just a little woodwork." Josh stepped into the wood shop and laid two pistols on a worktable. "Everything OK?" asked Gus.

Josh sheepishly said, "I guess the ground is frozen, a bit firmer than I thought. I fired a warning shot into the ground and the BBs ricocheted up into the asshole's fucking legs."

"Language!" warned John.

"Sorry, ricocheted up into the asshole's legs."

John sighed. At least Josh tried. At Gus' request, John called 911 and started talking to the dispatcher, and as he spoke with the cops, John asked, "Who is that guy on the floor? And why is he on the floor?"

"He's on the floor because he bumped into Billy Baroo," said Gus. "Who is he is a good question," and Gus dug the unconscious man's wallet out of his back pocket. He dug through the wallet and found that it contained a lot of cash, a credit card with a slightly familiar name, and a driver's license that matched the guy on the ground. "Josh, do hardened criminal types carry their ID card with them at all times?"

Josh realized Gus was kidding around, so he answered, "Yeah, it's a union thing. I never understood it myself." He took his.45 Colt and put it in a drawer under the worktable and covered it with sandpaper. He didn't want to be caught with that and have it confiscated. The USAF may still be looking for it.

"Mystery guest number one is Yelisey Kovalev, from Denver Colorado," said Gus as he looked at the hitman's driver's license. Gears were starting to mesh in his head... Denver... Andi's home... and Frank Rosetti's home... Russian hit men...

"Would you stop picking at his corpse?" asked John. "The cops are on their way and the dispatcher said, 'Another one?'" John glared at Josh, who suddenly looked guilty. "What did she mean by that?" John demanded.

"It means I'm in trouble," said Josh.

"What?" said John and Gus at the same time.

"Do you guys practice that?" asked Josh. "Three guys tried to kidnap the twins at school a little while ago. I told Kenny that I would inform Andi and there would be no need for them to do anything but concentrate on calming the kids down."

"What did you tell Andi?" asked John.

"I gave her a quick call and told her that the kids had a rough time and Yi took them home from school early... What! Don't look at me like that. It's the truth."

"A lie by omission is still a lie," said Gus.

"Let's not get into that whole 'he didn't say, she didn't say' argument. I fucked up the whole fucking thing."

"Language!"

Josh sighed. "I fucked up everything... better?"

John didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and Gus, seeing his dilemma, hugged him. "It's good to have you back, Dago," said John, using Josh's nickname for Gus.

"Language!" called Josh.

"So, why was this guy here?" asked John.

"To kill you," said Josh. "If you tried to duck out the side door, there were two guys waiting for you."

They expected John to faint in fear or get angry, but all he said was, "Isn't that odd." He looked at the man lying on the floor and asked, "Is he dead?"

"No, but he will probably want to be when he wakes up," said Gus as the intruder on the floor groaned.

Just then, detectives Charlie Klafka and John Gaulin walked in, and Charlie shook his head. "Who shot the two jamokes crawling around in the snow?"

"Thaaaat was me," said Josh as he laid his Remington 870 on the workbench and lined up the four shells he jacked out of the magazine and the empty BB shot hull. "They were pointing those two nine-mills at me and I gave 'em a warning. I shot into the snow and I guess they caught a BB or two."

"More than a BB or two, they're leaving blood trails all over your parking lot as they try to crawl away," said Detective Klafka.

"You purposely fired a round of BB shot into a sidewalk and bounced the pellets up at them," said John Gaulin.

"Purposely? I didn't know there's a sidewalk under all that snow!" said Josh innocently in his deepest southern drawl. "Don't that beat all. A fellow would have to be a marksman to hit the sidewalk hidden under the snow at just the perfect angle... not too high to be life threatening, not too low or they'd return fire... he'd have to be a regular Alvin York!" A sharp elbow in the ribs from Gus stopped Josh's ravings.

"Shut up asshole," chuckled the senior Detective Charlie Klafka.

"Language!" called out Josh, John, and Gus.

"Ok, what happened?" demanded Charlie. "And let's keep the superlatives to a minimum, shall we?" One by one they gave their stories as John Gaulin looked around Gus's shop.

"I don't think this was the first attempt on Pastor John's life," said Detective Gaulin. John Gaulin was a good twenty years younger than his redheaded senior partner.

"What do you mean?" asked Gus.

"Here... and over here," said John as he pointed to holes in the wall. "These are... I'm guessing thirty caliber. Thirty ought six maybe."

Gus looked, and sure enough, the first hole was in a direct line with a stack of scrap lumber, and there were signs of a bullet hitting that. The other shot hit the office and punched a hole in the chair that Lucy likes to sit in when Gus is on the phone with a customer. If she had been there, the bullet would have gone through that beautiful heart of hers. He started to get dizzy, and it was hard to focus on anything. He couldn't catch his breath, and it seemed like everything was a hundred yards away.

"He's going down," said Josh. He caught Gus as the big man's legs gave out and he collapsed. Josh was a big guy too, and he was able to lower Gus gently to the floor. He propped Gus's feet up on a chair and covered him with a heavy parka to keep him warm, propped a stocking cap under his head as a pillow, and checked his respiration and heart rate. His heart rate was fluttery and rapid, but it slowed down to a steady, firm beat, and Gus started to come around.

"What was that?" asked Gus as he tried to get up, but Josh kept pushing him down.

"It was shock, and it could have killed you. I've seen it take out a few fellows in my time," said Josh, who flew low and slow over some of the hottest, angriest villages ever seen on a daily basis. It took guts to fly an AC-130 gunship at any altitude.

"The second ambulance is here," said Detective Gaulin. "They got the two gunmen in the first, and they're heading to Bertrand Chaffee Hospital where the other three are."

"Other three?" asked John.

"Yeah, Yi was pretty vicious with her taser. Ok, we're going to get Crime Scene over here, I'm going to need your putter," said Charlie Klafka as he took Billy Baroo from Gus. "Let's have everyone gather at Jarecki's house for a come-to-Jesus meeting. Sorry Pastor, cop talk."

"Which Jarecki's house?" asked Josh.

"DOCTOR Jarecki's house," said Charlie.

"Which Doctor Jarecki?" asked Josh, who always loved stringing cops on like that. "Doctor Andi, Doctor Macy, Doctor John, Doctor Macy, Doctor Paul...?" He ticked off the doctors on his fingers.

"PAUL and ANDI!" barked the detective, who was now wondering if anyone would complain if he shot Josh.

"You said Doctor Macy twice," said John Gaulin, who was enjoying Josh's taunting of his partner.

"She's got two PhDs."

<><><><><>

Josh walked into Jarecki Motors and ignored the cars that filled the showroom. If he looked at them, it would be with a glare of disdain; they were all cars. Not a single truck, and no Jeeps at all. The only thing a car is good for, in Josh's mind, is to drive you to where you park your truck. Paul promised Josh that most of his other dealers have trucks of all kinds, and one is dedicated to 'fleet trucks' but Josh wasn't interested; none were Jeeps.

Jarecki Motors in Orchard Park was Paul's "supercar" site, and there were sports cars from all over the world and luxury cruisers that shocked Josh with their opulence. He walked up the stairs to Paul's office, and nobody tried to stop him or tried to sell him a car. He was Paul's buddy, and everyone knew that Josh wasn't buying. Josh climbed the stairs to Paul's office. Halfway up, he pulled out his phone and made a quick call. "Doctor Lennox, I have a big favor to ask."

"That's a creative name you chose for yourself," said the doctor. "Gravely-von Köster?"

"We got married on New Year's eve. We're going to have a ceremony in the autumn."

"What is this big favor Mister Gravely-von Köster?"

"I just got dumped on by my boss, I've got to go to Minot North Dakota for a week and... it's so stupid... I can't sleep in a hotel anymore, I sit up all night wondering if the dead hooker under my bed is going to..."

"And you'd like something to knock you out cold?" said Doctor Lennox.

"No doc, just something to take the edge off, something to relax the dead hooker under the bed."

Doctor Lennox smelled a rat, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Most addicts ask for the most powerful stuff she can write. "Will Ambien work?" asked the doctor.

"If you say it will."

"Ok, I'll write you six days worth, and I want to see you in my office as soon as you get back."

"Yes doc, thanks." Josh continued up the stairs and strolled into Paul's office. In the outer office, where Macy usually sat and there was the woman that Paul hired to cover for Macy while Macy was on maternity leave, Melissa Kraft, the church pianist.

"Hey darlin' how you doing?" Then he noticed that Melissa's eyes were red from crying. "What's going on?"

"They're deciding what to do with the company," she sniffed.

"Is Paul... ya know... gone?" gasped Josh.

"No, Andi filmed a podcast then after she went into Paul's office and called for Miss Sun and the managers of the Buffalo Area sites. I think they're trying to figure out what to do with the company."

"Of course they are, that's their job. Don't worry. Macy and Andi won't do anything that Paul would disapprove happen." And then Josh breezed into Paul's inner office.

"Hello Josh," said Andi as she looked up from a piece of paper on the desk.

"Excuse me, but did these fine folk tell you what happened today?"

Andi looked confused. "Yi had to take the girls out of school because they were having problems..."

Josh went and kneeled next to Andi and spoke quietly. "Three guys entered their school and tried to kidnap them."

"WHAT?" Her eyes grew as big around as dinner plates. "Yi got them out of the school, but the kidnappers were waiting for them. Kenny helped Yi to get away, and the cops arrested the bad guys. As far as I can tell, nobody touched the twins... Kenny said they knew the whole time that someone was after them."

"Is everyone ok?" asked Andi as she shut down her laptop and stuffed it in her messenger bag.

"Your girls and Yi are fine; they were freaked out but Kenny applied some ice cream and Cholly kept dropping Jolie and Chiot in their laps demanding "Bisous de chiot" (Puppy kisses) and they're relaxing now. However, the bastards shot Father Juan." Then Josh whirled on Julissa and her partner Skip. "I walked in this office and walked right up to Doctor Jarecki. No more. Someone should have been there to intercept me before I got in the door."

"I'm doing what we're told," said Julissa. "I was told to tell you to look at getting a bodyguard."

"Right now one of you two should drive these two women home, and tell Macy what happened at Gus's shop this afternoon."

Julissa caught some of the radio conversation and agreed. Then Josh turned to Veronica and said, "I have bad news for you too."

"Should I sit down?" she asked nervously.

"Ant is sending me to Minot North Dakota for a week."

Veronica looked at him, waiting for the punchline. "And?" she finally asked.

"That's it."

Veronica shrugged, "That not horrible, I'm so busy here that I won't have much time to spend with you."

"And I gave the last Jubilee roll to the twins."

"HOW COULD YOU?!?"

Both chuckling, Josh and Veronica kissed, then Josh whispered in Veronica's ear, "someone tried to kill John. Stay with Macy."

Veronica's eyes flew open in shock. "Were you involved?"

"That's why I was late getting here, Gus and I stopped them," he said. She wanted him to say "No! Not me!" but the truth would eventually come back to her.

"Do I want to know the details?" she asked nervously.

"You tell me, I used a shotgun." When Veronica went pale, Josh said, "I shot the ground, and they got sprayed with ricochetting BBs. That was for John. Imagine what I would do to protect you and Little Mike."

"Little Mike?" This was a new one as far as Veronica was concerned.

"Our son. I've got an early flight and I need to pick up some stuff first. Wake me when you come in." After another kiss, he headed out. He headed out into the snowy night, remembering the hell that a ground blizzard in Minot was all about. Forty-five minutes later, he was in Springville. He wheeled past the Walmart and headed into town to hit Johnson's Feed. "What do you need, sir?" said Kenny's grandfather Archie.

"I want that potbelly parlor stove of yours," said Josh, knowing that Archie would never give up that potbelly stove. It heated half the store.

"I'll leave it to you in my will," said Archie. "Hey, I hear you set up a cabin for Mike von Köster."

"Yes we did, he'll be joining us in a month or so, and that's all his."

"You didn't give me a cabin," said Archie with a fake pout.

"You didn't give me a daughter. I need some cold weather gear. Forty below not counting the wind chill."

"We got what you need, follow me," Archie led him to the sporting goods section. There he found a nice parka and an outstanding pair of arctic mittens, and a "mad bomber" hat. He found out the hard way that mittens were warmer than gloves. As a young airman, he was frostbitten twice while wearing gloves.

His next stop was the Rexall drugstore. His prescription from Doctor Lennox was ready and waiting for him. Twelve Ambien tablets. "This should get me there and back," he muttered.

<><><><><>֍<><><><><>

"You seem happy," said Mateo as he sipped his Starbucks.

"I had a good morning," said Josh as he drank his airport café black coffee. Probably the same as the Starbucks, but six dollars cheaper.

"Oh? Did Miss von Köster make you breakfast?"

Josh chuckled. "We've never called it that before." He added a wink to craze Mateo. Like many of the guys who worked at Andalon, Mateo had a crush on Veronica. That's one of the reasons they talk little about their secret marriage. Their breakfast was bittersweet goodbye sex. Josh still had nightmares of returning from a deadly mission only to find his wife swallowing the cock of her old boyfriend so Veronica has made it her mission that whenever either of them has to travel, to give him a warm farewell and an enthusiastic welcome home.

"I've never been west of Chicago," said Mateo.

"Don't worry about it, they won't shoot you out in the Dakota territory," said Josh as he set up his laptop. "A full third of the cowboys were Mexican."

"But I'm Puerto Rican," said Mateo. He actually sounded nervous.

"Don't tell anyone, maybe they won't notice." He fiddled with the laptop and then demanded, "Why can't I open ticketing?"

"What VPN are you going through?"

"McAfee."

"Not the program, the site."

"Shit, I don't know... New York."

"Search for Cheektowaga," said Mateo.

"There's no Cheektowaga... son of a bitch. You built a Cheektowaga VPN Server?"

"You did, it's on the gaming file server. It's a VPVPN, very private virtual private network. You can only connect to it if you're already in our VPN."

"Is it more secure?" asked Josh.

Mateo shrugged. "It's another layer. A dedicated hacker can bust through almost anything, my job is to slow him down and make his attack noticeable."

"You're not just a programmer are you?"

"Let's just say that Anthony was looking for someone with my skills."

"Ok, let's look..." they reviewed the software that was built for people with basic knowledge in computers and networks and gives them the ability to troubleshoot the basic issues that crop up in an IT setting. "What gets them into the VPN in the first place."

"We shipped a 1ru VPN device," said Mateo. "I'll review their network setup and install it."

Just then, their flight was called. Josh washed down a couple of Ambien with the rest of his coffee and followed Mateo onto the airplane. "You flew in the Air Force didn't you?" asked Mateo.

"Not everybody in the Air Force flies," said Josh, not wanting to be reminded of his past.

"Not everybody gets to propose to the prom queen in front of all his friends and co-workers also," said Mateo.

"Jealous?" asked Josh as he buckled in and noticed that his hands were sweating.

"No, she's not my type."

"What is your type?" asked Josh, anything to keep his mind off of what was coming.

"Someone shorter."

Josh was a bit surprised, but Mateo was about five foot seven, so Veronica would be taller than him. "Anyone in particular?"

Mateo sighed. "Is Terry seeing anyone?"

Suddenly, Josh's issues faded. "Seriously? That girl will eat you alive."

"Nothing wrong with that," Mateo said with a grin as he buckled his seat belt. Mateo was a genius when it came to computers, but when it came to women, as Terri would say, he was punching outside of his weight class.

"Have you asked her out yet?" asked Josh as the jitters eased their way back into his hands.

"Are you ok man?" asked Mateo.

"Yes... no. Fuck." Josh closed his eyes and pictured Veronica lying beneath him as they made love. He liked to push up so he could look down on her. Usually, the image of her hair spread over the pillow like a halo, her eyes glassy with passion, her breasts shuddering with every thrust, her nipples traveling in circles as he plowed into her was a calming image. Right now, it's barely holding back the horror.

"What's wrong?"

"My friend Paul, the other fellow at the party in his Air Force uniform... he was kidnapped."

"NO!" gasped Mateo. "You're shitting me."

"No, he dropped his wife off and was putting the car away when several guys jumped him, shot his dog, and drove off."

"Shit! I was talking to him at the party. Damnit."

"Someone tried to kidnap his kids yesterday."

"No shit? What happened?"

"Three thugs came into the school and tried to take them out of school. Their governess shoved her taser in their neck and tazed their heads until their brains began to boil," said Josh.

"Damn, she's hard corps!"

"Don't get all worked up, she's taken."

"Where were you? Were you there?"

"No, at the same time three guys were trying to kill my pastor, Paul's brother. The fellow at my table that was married to the tall black girl."

"What did you do?"

"What could I do?" asked Josh. Then softly he said, "I shot two of them."

"YOU S...." Mateo's mouth was suddenly covered with Josh's hand.

"Not with a sky martial sitting behind us. Now relax. I had a shotgun loaded with bird shot and I shot into the ground and hoped to spray them with dirt and shit."

"D-did it work?"

"Kind of. There was a concrete sidewalk under the snow so the shot ricochetted into their legs."

"You're shitting me."

"I shit you not. My buddy Gus got the one that was inside his shop with a shillelagh."

"What's that?" asked Mateo.

"A big Irish stick."

By this point, the double dose of Ambien had started to kick in, and Josh's head felt light. He had fortified that dose with a triple dose of Percocet that he took for his back issues. By the time the airplane started down the runway, Josh was already flying. As soon as they were airborne, they opened their laptops and began working on how a data problem would be handled at a call center. Even though he was loopy, Josh knew what he needed to do, and once they landed in Minneapolis, they had the call script worked out. Josh had a database of all the trouble calls they'd received, and that's what they used to design the training.

When they landed, they had enough time for lunch, so as they got off the plane, Josh noticed a tall middle age blond woman getting up behind them. She purposely avoided eye contact as they got off the plane. "Come on Mateo, I know a great place to eat." He led Mateo to the Cook and the Ox, a nice place to slam back a few drinks in the airport. "I came in and out of here a few times back when I was an airman, and fell in love with the food." He ended up ordering the fish and chips, and Mateo ordered the Ox Burger.

"You stopped shaking," said Mateo.

"Thank you for pointing that out. I had a bad mission or two..."

"I did too," said the woman who clearly followed them from the plane. "May I join you?"

"Please do, otherwise we would end up talking about work," said Josh.

"Or shooting people," said the woman. Then, as she sat down, she asked, "how did you know I was an air martial?"

"You're not an air martial, if you were you'd be in an unemployment line the minute this conversation ends. I just said that to keep my buddy from freaking out about something."

"About shooting people?"

"You heard. You have good ears."

"Why did you shoot three people?" she asked.

"I didn't. I shot the ground, two people who were aiming guns at me caught a few ricochetting pellets. Number three pulled a gun on someone else and his head was declared a fair ball when it hit the ground."

"Kidnapping, attempted kidnapping, attempted murder... The Jarecki case?"

"I take it you're an FBI agent?"

"Field supervisor." She flashed her badge. "Grace Hollingsworth. Why are you running off to Minnesota?"

"I'm not," said Josh. "I'm running off to Minot. Unlike the agents assigned to Paul's case, I have to work for a living."

"Is there a problem with the agents on Paul's case?"

"They're sitting in my friend's house, eating his food, and tormenting his wife. They're the highest paid telephone operators on earth. One is spending his time chatting with his girlfriend."

"Have they been holding briefings to include Missus Jarecki on their progress?"

"DOCTOR Jarecki complained to me that they aren't talking to her at all. I think she took over Paul's campaign just to keep her mind busy."

"Adrianna Jarecki is now running for mayor?" Agent Hollingsworth's face went red with anger.

"Yes, she just did an interview with Paul's favorite podcast, and today is a huge press conference. My wife was able to insure that the entire Western New York press corps was going to attend."

"Excuse me," said the agent, who was highly perturbed. She stepped out into the mall and had a very animated conversation on her cellphone. Josh couldn't hear most of it, but when she finished the call with "...just get it done!" he realized that something was up.

"You did it again Redneck," said Mateo.

The agent came back and picked up the lunch tab. "Thank you, you've been a great help."

"You followed me all the way to Minneapolis just to snoop on your agents?"

"No, of course not. I followed you all the way to Minneapolis to snoop on my agents and visit with my daughter, she's attending University of Minnesota. Ta-ta!" With that, Grace Hollingsworth disappeared into the mall.

"I don't know how you pull this shit off, sir," said a stunned Mateo. "You are my idol. When I grow up I want to be just like you."

<><><><><>

The drugs had worn off by the time that they reached Minot, which was fine with Josh. A half hour of panic is doable. It was bone-numbingly cold at Minot when they arrived. "Oh my God!" gasped Mateo. "People LIVE in this?" They were on the jetway entering the terminal, Mateo still hadn't stepped outside.

"It's not bad if you remember to plug in your car overnight," said Josh as he checked over the rental car. He hopped in and it started up. "Shit, they got us on South Hill," he complained as he checked his hotel reservation.

"Is that bad?"

"Our call center is on North Hill. You're National Guard, got your ID?"

"Yeah, why?"

"We're going up to base, I need an extension cord."

"For what?"

"To plug the car in overnight."

"But this car has a gas engine," said Mateo as they swung out of the airport parking lot.

Josh chuckled as they headed out into the open prairie and headed north. "It gets so cold at night that cars up here have a built in heater on the engine. You plug it in overnight. I had three heaters on my Jeep," said Josh. "A block heater, a battery heater, and a magnetic heater on the transmission."

The snow was a fine white dust blowing from west to east. Mateo was used to snow in Western New York, big wet flakes so heavy they make a noise when they land. This was a sandstorm. "How do you do PT up here?"

"This is the Air Force. You do PT on your own time. Many people working on the planes have a strict twelve hour time limit, then they HAVE to have eight hours of crew rest before they can be recalled."

"Did you do that?" asked Mateo.

"Oh yes, we'd be out in this weather loading bombs and trying to keep warm. At the eleven hour forty five minute mark we'd stop and put our tools up and wait for our replacements. Eight hours later we'd be back signing out our tools."

"Ever get frost bite?" Mateo had heard about frostbite and was terrified of it.

"Yeah, someone brought in a truck load of bomb racks that had been sitting in the cold and left them in our building. The shop chief asked us to move the racks and we didn't know they were twenty below zero, so several of us got a light dose of frost bite from lifting those racks."

"You got frostbite indoors?"

"Yeah, cool eh?"

They finally reached the main gate and signed in. There at the gate was an inert Minuteman missile standing six stories tall. The guard scanned their ID cards and asked, "Where ya headed?"

"I'm retired, where else? The BX," said Josh.

"Have a good day." The guard gave them a salute, which Josh returned, and they were on their way.

They followed the main road into the base, going past base housing on their right, and the occasional "plane on a stick" on their left. Nothing amazing, a T-33 "Tweety Bird" and a T-38 Talon. There was a UH-1A helicopter and an F-102, which was interesting to Mateo. Finally, they got to the BX/Commissary, and Josh led Mateo to the clothing sales section. "Here, you need this and this," and handed him blue polyester thermal underwear. "Those are called Blue Pollys, and for the price you can't find better."

Josh also handed him a pair of arctic mittens, an arctic sweater, a scarf, and a mad bomber hat. "Keep the receipts, we'll try to get Ant to pay for some of this."

Just then Josh was shoved from behind and a deep voice roared, "God damn, they'll let anyone in here now!"

Josh whirled around and recognized who it was immediately. It had been over twenty years since they last spoke, but he knew that face. "Gofer?"

"How ya doin' redneck?" The two old friends hugged, and the young airmen thought it was a bit odd that their Deputy Commander for Maintenance was hugging some guy with a beard.

"I'm working for a data systems company and my boss sent me here to help open a call center. Looks like you made the big time sir. How is Jo Ann?"

"Oh, NOW you're calling me sir," laughed the "full bird" colonel. "Jo Ann is good, she's getting over a fight with cancer, that's why we're here, we're close-ish to the Mayo."

"That's the crap that put me out, the Mayo in Jacksonville made miracles happen," said Josh. Then he turned to Mateo and said, "Mateo, this is Colonel Ed Austin, he was the first lieutenant I ever trained."

"He trained me how to load bombs on a B-52, I ended up running for tools while he was in the heated bomb bay," said Colonel Austin. "Who is your new gofer, Josh?"

Josh chuckled because Colonel Ed clearly thought Mateo was hauling Josh's purchases. "This Mateo Buran, he's a hotshot programmer that made this call center we're putting together possible. He's in the New York National Guard."

"Oh? What rank?" asked Colonel Ed.

"Lieutenant."

Josh looked at Mateo in surprise. "Oh, shit! I thought the gate guard was saluting me. Sorry."

"Why on earth would anyone salute you," chuckled Colonel Ed.

"You must not keep up on Air Force news," said Mateo, and he pulled out his phone.

"Matt! The colonel doesn't need..." but Josh moaned "fuck," as Mateo showed the colonel pictures of Josh and Veronica at the Holiday party.

"My goodness, what is that on your arm?"

"That's my wife, sir. Veronica."

"How long have you two been married?"

"Oh shoot, what year is this..." Josh made a show of counting on his fingers. "Five days."

"Newlyweds..." chuckled Colonel Austin. Then he froze and zoomed in on the photograph. "What the hell are you wearing at your throat?" he demanded. The colonel was clearly angry. "Jeezuz Josh, I've seen you clown around but this... you can go to prison for this!"

"Would you like to see my two fourteen, sir?" Josh said softly.

"Sir!" Mateo almost shouted. "You clearly don't know recent air force history."

"Lieutenant, the last man to earn the Medal of Honor was Master Sergeant Ephraim Gravely."

Josh handed the colonel his ID card, and they watched the colonel's face sag. "Oh jeez Josh, I honestly didn't know your first name was Ephraim." He stepped back and flashed a sharp salute.

"Sir please..." Josh felt sick to his stomach. "You don't have to... I'm not wearing the fucking thing... Gofer... please?" Josh finally returned the salute.

"Are you ok?" asked Colonel Austin.

"I understand, and most of the time I can shrug it off, but someone like you, I saw you as a kid, like Mateo, now you're the top of maintenance, you are responsible for those bombers... It just wasn't right."

"I'm sorry Redneck, I didn't know," said the colonel.

"No, it's not your fault, I'm more fucked up than you remember."

Suddenly two more officers walked up, and Colonel Ed stood a bit taller. "Josh, this is Colonel Brody Winton, commander of the fifth bomb wing, and Brigadier General Darren Watts, commander of the fifty-seventh Air Division. Brody, Darren, this is an old friend of mine, the man who got me on the path of maintaining aircraft, Ephraim Gravely."

"THE Ephraim Gravely?" gasped the general, as they shook hands.

"Ah prefer to go by Josh, or by Redneck, dependin' on if you like me or not," said Josh. Then again, Mateo pulled out his phone and showed them a picture of Josh in uniform, this time with Emily and Audrey Mitchell in their low-cut "Come and get it" dresses (as Veronica called them).

"We are having a dining in this Saturday evening," said General Watts. "Would you honor us and be a keynote speaker?"

"Whall, ah don't ratly know," he said, giving his accent free rein. Maybe they'll think this hayseed isn't worth being a speaker.

"It's a gathering of eagles, you might say. Wing Commanders from the Eighth Air Force will be in attendance," said the general. "Several officers who claim to know you will be in attendance."

Josh grabbed Mateo's hand and held it to his heart and with a huge grin said, "Can I bring my wife?"

<><><><><>֍<><><><><>

A barbershop singer from Georgia,

Joined Pennsy to harmonize aura.

"Country Roads" led the way,

To West Virginia that day,

Where he wed his true love in euphoria.

Veronica read her email from Josh again and again. That's all that was in the email -- a limerick. She was sure that he could probably come up with a better poem, but a limerick seemed to fit his personality better. She called and said, "Hey baby, what cha doin?"

"Oh, just lying here in bed counting the days until we are reunited."

Veronica could hear children screaming and laughing, and a lot of splashing. "You're at the indoor pool aren't you."

"Me? No, it's too hot in there."

"I hear splashing."

"I think Mateo is taking a shower." Josh and Mateo were at the hotel pool. When the weather gets subzero cold and the temperatures remain below zero for weeks on end, it's not unusual for folks to rent a suite at a hotel with an indoor pool and have a pool party for the kids and their friends. Right now, Mateo was in the pool hitting on a young single mother, but it appeared that the attraction was one-sided and her 7 year old daughter was more interested in Mateo than the mother was.

"You guys ready for Monday?" she asked. On Wednesday, he and Mateo met with the call center management, and went over the call center layout and got an idea of how it works. Then they worked with Telephony and IT to get the phones set up and the ticketing software running. On Thursday, they met the trainers and the senior technicians, and they went over the call scripts with them on Thursday and Friday. The technicians picked up on the job quickly, which put them ahead of the scheduled work. The trainers and the technicians went home with study materials, giving them something to study and giving Josh and Mateo the weekend off.

"Monday isn't going to be a problem, these guys are sharp," said Josh. "It's tonight that's going to be a problem."

"Why?"

"I ran into an officer who recognized me and next thing you knew they were piling on and now I'm the keynote speaker at a dining-in."

"You're going to do great. Anyone that can hold back his primal urges and write his bride a clean limerick is going to do great."

"I have a dirty one..."

"Save it for when you get back Ephie."

"I love you Nicca, now I have to collect the old ball and chain and head up to base."

"What?" she asked between fits of suppressed laughter.

"When I was asked to speak I grabbed Mateo's hand and asked if I could bring my wife."

"Oh, you are so rotten. Has he got over it yet?"

"Hell no, right now he's in the pool hitting on a sweet little single mom, let's see if I can help things along." Then he called out to Mateo, "Lieutenant! I'm heading up to base, are you ready to brief the general?" Then back on the phone he said, "That should nudge things along."

Josh and Veronica said their goodbyes, then Josh and Mateo returned to their room and prepared to head up to base north of town. It had taken Mateo days to get over being called Josh's wife, and Josh hadn't helped any. Their hotel room was a suite, and several times Josh said as Mateo headed off to his room, "Aww, you're still going to sleep way over there?"

"I've never been so embarrassed!"

"Relax, when we get back I'll put a good word in for you with Terri... we'll just have to catch her between dates."

When the kidding and taunting were over, they dressed, got in their rental SUV and headed north. "What do you have planned for tomorrow?" Mateo asked as they headed out to base. Both were wearing a suit and tie, which Josh always insisted on wearing when traveling for Andalon. The technicians pulling wire and hanging servers wore Andalon polo shirts and khakis, but when conversing with the customers for training or negotiating, Josh always insisted on a suit and tie, and for the girls he insisted on a pantsuit. Josh also was wearing his Medal of Honor. Veronica sees to pack that whenever Josh goes on a trip. He wears it like she asks, but he covers it with a plain gray scarf.

"Tomorrow we go eat at my favorite restaurant; I've been told that it's still open." Josh expounded on the delights of the restaurant, but as they got on the prairie between town and the base, the weather grew worse. Soon the weather was horrible. The wind hammered at their SUV as Josh drove, and he had to slow down. They were soon in a white cloud of blowing snow, and visibility dropped to one hundred feet ahead, but on the downwind side of them, visibility was slightly better.

"How can you drive in this?" asked a terrified Mateo.

"Practice," said Josh as his jaw clenched tight. "Keep a lookout for tail lights ahead of us and cars on the side of the road with their hoods up."

Slowly, the yards ticked off. They were driving at an easy jogging pace, and Mateo was sure that was too fast. Soon the base loomed through the blowing snow, and they eased through the main gate. In minutes they were in the Officers' Club, where Josh and Mateo got a drink from the bar. Mateo got an elegant-looking martini, while Josh got a pint glass labeled for Guinness filled with root beer.

"Misters von Köster and Buran?" a waiter called out in the bar room.

"Right here," called Josh.

"If you will follow me."

"No problemo." They were seated at the front table with Colonel Ed Austin and his wife, Nancy; Colonel Brody Winton, the wing commander, and his wife, a Korean woman named Ji-woo; and General Watts and his wife, Mitzi.

Josh finally took off his scarf, revealing the medal, and everyone stared. "Don't!" ordered Josh. "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, wouldn't it be cool if I got one of those? Please don't. This is the heaviest thing I've ever worn. To me it's just a reminder of all the men who saved me when I fucked up. Our pilot Emory Hancock, he actually was the hero of Ghost Rider Zero Four, he got us all home... most of us that is. And Hal Rainey, he's the hero, he saved my life when I fell out of the damn plane. Christy Schuler saved me when I fucked up time again and again."

"Is that what you're going to tell all these officers?" asked Ji-woo. She had only a trace of a Korean accent, but she looked a lot like Hani, and it was worrying Josh.

"Yes ma'am, something like it, I'll just speak slow and use small words."

"This is what I put up with when I was a second lieutenant," said Ed Austin. "He sent me to the Bomber Tool crib for a sixteen thirty-seconds inch drive torque wrench. I came back with a torque wrench and he said, 'This is half inch drive, I asked for sixteen thirty-seconds.' I went back and forth three times before I figured out what he and the guy in the tool crib were doing to me." The men thought about it and then started chuckling.

"He still does it," said Mateo. "He had a cable that wouldn't reach the server he was trying to connect so he sent me over to one of the field techs for a cable stretcher." That broke up the colonels, who were pretty sure that there was no such thing as a cable stretcher. They ate dinner and chatted. Josh mentioned the changes he saw at the frigid base.

"You still need to put a B-52 on display by the main gate."

"We will, once we have one that we can afford to mount, but then again there's the Arc Light Memorial," said General Watts. The Arc Light Memorial was a B-52 that was put on display and disintegrated due to corrosion.

"That was Guam," Josh said with a shrug. "The trucks on base were rusting away when I was there because of the salt spray in the air. We had to clear water rinse Ghost Rider every day when we were there."

"What do you plan to talk about?" asked Colonel Winton.

"I may just introduce myself and open the floor to questions. That usually shuts them up at the American Legion hall."

"He will bitch and moan that he doesn't deserve that medal, but then he goes out and earns it over and over," said Mateo.

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Josh.

"Last year, you raised seventeen million dollars for charity, I know organizations that only dream of raising money like that."

"I don't see that happening again," said Josh.

"You should get music, too. Besides your quartet," said replied Mateo. "I hear Bill Dubois lives in Western New York; we should ask him."

"Who?" asked Josh.

"He's like the next Artie Shaw, or maybe Benny Goodman," said Ji-woo. "He was in the Airmen of Note for four years and got out. They say he's a musical savant."

"I'll look him up," said Josh. "I hope he's charitable because I can only pay him a chicken dinner."

"You don't know Bill Dubois?" asked Mateo. "Have Jen play his music in the shop when you get back."

"I'll do that," said Josh, terrified at what kind of noise this unknown performer would make.

Finally, the dinner was over, and General Watts was introduced, and the room snapped to attention, including Josh and Mateo. This was a Dining In, meaning that there were no wives, family, or friends; it was just the members of the unit and whoever the general decided was worth the price of admission, which usually included the commanders' wives. But a Dining In or a Dining Out is meant to be fun, plenty of silly rules to invoke solely to make people buy more drinks. But this evening was different.

"As you were, thank you. On Tuesday I met someone who, until that moment, I only had the honor of reading about. I believe he has things to say that would be important for you to hear so this Dining In is more of a commanders call. The person I met was the most recent Air Force recipient of the Medal of Honor, Master Sergeant Ephraim Gravely. In the brief conversation we had I realized that there was something in this man that you needed to understand. Mister Gravely, would you like to speak to the officers of the fifth bombardment wing?"

Josh stepped up to the podium and stared at the crowd, who were expecting him to reveal something deep and mysterious. Something that explains the superpower that gave him the energy to perform feats of airmanship that was recognized with his Medal of Honor. He took a deep breath and started. "I don't know who this Ephraim Gravely you're talking about is."

In front of Josh was a laptop with a series of pictures that were in memory. He could select a photo, and it would be displayed on a big screen behind him. He selected the official USAF photo of him when he received the medal. He had lost a lot of weight and was sick from the recent chemo treatment. "This is Ephraim Gravely. He's busy dying while the Mayo Clinic was busy ruining his plans."

He searched for an appropriate photograph and then finally grinned. "Sometimes I think that I am two people sharing one body and we are both working to destroy that body in our own perverse way." Then he changed the picture to him at the Andalon holiday party, in uniform with a beard and the Mitchell women, Emily and Audrey, in their tiny red fuck-me dresses. One hot, busty chick on each arm and Josh with a shit-eating grin ready to fuck the hell out of these women. In reality, he didn't want to be there. He was playing along while Veronica was making faces at him off camera, trying to get him to smile. It looked in the picture like he was getting ready to drag the two women upstairs. "This is Ephraim Gravely. Where did you get these pictures from?"

The general grinned and said, "Missus Ephraim Gravely."

"She's as crazy as he is." He showed a photograph of the crew of Ghost Rider Zero Four. "You can talk to any of these people, Ephraim Gravely was a pain in the ass... he couldn't even bring his entire crew home from their last mission..." Suddenly Josh got a sad, faraway look in his eyes. "Sometimes I think it would be better for all concerned if I had died somewhere between then and now..." He tapped his Medal of Honor and said, "this fucking thing could be posthumous and I could be down there looking up, watching you tell stories that made Ephraim sound worthy of this medal." The next picture showed Sandy and Madeline standing in front of Josh, saluting him. "These are my best friend's nieces. The one on the right asked me, 'if you don't have babies to send to the Air Force Academy, can we go?'" He turned to the general and said, "Ya think? Could we make that happen?"

The photo on the screen showed Josh, covered in blood, as he mournfully watched the emergency team carry a covered body on a stretcher away from a battered AC-130. The shot showed the left side of Ghost Rider Zero Four, where the landing gear had exploded on landing. An enormous hole was ripped open just aft of the 105mm howitzer. The cannon was cocked at a crazy angle after being dragged down the dirt runway. Next to him was Emory, the pilot, who looked just as shattered as Josh. Josh told the story of what happened to Ghost Rider Zero Four, spending a lot of time talking about the pain and sorrow before addressing the picture behind him. "That was my best friend Craig... best 105 gun stuffer on the planet."

The next photo showed a picture of a pregnant Yesenia kissing a tattooed Mexican gangster. "I returned from a nine months deployment to this, my wife six months pregnant. She sold my Jeep and many of my things to support this cholo's drug addiction. I walked in on them, getting it on in base housing not five minutes after I heard that I was going to get promoted to Master Sergeant. My rank is a reminder of watching my wife pregnant with another man's child blowing someone else."

Josh found another picture to illustrate the point he was getting at. "Everything that Ephraim touched turned to shit," said Josh, and the next photograph was one taken by Deanna. It was Josh sitting on the floor of an empty living room in base housing. He was sadly looking at a photo album; a half-eaten sandwich on a paper plate sat on the floor next to him. "The remnants of his marriage... talk to anyone whose spouse walked out on him. Ask him about the loneliness and self-loathing that comes with closing out your housing unit. The only thing that saved my life was that she sold all my guns while I was gone." There was a sad murmur in the crowd when he said that. "The Air Force has all kinds of help for a newlywed moving in, but there's nothing for the newly dumped. We gotta sink or swim on our own while her lawyer circles, looking for blood in the water."

The next picture was of Josh sitting behind the wheel of Grandpa while a girl in a bikini talked to him. "I did things to college girls visiting for spring break... I should be in prison for the things I did to those women, but a pastor and a woman who turned out to be in my unit slapped some sense into my head, so I tracked down the women and apologized." He looked sad and shook his head. "Each one said, "You were sweet, and the moonlight, and the beach. It's what a girl wishes for on Spring Break." Josh sighed and said, "I even failed as a rapist." The crowd looked at him confused. "It's okay; you can laugh."

The next picture showed Josh in his dorm room sorting through his chem gear. The picture was taken by Hani. "The Air Force does jack shit for people trying to survive a mental crisis. The official plan is to dump them and let the VA worry about it. They tried to dump me, but I fought to stay in. Instead of giving me the mental care I needed, they sent me to Korea... and I couldn't even complete a one-year tour..." The photo changed to Josh's last day "washdown." He was duct taped to a metal chair and set out by the taxiway and sprayed down by a fire truck. The picture was of an F-16 taxiing past, the pilot giving Josh a two-armed Juvat Salute, but Josh looked like he was going to cry. "I failed at everything I touched; I couldn't even die of cancer properly..."

"We come home from war and we're left on our own to recover." He turned to the audience of officers, who were in shock. "You're unique in the military. In three other branches, it's the enlisted men who are the cannon fodder; us fliers, this disjointed arrogant band of brothers, we are the cannon fodder of the Air Force. When I applied for gunship duty I wasn't thinking about doing the right thing, nor this hero crap... To be honest I wanted to get out of the cold. I was stationed here at Minot as an airman. I thought flying a gunship would be cool, but the attraction was the warmth and beaches of Panama City. I knew many other gunners who thought it was a riot so I signed up... turns out they're as sick as Ephraim."

Josh grew silent for a moment and glared at the collected officers, then said, "If you're looking for a hero, Ephraim Gravely is not your man. I was a bloodthirsty asshole. I became a gunner because I hated the cold and I hated people. I was raised by a mean, nasty pair of alcoholics who drank every dime they made and to hell with their son. I wanted to shoot as many bastards off the planet as I could. When my best friend Craig Ziggler died two feet away from me, I went insane with grief and anger. I wanted to retaliate, but the guns were out; there was no power or intercom aft of the cockpit. The guys in the Electronic Warfare closet were trapped in there, so I was on my own. I patched up my remaining boys and then fell out of the airplane. Hal Rainey pulled me back into the airplane, and I ended up hauling Ellie Stadelmeyer back into the airplane, and I put a tourniquet on her leg."

"Here are the things YOU have to watch for in your troops: Number one is displaced anger. Ephriam wants to kill everyone responsible for killing Craig Zigler and wounding the two double-yous, Wayne Engler and Wyatt Grady. Wayne committed suicide, and I went nuts when I heard that. I had all this pent-up anger that I wanted to unleash on the world. When Ephriam assaulted all those girls, I was left to clean up the mess... it's no fun living with an asshole like that inside your head. You've got to watch your troops for misplaced anger because it's dangerous.

"Number two is Combat Exposure PTSD. We all know and understand the cause, but we're afraid of mentioning it. We could lose our flight status and worse, so we ignore it. Ephriam was sucked out of an airplane trying to help a crew member who was dangling from a safety strap. How many nights a week does that terrifying image wake me? In the dark of a badly damaged AC-130, Ephriam tripped over the body of his best friend. How often does that image haunt me? I patched up my two other crew members; now, one is missing, and the other committed suicide. I put a tourniquet on Ellie's leg but didn't loosen it often enough and she lost her leg. I feel so damn guilty... How does this work on a person's psyche?"

"The next is Survivor's Guilt, a complex psychological phenomenon that can arise after surviving a traumatic event where others have died or been severely harmed. How many times will I wake up wondering why I didn't die with Craig? He was two feet away from me when he was killed by shrapnel from that stinger. Why didn't I commit suicide like Wayne? He didn't fall out of the airplane. Why am I still walking around on two good legs? Why do I have this damn medal and not Emory who landed the plane?"

"The least understood is Imposter Syndrome. In my case, this is a psychological issue where Ephriam's accomplishments are seen as something amazing, but we just did our job. It was something the average person would do in the same situation but Ephriam received the medal of honor! What happens when they realize I'm not some superhero? "

The room was completely silent; they were all certain that the Medal of Honor had been given to a madman. "I don't have multiple personality disorder; I blame everything fucked up that I do on Ephraim." Josh changed the image on the screen behind him, and it was a beautiful photograph of him proposing to Veronica. "This is Missus Joshua Gravely-von Köster. I proposed to her on the twenty-ninth, and here is our wedding on the thirty-first... eight days ago. I love her with all my heart. I love making love to her, and I want to have children with her. I do not want the actions of Ephraim to reflect on either of us in any way, shape, or form. She and I own a plot of land with several cabins on it and every June we invite all the rich people in the area over for a chicken dinner and we raise money for a private adoption agency and Roswell Park Cancer Research Hospital. This year we were able to give Adoption Advocates a check for one million dollars, and Roswell Park a check for sixteen million dollars. I'll take any questions from the floor."

<><><><><>֍<><><><><>

Josh sat in on a Zoom call with Fabian Bernsdorf and Brandon Mitchell on the use of the call center for trouble calls. "I don't know what your reluctance is, Brandon," said Josh. "This is a sales point - live support twenty-four/seven."

"This is going to cost us some money," complained Brandon.

"How much is it going to cost if you don't have it?"

"You have your entire shop sitting around doing nothing but calling prepared questions to the call center!" Fabian nearly shouted.

"That is accounted for. It's part of the schedule that you approved... or don't you read things until after you approve it?" Josh was getting pissed at this idiot. Why does Anthony still have him on staff?

"We have important tasks to work on," said Fabian.

"Name three," said Josh.

"What did you say to me?"

"You said that there were important tasks to work on. So important, it seems, that the schedule that you approved last week needs to be ignored so I said, 'name three.' It should be easy."

"Insolence!" snarled Fabian.

"Insolence?" asked Josh, laughing. "What is this, an anime? Andalon is paying ten people to stare at phones that aren't ringing. We're paying three supervisor trainers who have no example calls to train with. You're paying nine technicians to not make the calls that you paid me and two programmers to script and you're paying two programmers to standby to troubleshoot software that's not being used plus use of this building comes out to... my rough guess is five hundred and fifty bucks and hour. You're burning through nine bucks of Andalon money... let's be on the safe side and say ten dollars of Andalon money every minute that this training isn't happening."

"Look," said Brandon. "You don't have your precious little girlfriend standing behind you to threaten us."

"You mean Veronica, the woman who works for another company? You're scared of her? She's the least of your worries. You should be worried about what I'm putting in my report to Anthony, Stan, Emmit, and Lars."

"Who is Lars?"

"Lars Gundersen? He's the head of this call center. We can do what we want as long as the check clears, but if someone starts taking live calls untrained and looks like a fool, his call center looks foolish and starts losing contracts. That's when Lars gets very upset. He's got a reputation to uphold and he's not above retaliatory lawsuits. Now stop fucking around and get the damn show on the road." Josh slammed the laptop closed, but not before saving the video of the conversation. He stepped out of the office and into the classroom. The classroom was designed like a lecture hall, with curving rows that went up two feet with each row. Each seat had desk space, a phone and the PC they would need to access the software.

Finally, a phone rang, and one of the students reached forward and hit the button. "Andalon Data Systems, this is Michelle, how may I help you?"

"This is Jen at Sisters Hospital. I can't connect to the MRI to download the images."

"Ok, let me collect some data so we can troubleshoot this properly..." Michelle was one of the best students, and she loved to come up with a solution; unfortunately, the solution in this call was to dispatch a technician. The question Josh had was how long she was going to dance around the issue before requesting a technician.

Mateo was happy that the software was holding up, and the database was building with no problems. "I think we have a victory here sir," said Mateo.

"I think you're right Matt," said Josh as they watched the call representatives take call after call with increasing confusion on the part of the callers. When the day was over, Josh said to the trainees, "You guys did outstanding. When we started we were dealing with my people back at Andalon data systems reading a script, but after lunch you were talking to your future customers. They were learning how to call you and how to trust you, and you were learning their voices and how they're going to respond to your direction. So, you guys ready to go live?"

The trainees looked at each other and nodded. "I think we are," said one technician. She was a 35 year old mom who was earning extra money taking calls while her four kids were in school. They were all the same make and model, taking on a second job to help pay bills, some were just starting out in life and all of a sudden they were computer experts. There were even grandfathers and grandmothers that were doing this to learn and fill the lonely hours.

"Good! You go live on Monday!" said Josh as he put his laptop in a messenger bag. "If this works, we're going to add more hospitals to the account."

"How many hospitals do you have on contracts with?" asked one of the new call takers.

Josh thought for a moment and ticked them off in his head. "We're up to fifteen normal hospitals, three more hospitals where we test new ideas. When we go IPO we're going to license out this software, if you're good, this call center will have exclusive rights to support Andalon Medical Imaging."

<><><><><>

The Bombardier CRJ-200 taxied out to the runway at Minot Airport. It was late afternoon, and it was going to be a long day of travel. Josh and Mateo were scheduled to land in Buffalo at 2:00 AM, three hours after everything in the airport closes. Lucky for them, there will be several diners open 24 hours if they're hungry when they land. Bars in Erie County stay open until 4:00 AM, and by law all bars serve food.

They were on the takeoff roll when the terror caught up with Josh. He was wondering why the Ambien didn't kick in, then he realized that he hadn't taken it when planned. There was a hassle turning the car in at the rental office, and they were running late when they got to the airport. All he could do was hold on and think of something else.

He was working on the damn 25mm Gatling gun. There was a broken round that clogged the feed system. He had the feed chute off and was pulling out the clogged rounds. Finally! The chute seemed fine. He dragged the belt of ammo through the chute up into the gun, connected the chute and connected the power. "GAU12 is up," he announced on the intercom.

"Thanks Redneck," came the reply from Hal Rainy, the fire control officer. Josh started to pick up loose rounds when the plane tipped to the left, entering its pylon turn, locking on to target. He saw the five-barrel gun jerk, preparing to fire. Then there was a BANG! and everything went black. The plane jerked hard to the right, away from the guns. Josh was thrown against the bulkhead. His helmet hit hard and gashed his forehead, blood running down into his eyes, stinging them. "Crew! Check in!" he called, but the intercom was dead. A strong wind was blowing through the gun deck, and the spilled powder from the broken round blew around, but Josh didn't see that because the only light was a faint light in the back. There 105 mm howitzer was cocked at an odd angle; the barrel was pointing down and the breech was pointing aft.

Josh headed aft to his guys, but the plane was jinking around in the sky, throwing him from side to side. He would slam into the cabinet, slam into the GAU12; it took ages to make his way ten feet back to the scene of horror. A body lay on the floor, his guts spilling out. The two kids, Wayne and Wyatt, were tangled up in a heap on the starboard bulkhead. On the gun side, the port side had an enormous hole. "Big enough to carry a refrigerator through," came to Josh's mind. It was the side access hatch; it had been ripped off the plane. Another weird thought passed through Josh's mind... "This isn't a Boeing aircraft..."

That's when Josh stepped on something gooey and slippery and fell out the open hole. He didn't have time to shriek in terror because he landed on his knees in the snow. "What the f..." he caught himself from swearing because he was holding a baby. He was no longer in his flight suit and helmet; his headset was gone, and he was beginning to panic. He tried to get up, but his knees hurt so badly.

He looked at the child, and the baby wasn't his; he was certain of it. There are no brown eyes in his family that he knows of, nor in Veronica's family, and her skin is kind of dark. How did he know the baby was a girl? The baby's black hair was wavy, but she was cute, and she looked at him with her big, confused eyes. "Don't cry baby..." he pleaded, but the tiny girl didn't listen. She wrinkled her nose and squeezed her eyes closed and began to cry. "Don't, please," begged Josh, trying not to cry himself. "Please don't," he begged.

Tearing his eyes from the infant, Josh looked around, and he was in a small town. There were businesses up and down what he guessed was Main Street, their windows decorated for Christmas. There were illuminated holiday season inspired shapes hanging on utility poles; the lampposts were wrapped in pine garland. Garlands illuminated by colored lights were strung across Main Street, and on every corner was a Christmas tree. Holiday music played from unseen speakers, and he recognized the band. Now he began to cry. It was all gone; all he had left in the world was this baby.

"What are y'all doing down there?" came a soft voice that reminded Josh of Spanish moss swaying in the breeze, of sweet tea on a hot afternoon, and of hours in the hay loft with Jenny Franklin. Josh looked up and found himself looking in the eyes of a statuesque blond who was leaning on a cane and was being escorted by a tall Asian man.

"I... uh... I fell..." He fumbled for words... "We're hungry... I need work... a friend told me about a place in this town..."

"Can you buss tables? Can you serve customers?"

"Whatever it takes to feed my little one, Ma'am."

"Where ya stayin' redneck?"

"In my truck, ma'am." Josh wondered if she knew that was his nickname or was she was calling him a redneck.

"Not with that little one. Come with me..." A sudden jolt shocked Josh, and he fearfully peered out the window and saw that they were landing at Lindbergh Field, St. Paul, MN.

"You ok big guy?"

"Why?" asked Josh.

"You were muttering and arguing with someone in your sleep."

"Oh wow, I didn't realize I was asleep."

"Yeah, you were asking somebody for a job."

"Damn! Really?" Josh acted like he didn't remember the dream, but he actually remembered every moment of the nightmare. "That's not unusual. There's always a VP or two that wants to shit-can me."

They slowly shuffled off the plane, and Josh's anxiety rose with every slow step. They didn't have much time to catch their next flight. He put in his earbuds and made a call. The phone rang for a long time until Veronica finally answered. "Ephie, what time do you get in tomorrow?" Veronica sounded nervous.

"Two o'clock."

"Thank god, that's enough time. It's election day and the polls are showing everything tied up."

"Two o'clock in the morning."

"What?" squealed Veronica.

"Nicca, we're in Minneapolis running to get our next plane."

"I was so worried that you weren't going to get out of there until late tomorrow!" said Veronica, gushing with joy that her husband was coming home.

"We were almost two days ahead on the schedule so Mateo and I decided to head home. We're going to have plenty of time to celebrate the election before the polls open tomorrow," said Josh. "We gotta run, I'll call you from Chicago."

"Love you"

"Love you."

Josh and Mateo raced through Lindbergh Airport because, of course, their connecting flight would be on the other side of the massive airport. As they drew near their gate, Josh asked, "Are you hungry?"

"Starving!"

He handed Mateo a twenty and said, "Go get Jersey Mike, I want a number two Mike's way with banana peppers. Regular size."

"I've never had Jersey Mike," said Mateo nervously.

"Then get a regular number three Mike's way. I'll go get chips and drinks. Meet you at the gate."

They met again at the gate. Josh had gotten water and slammed down his Ambien and a couple of Percocet tablets, and he approached the gate slowly. Limping. He urged Mateo over to him, and he went up to the woman that was ready to call the boarding order, and Josh handed her his Military ID and his VA ID. "I'm a bit disabled, any chance I can get early boarding?"

"Of course master sergeant, go ahead we were just going to start boarding."

"Thank you so much ma'am," said Josh, using that south Georgia accent that he had discovered years ago moistened panties all over the north. They settled in the second row from the front, and Josh handed Mateo his bottle of water and bag of chips. Josh tried to kick back and let the drugs kick in, but the air crew was standing in the row in front of them looking at Josh.

"Can I help you?" said Josh.

"We just wanted to thank you for your service," said the pilot. "I've never met a medal of honor winner before."

"Ah ain't never met one either," said Josh. "And they ain't no winning involved. It's kind of a booby prize."

"What do you mean?" asked the co-pilot.

"Ah just addressed the officers of the fifth bomb wing, that weren't no prize. Ah'm an NCO, ah shoulda been talking to the enlisted. And ain't no one offered to let me address the Buffalo Bills cheer leaders. That would be a prize."

"Yes is would sir, thank you for being there."

"It were all fun and games up until that last moment."

It seemed to be forever when he felt the plane move out onto the runway. As the engines spooled up, Josh sent a text to Veronica. "Off we go... C U soon!!!" He shut down his phone and eased it into a pocket, then leaned back and tried to relax. The drugs were kicking in, taking the edge off the terror that was threatening to build. He opened his eyes and glanced over to the window next to Mateo, and to Josh it looked like a gaping open hole with sharp edges threatening to rip the skin off of him.

Soon they were up to cruising speed, and they broke out their sandwiches and chips. The number two was a ham and capocollo with lettuce, tomato, onion, provolone cheese, olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and other spices. Capocollo was a spicy Italian ham that Josh didn't know existed before he moved to Western New York. Now he can't get enough. Mateo's number three was a ham sub with lettuce, tomato, onion, provolone cheese, olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and other spices sprinkled on. He immediately fell in love with it.

"Fran and Tony's in Orchard Park, or John & Mary's in Cheektowaga are better, but for Minnesota, this will do," said Josh. He set up his laptop, plugged in his earphones and watched a movie that he had loaded on the laptop last week - Slap Shot. This was reported to be Paul Newman's favorite movie to make, and it looked like he was having fun.

Josh watched in amusement as the guys fought on the ice, one violent encounter after another. It was hilarious until the ultimate bad guy was scheduled to play against the fictional Charlestown Chiefs. Every member of the squad was in terror at the thought of facing off against the league bad guy, Oglethorpe.

Oglethorpe! That's what Amelia and Dex were saying.

Park Patrolman Derrick "Ogie" Oglethorpe. That's the guy who terrified Amelia Hernandez and Dexter Humboldt, the guy who beat up John. Josh knew the guy, and as he watched the rough and tumble hockey movie, he smiled to himself. When he got back, Josh planned to play a little one on one hockey with "Oh-go Torp" as the goalie in slapshot called Oglethorpe.

<><><><><>֍<><><><><>

Josh and Mateo got off the plane in Buffalo at two AM, and the airport was empty. "I hope my truck starts," groaned Josh. It was scary; every store was closed, every desk empty. Even at the luggage area, they didn't see a human other than their fellow travelers. After a strangely long wait, the luggage carousel started up with a noisy clanking and squealing, then one by one the pieces of luggage made their grand entrance to the luggage area. Nobody wanted the first several pieces of luggage; they made the entire circuit around the luggage area before disappearing behind the wall that separates the luggage handlers and the luggage owners. Then, more luggage started to appear. Finally, Josh and Mateo got their bags and stepped outside into the cold, which after North Dakota felt quite warm.

A night bus that hit all the parking areas arrived and gathered passengers, and they rode up and down Genesee street hitting one lot after another. "Where did you park?" asked Mateo.

Josh shrugged. "Somewhere in Cheektowaga."

"You're killing me Smalls."

Finally, they were dropped off at the nearest lot to the airport, and they found Josh's truck buried under several inches of frozen snow. They chipped away at the snow on the hood and windshield as the engine warmed up. When Josh finally got the windshield clear, cursing the whole time about thin-blooded Florida trucks, they hopped in and headed south. The hood of Josh's truck was covered with a thick layer of ice, and sometime after pulling onto the 219 Expressway, the sheet of ice lifted and flew off into the air. Josh was afraid it was his hood that flew off, but he watched in his mirror as the sheet of ice hit the road behind him and exploded into a million fragments.

Finally, Josh pulled up at a nice house in Orchard Park. "Your house?"

"My parents," said Mateo almost shyly.

"If you love them don't apologize," said Josh, and shortly he was on his way south to Springville. When he arrived, the village looked so sad. All the Christmas decorations were gone, the shops were closed, even Worzil's was closed. There were still cops at Doc Jarecki's house, and John's van was in the driveway, showing that he and Macy were still there with Andi.

He got to Veronica's house, and there was a candle flickering in every window. His heart swelled with joy and love for this thoughtful, devoted woman. He entered the kitchen door and found a flickering LED tea light on the kitchen island. There was another one on the floor that Tigger was batting around, but there were more leading a trail through the house into the living room. He followed the flickering, glowing lights up the stairs, and they led into the bathroom, where several LED candles flickered, including several in the shower.

Josh stripped off his clothing and stepped into the shower. It was kind of nice showering by candlelight, and he was about to curse being alone when the door slid open and he was joined by someone. "I hope to God you're not Anthony."

Veronica's breasts pressed against Josh's back as her arm curled around his chest. Her long, elegant fingers circled his cock and began stroking gently. "I'm sorry I haven't been attentive to my husband's needs," she whispered as her teeth nipped his neck.

It was so blissful, in the warm shower with Veronica's soapy hand stroking up and down the length of his cock, the candlelight flickering a warm golden glow. All the horrors of Paul being abducted, John almost murdered, and the twins nearly captured faded away. Josh turned around and wrapped his arms around Veronica. "You are so precious to me, I was a fool to leave you here without me."

They kissed gently, then with increasing passion. Their tongues danced and slithered together. "The election is almost over, I can get back to my normal life soon," said Veronica.

"Ah hope ah can too," said Josh, and he left it at that. She didn't need to know about Oglethorpe, not until Josh needed bail money. "My place is near you, and I always want to be there for you until I die or until you tire of me."

"Neither of them will happen," she said, and she rose on her toes, her lips seeking his again. He held her tightly, her breasts pressing against his chest, his cock pressing between her legs as they kissed. "My man," she said as her head spun from the kiss. "You have no idea how long I waited for you."

"If you made as many mistakes as I have on the way to our eventual meeting, it's been a very long time." Josh turned off the shower and dried off Veronica with a big fluffy towel, gently kissing her delicate skin as the towel revealed it.

"Will you marry me?" he asked.

"Silly, we are already married."

"You sure? Maybe we should have sex just to make sure."

"I think that is a marvelous idea."

Josh dried himself off, and followed Veronica into the bedroom, which was filled with the twinkling light of the flickering tea lights. Josh sat down on the bed and pulled Veronica onto him. She straddled his lap, and they sat kissing and gently touching. "You look so beautiful in candlelight, even the fake kind is pretty."

She had placed about a dozen LED tea lights in the fireplace, giving it a romantic glow. He gently sucked a breast into his mouth and nipped at the nipple, then suckled gently, causing Veronica to squeal. She panted and shuddered as the gentle stimulation coursed through her body. His hands gently cupped her tender ass cheeks and softly kneaded them. "Baby you're driving me crazy."

His finger explored between her round asscheeks and probed her tender anus. "Ah ain't got to the good stuff yet."

"I'm tired of waiting for the good stuff," she declared and pushed him back on the bed. She held him down by pressing on his shoulders, and her hips began moving, sliding her pussy forward and back, rubbing on his thick pole. Her natural juices lubricated her actions, and her clit was now being massaged by his damp cock.

"I love this," groaned Josh. "Where did you learn this?"

"If you were a big pillow this would be how a young teen girl masturbates," said Veronica between gasps.

"Tell me, did you masturbate like this with a pillow?"

Her beautiful hazel eyes locked on Josh's light blue eyes, and she melted as a wave of pleasure washed over her. "I knew you were out there looking for me, and I wanted you so badly." She was shocked to see Josh's eyes fill with tears. "What's wrong?"

"I looked everywhere for you, I couldn't find you anywhere." The horror of flying earlier was overwhelming Josh's senses, and the dream he had was confusing him. "Please don't leave me."

"What's the matter?" She stopped her movement, and she curled up with Josh. "Is anything wrong?"

"This was the first time in a year we were apart... the old loneliness came back..." Josh looked around at the beautiful candles she set up around the room, both LED and real flame candles. "Oh God, I ruined it! You made such a beautiful welcome and I destroyed it!"

"No... honey no! You're opening up to me without being silly to avoid the pain." She kissed his tears away. "I love it when you open up to me."

"Not all of the events in my life will inspire love," groaned Josh as he pulled Veronica close. "When I had cancer I just wanted someone to hold... but Hani left. I couldn't take it anymore. I tried to drink myself to death, just like dad."

Veronica kissed his sweating brow. "I'm here, I will aways be here for you."

Her words calmed Josh, and he relaxed. "Let me..." and he gave her a kiss and worked his way down her body, kissing as he went. She watched with curiosity, wondering what he had planned. He slid off the side of the bed and kneeled on the floor. He pulled her toward him until her butt was at the edge of the mattress. He placed her delicate feet on his shoulders and leaned forward.

"Ephie!" she squeaked happily as his mouth made contact with her pussy. "I love how you do this Ephie," she crooned as his tongue explored her vagina. The sensations were overwhelming, and Veronica slammed her hands down on the bed and she clutched the quilt with both hands. "Oh God yessss!" she groaned as Josh drove her closer and closer to ecstasy. He was relentless, bringing her closer to the edge of release and then backing off at the last moment, driving her wild with desire. "Ephie please! I need you... I need you inside of me."

He had planned to tease her more and maybe make her cum once or twice before plunging into her, but when she said she needed him inside of her, he couldn't wait anymore. He rose and lined up his cock with her pussy. "Nicca, I..." before he could complete his statement, she drove her heels into his ass, forcing him to drive his cock into her pussy.

"Ephie YES!" she groaned loudly.

Josh gasped. The feeling of her warm wet pussy wrapping itself around his cock was almost too much to bear. He tried to hold himself back, but he couldn't, and he began fucking as quickly as possible. Veronica's breasts bounced with every slamming thrust, and she reached up to grasp Josh and pull him close. The sound of their bodies slapping together filled the air. "Ephie, I love you," she groaned. "I love what you do to me!" She was able to get that out in a series of grunts as Josh fucked her like a madman. She dug her fingernails into his back and screamed as she came, and Josh joined her in her sea of pleasure as he came in his wife.

Exhausted, they cuddled together, whispering endearments and kissing gently. "Don't leave me again, Ephie. It was so lonely with you gone."

The vision of kneeling in the snow, hungry, holding a crying baby with a southern belle glaring down at him returned to Josh. Whose baby was that? Why did he have it? Was this just a weird, random dream? It had to be from the drugs he took. That was it. From the damn Ambien. "I'm not going anywhere."

<><><><><>

Josh and Veronica were up as the sun came up. Election day! Today was the day that Springville went to the polls to choose a mayor. For the past nine months since Mayor Hardy had a heart attack, the village had been run by the former head of the village board, Samael Windecker. Samael was not a wise man; he was controlled by greedy men.

"What are you doing today?" asked Veronica.

"I was going to head into Orchard Park and get some documentation done."

"Send it to Fabian, let him earn his keep. I need you here."

With a playful growl, Josh pulled Veronica back into bed and rolled over on top of her. "Yes ma'am" he said happily and began gnawing on her delightful breasts. "How would you like it? Doggy Style? Amazon? We haven't tried that one yet..."

"We have work to do," she teased. "After my run we can spend some time in Andi's steam shower, then we have work."

"Like what?"

"I want you to be Andi's escort wherever she goes and whomever she talks to. She's going to be swarmed. The word about what's been happening has been getting out and she's going to need someone behind her, propping her up, filling in for Paul."

"Ok," said Josh with a sigh. It wasn't as much fun as what he had envisioned, but maybe he will get the chance to punch someone. "While you run laps around the village, I'm going to loosen up and skate."

"Good idea," said Veronica, not knowing what kind of trouble Josh could get into on an ice rink.

<><><><><>

Josh finished lacing up his skates, grabbed his shovel and hit the ice. Paul Jarecki purchased the city an outdoor ice rink that could be left up year round providing a hockey rink that the local teams could use as long as they wanted. It has a sound system, so when it's scheduled for public skating, it could play typical ice rink music, and during the holidays, it could play Christmas music. The first person on the ice for the day had to scoop the snow off the ice, but that didn't take long if the snowfall was under an inch.

Josh scooped the snow into hockey net-shaped piles at each end of the rink, then grabbed his stick and a puck and began skating around the rink as Veronica jogged past on her first lap of the village. As an ice skater, Josh sucked. But if he kept his hands and his mind busy, he became quite good. He was able to do amazing things with his feet if he was concentrating on the puck and the stick in his hands. He was soon joined by someone else on the ice. "Ah! Mister Oglethorpe! The work is done and now you show up. Just like a village worker." Oglethorpe came out to skate every morning... but only after someone else scraped the snow off the ice.

"Who are you?" asked Oglethorpe.

"I'm the man who's going to kick your ass in a friendly game of one-on-one if you have the balls to pick up a stick."

That lit Oglethorpe's fuse like nothing else could have. "You think you can beat me? I played with the Gowanda Lords for ten seasons..."

"All losing seasons. They're doing quite well now that you've been ejected from the league." Josh fired a wrist shot at "Ogie" that was moving so fast it nearly left a smoke trail. It hit him in the ankle and nearly knocked his skates out from under him. "You start."

Oglethorpe circled back to get the puck, which was behind the net of snow that Josh had built. Just as his stick touched the puck, Josh slammed into Ogie at full speed, smashing him into the boards. His head hit the glass, and he saw stars from the impact. "OH! and Oglethorpe is checked into the boards!" called Josh doing his own play by play. "Von Köster has the puck now, coming up the ice, he shoots, HE SCORES!"

"Hey! I'm not wearing pads!" shouted Oglethorpe.

"Neither was Pastor Jarecki when you beat the crap out of him." Josh skated past Oglethorpe and hooked the village park patrolman's ankles with the blade of his stick, pulling Oglethorpe's feet out from under him. "And Oglethorpe goes down!" Josh came back around and stopped in front of Oglethorpe, spraying shaved ice in his face. "Here's the deal, you beat up a pastor, I play one on one with you until I feel that you have learned the error of your ways. Deal?"

Oglethorpe struggled to his feet and snarled, "You just signed your own death sentence."

"Bring it fat man," said Josh with a grin. Oglethorpe wasn't exactly fat, but his beer belly was stretching out his uniform, and pointing that out angered him. "I'm up one nothing and you've spent most of the game face down on the ice."

The game restarted, and Oglethorpe tried to use dirty tricks against Josh, but while Josh wasn't as skilled on the ice as Oglethorpe, he was faster, nimbler, and much stronger. Oglethorpe decided that just beating the crap out of Josh would end this quickly, so he took a swing at Josh. Josh ducked under the swing and jammed the butt-end of his stick into Oglethorpe's gut. "Oh, that's butt-ending!" cried Josh. "That's a double-minor but the official didn't call the penalty!"

Oglethorpe never learned one simple rule. Don't turn your back on Josh when he's angry. "OH! That's a check from behind and Oglethorpe's head is driven into the boards!"

"You could hear that empty skull ring up here Dave."

"Why isn't von Köster being ejected from this game? He shoots; he SCORES!"

Oglethorpe picked himself up from the ice and charged at Josh. Josh had never played hockey of any sort, so he wasn't trained to avoid penalties. Oglethorpe was, and he had to consciously try to attack Josh illegally. But being untrained, Josh could play dirty naturally. Oglethorpe came at Josh stick high, but Josh kicked Oglethorpe's feet forward while slamming the heel of his hand into Oglethorpe's chest, driving his upper body backwards as his lower body continued forward. "von Köster with the slew-footing match penalty! How long can this bloodbath continue? And HE SCORES!"

"KICKING!"

"HEAD-BUTTING!"

"CLIPPING!"

"BOARDING!"

"CHARGING!"

"THROWING!"

"Throwing Dave? I believe that was a Suplex."

"This is turning into professional wrestling! von Köster with the Sicilian Sledgehammer! It's all over!"

It was an "ass woopin'" of epic proportions. Josh's dad would have been proud to toss and slap Josh around like that when he was a kid. His body battered and bruised, Oglethorpe crawled to the door to get off the ice, but Josh's stick hooked him by the throat and pulled him back. Josh leaned over and snarled into Oglethorpe's ear, "You will attend Springville Congregational Church this Sunday. You will apologize to Pastor John for beating him up in front of the congregation. You don't have to give a reason, just apologize publicly when the service starts, then never touch him again. If you don't..." The blade of Josh's skate slammed down into the ice less than an inch from Oglethorpe's fingertips. "This was just the first period. We could go two more periods of play plus overtime if you want."

<><><><><>֍<><><><><>

After Veronica's jog around the village five times, and Josh's miracle on ice, they met up at Andi's house. Yi was making breakfast for Kenny when Josh and Veronica entered the kitchen. "How can someone be athletic this early in the morning?" groaned Yi. "Why don't you two take your sweaty bodies downstairs and hit the steam shower and relax then come up and help me with the kids. They're staying home to be with mommy today."

"Kids get election day off here?" asked Josh.

"Photo ops with mommy," said Veronica.

"I almost feel sorry for Windecker," said Josh as they headed downstairs, where Paul Jarecki had set up a gym for himself and his bride. "You're going to slaughter that oaf."

"I hope so," said Veronica as Josh undressed her. They turned on the shower, which sprayed from the ceiling, the wall and sprayed up from the floor. "I could live right here," she sighed as the spray from the floor gently tickled her pussy. Soon steam filled the room, and they were being bathed in the hot steam but splashed by the warm shower. She leaned back on Josh, enjoying the sensations, but then she suddenly grabbed Josh's erect cock and held it behind her. "Put that thing away," she hissed.

"Away? Sure!" Josh could only think of one place where his cock should be put, then he saw two little faces peering at him from the shower room door. He hugged Veronica close and said, "What are you children doing?"

The twins walked into the steam bath naked. "It's our turn!" demanded Sandy.

"Andi believes in family saunas in the winter," said Veronica.

"I do too, but I only have one person other than me in my family," said Josh.

Just then, Andi joined and sat down on a bench. She then noticed Veronica and Josh for the first time and was startled. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were here."

"It's ok, honey," said Veronica as she sat down next to Andi and hugged her. "We'll get him back; we really will. The agents think they have something."

"They say that all the time," moaned Andi. "I want my Paul!" and she began to weep.

Josh stood helpless, wondering what he could do. Would a game of one-on-one work on the FBI as well? "I'm going to help Yi with breakfast," mumbled Josh as he stepped out into the narrow locker room. He changed into the clothes they brought, his tie and suit. He wore his S.P.E.B.S.Q.S.A. tie and headed upstairs. In the library, John and Macy were looking at the maps that the FBI agents were pouring over.

"What's going on?" asked Josh. "I don't recognize anyone here."

"Somebody named Grace Hollingsworth went ballistic last week. She's some regional big wig and she fired everyone and put Special Agent Frank Colella in charge," said John in a whisper. "Now they're tracing the calls but they don't make sense."

"They're not holed up in any one location, they're bouncing around," said Frank Colella. "We think they're bouncing their cell connections around to fool us. First they're in Nashville, then they're in Memphis, then they're in Jackson... then they're in..." he shrugged. "What's next?"

"New Orleans," said Josh.

John saw it too. "They're in a truck. They're not bouncing their signals, they're bouncing. Probably using a new burner every time they make a call."

"It can't be," gasped Special Agent Frank Colella.

"They're picking up jobs as they go," said John. "That's probably why they're going back and forth."

"If there was some way you could link the traffic cameras with the cell towers," said Macy.

Frank turned to one of his agents and said, "Get with Langley, look for a truck that's in the area of the cell tower during the call." The FBI was finally rolling.

"Welcome back," said John. "Shoot anyone lately?" He was still upset with Josh for not showing any repentance after shooting those two men at Gus's shop.

"I played a little hockey this morning," said Josh. "Then I asked park patrolman Oglethorpe to join us on Sunday morning."

John rolled his eyes and shook his head, but Macy hugged him from behind. "Welcome back mon amis. How was North Dakota?"

"Very, very cold. Did you know that if you throw a cup of hot coffee in the air, it explodes into a cloud of frozen vapor."

"Oui!" said Macy cheerily. "Très amusant!" Then she whispered in his ear, "Thank you for talking to Director Hollingsworth. She got this investigation moving."

"I didn't know she was a director, I thought she was an air martial, when she said she was FBI, I gave her some helpful advice."

"Were you polite?" asked Macy in a demanding voice.

"Probably not, if I was I would remember it. Café au lait mon petit chou?"

"Oui, let me help."

"No, I'm the cute barista, you're the moral support for Madam Mayor." Just then, Cholly walked into the library in tears. He was fully dressed, but his clothes were completely soaked. "Dude-let! What's wrong?"

Cholly was crying and pointing at the kitchen from which he had emerged. He kept saying "fumée" and "fumoir" which Josh didn't understand, but Macy and John understood. "Who is smoking?" asked Macy. Fumée means smoke, and fumoir is a smoking room.

"Les filles!" The girls, which is what Cholly called the twins, Sandy and Madeline.

Josh got it immediately. "You wanted to play with the girls in the smokey room?" Cholly nodded. "Why did you wear your clothes?"

Cholly shrugged and said, "Les filles!"

"Momma Andi is in the smokey room with the twins and they're all nue, so you can take your clothes off and play with them in there, ok?"

Cholly looked at Macy, who said, "It's ok." The little guy started pulling at his damp clothes, trying to tear them off, but it was hard with them all wet. He was grunting in frustration until Josh helped him, and soon the little man was racing through the house naked. Josh picked up Cholly's damp clothes and carried them off. "You should go talk to Monsieur le Plouc." (Mister Redneck) said Macy.

"Yeah, I saw." John could be pretty oblivious when it came to people sometimes, but there was a bond between him and Josh, and Paul.

Macy called them the Three Musketeers after Alexandre Dumas' fictional trio, and their personalities seemed to fit the three, and it humored her to no end to watch them live up to their forefathers of centuries ago. Macy pulled John close and whispered, "Mon cher Aramis, maintenant qu'Athos est parti, c'est à toi de réconforter notre cher Porthos." (My dear Aramis, with Athos gone, it is up to you to cheer dear Porthos.)

"Et pour vous, qui est d'Artagnan?" (And in your mind, who is D'Artagnan?) asked John.

"Ce serait moi, bien sûr!" (That would be me, of course!)

John followed Josh into the kitchen, where he tossed the little boy's wet clothes into the dryer and turned it on. "You ok?"

"That's a loaded question. I suppose the answer is no."

"What is bothering you?"

Josh sighed. "On the plane, I had a dream. It started as the usual nightmare kind of thing, but I ended up in a small town holding a baby and looking for work. It was snowing, so she was bundled up in blankets, but I knew it was a girl. I knew she was mine, but she looked nothing like Veronica or me. She had brownish skin, lighter than Katrina, and dark brown eyes and black hair."

"That was it?"

"No, it was snowing, and I knew it was Christmas eve. Then some big blond come up to me and... I think she hired me. The baby was crying and I was trying to settle her down. Then I woke up and I was in a panic because the baby was gone."

"Maybe you feel guilty for not inviting us to your wedding?" asked Josh.

"You wouldn't come, it was a civil ceremony."

"You two were made for each other. We're happy for you. We can't wait to do your sanctification."

"I'm so jealous of you and Cholly. I hope some day to have a little guy like that..." Josh grew silent and downcast.

"You guys just got married. You've been married two weeks and you've both been busy during the entire time. You need to relax," said John. "Dedicate some time to each other."

"Maybe before the fund raiser... and after her dad moves in." Josh moved into the kitchen and fired up Paul's big espresso machine and steamed some milk for Macy's café au lait.

"Get to the table," demanded Yi as she and Kenny started making pancakes.

"You want to get the girls up here?" Josh asked.

"No problem. John moved to the stairs and was about to go downstairs when Josh said, "They're all naked down there."

John turned to the library and called out, "Macy, can you get the girls up here for breakfast."

Now holding Katarina, Macy walked past John and whispered, "Is my Aramis afraid?"

After breakfast, everyone dressed as if they were headed to church, and they trooped out of the house, and headed up to the village hall to vote. Even the twins came with. Detectives Gaulin and Klafka accompanied the family as they walked the two blocks and crossed Main Street. Andi was holding Danny, and she's been holding her son every moment she could since Paul disappeared.

They were joined by Gus Didomissio and his new wife, Evangeline. For years she insisted on being called Lucy, but when she fell in love with Gus, he mentioned that he loved the name Evangeline, and just like that, she cast Lucy by the wayside. Andi and Paul's friends from the Bahamas, Nicoletta and Donald Atherton, were with them as well. They had flown in two days previously, but Nicoletta had been upstate talking secretly to Andi's ex husband Frank. Nicoletta was certain that Frank Rosetti had something to do with Paul's abduction, and she had questions for Frank.

When they got to the Village Hall, they were met by almost everyone from church, and a retinue of news and television reporters. Veronica leaned over to Andi and said, "Vote first, speech later."

"Ok, thank you."

As they approached Village Hall, the reporters turned on Andi in force, but Veronica said, "Civic duty first, then Missus Jarecki will speak to you after. Thank you for coming out; please don't block the sidewalk into the village hall.

Veronica led Andi into the Village Hall, and suddenly the reporters realized who had come with Andi. "Justice Atherton! You usually only show up when something big is going to happen, do you think Mister Jarecki is going to be found?"

"Boys, I'm just a retired judge who come to support a friend in her time of need," said the retired Justice. "As for Mister Jarecki, the answer is in God's hands, but I have a feeling he's going to shine on us..." she went on and talked about her friendship with Paul and Andi.

Inside the Village Hall, Andi was pacing back and forth, worried about the growing crowd outside. "Go vote," ordered Veronica.

Andi got her ballot and, with the twins clinging to her skirt, she went over to the kiosk and filled out her ballot. There were just two items on the ballot. One was a proposal to allow several big-box stores to build inside village limits in violation of village law, and the other item was who would fulfill the position of mayor for the next four years. Andi voted, then handed her ballot to the election worker, who put it in the secure ballot box. The twins clung to her skirt the entire time. The folks from church all gave Andi a hug, and then they went and filled out their own ballots. "It's over," said Veronica. "Let's go home and relax."

As they stepped out of Village Hall, Samael Windecker was talking to the press in a loud voice. When he saw her, he shouted, "There she is! The prostitute! She doesn't even know who the father of her children is!"

The press immediately turned to Andi and said, "Missus Jarecki, do you have a response to that accusation?"

Andi sighed and said, "I suppose there are people in Springville who agree with Mayor Windecker that the proper thing to do on a public street is to attack a woman and her children. He would be the clear choice for people who believe that. Now if you don't mind, I will have more to say later."

Windecker moved to say something to Andi, but he suddenly found that a line of men had moved between him and Andi. He looked at the one they call Redneck; he beat the shit out of Oglethorpe this morning, and he looked like he was ready for more, which terrified Windecker. The mayor sputtered and fumed, but Nicoletta stepped up to him and said, "You and I will have a long conversation tomorrow when this is all done, and I assure you; you will not be happy." The crowd followed Andi home, where they entered the big house.

"Danny needs changing," said Andi, and she went upstairs.

"You two!" called Yi, pointing at the twins. "Go downstairs and watch Reading Rabbit with Cholly, or go upstairs and pickup your room."

"Come on Cholly," groaned Sandy, and the twins led their little cousin downstairs.

Josh and Veronica sat down at the kitchen table and stared at their coffee... it felt like it was over. Was it?

Suddenly, a quiet call went through the guests in Andi's house. "They got him!"

"Who?" asked Veronica.

"Paul!" whispered Lucy. "They think they have him."

"Where?" asked Josh. He followed Lucy into the Library where the FBI agents were talking excitedly on cell phones and tracking the movement of something on a map they had spread out on the table.

"They're following a truck moving this way," said Gus, and he pointed to a road that moved north and south along the Florida-Georgia border.

"That's gator country," said Josh.

"You know the area?" asked Special Agent Colella.

Josh pointed to the St. Mary's River, which was flowing south to north. "In this area he's stuck on that one road through the Okefenokee Swamp, but if that truck makes it up to here," he pointed to where the river bent to the east. "He can go anywhere. Right there is where I was raised, in Saint Mary's Georgia. This entire area is my stompin' grounds, from Saint Augustine to Brunswick. If you let that truck get up to Waycross, here, he can head to Makon, Valdosta, Atlanta, or shoot east and hit Brunswick or Savannah."

"I just checked on Andi," said Veronica. "She's completely asleep."

"Let her rest," ordered Judge Atherton. "No sense in waking her until we have Paul safe." They looked at the Okefenokee swamp where the suspected truck was traveling.

"Stay out of the water brother..." said Josh nervously. He looked at the map, wishing it would show him where his friend had been taken.