Chapter 12

Bill Madison frowned. "If this guy, this asshole doctor, really did this — is really responsible for ... Oh, shit. That means — if it's true..." he hesitated, his voice stumbling, "then he raped her. Hell, if she were drugged and couldn't stop him, then it is rape."

"I think there's a lot more to it than that," Diana sighed. "She mentioned that he took her to men. She also said that she has AIDS, or at least that's what Ingles told her."

"AIDS? Took her to men?" Kathy said, the blood draining from her face.

"Yeah. And about the men, from the way she said it, I think she meant that he was selling her to them. Making her prostitute herself," Diana answered.

"He prostituted my wife? That son-of-a-bitch. I'll kill that bastard," Madison said, standing. Then, "You believe her — what she says?" he asked staring hard at Diana.

"I do. Jeff does. My sister-wives do. Jeff says she's not lying. Anyone who hears her would believe her."

"Shit," Bill said as he turned for the door, but suddenly he spun back around to face Kathy. Putting his hand out, he said with a sick grin on his face, "First thunderstorm in our flight, I guess," referring to their marriage. "Let's go talk to my ex-wife and see what we can do about it."

"She's not your ex," Kathy said standing, but taking his hand, anyway. "If she were forced into this, then she's still your wife as far as I'm concerned."

It was a somber group that walked down the hall to the living room. What am I going to say to her? Bill thought. If Jill were forced to do this, where does that leave me with Kathy? I'll stick with her of course. I gave my word. I love her, but I still love Jill, too — God, even more so now that I've heard what's happened to her. It makes me sick to my stomach.

A worried Kathy walked beside him.

Diana had already figured it out, but knew it wasn't time yet.

They walked into the living room, stopping to look at mother and daughter sitting practically glued to each other.

"My God," Bill blurted aloud as he stared at his wife. Then silently, she was thin when we were at the attorney's office, but not like this. How could she lose weight this quickly?

Jill, hearing his voice, looked fearfully toward him. After a moment, she leaned forward putting her face in her hands — and sobbed.

In the Wal-Mart lot, Jessica came back in and sat down at the table with Fred and her mother.

"How did the pictures go?" Fred asked with a smile.

"Okay, I guess. I took about ten shots to make sure I got just the right one, but I want you and Mom to sit up front while I take your pictures through the windshield."

"Hmmm," Fred said. "Hand me my camera case. Do you know anything about filters?"

"In a word," Jessica laughed, "no. Oh, I read something about them in school, and I've glanced through photography magazines, but I don't really know anything," she said as she reached over to retrieve Fred's large camera bag that was sitting beside her.

"I probably know less than she does," Carla said as she got up to refresh her daughter's coffee.

Fred unzipped a small compartment on one side of the camera bag, took out a plastic case. Opening it, he showed the filter to the two women. "These are simple things to use. But look closely," he said holding the filter out and turning one half of it. The filter is really two sections. The front section remains free to turn after the filter is screwed into the camera lens.

"This is called a circular polarizer. Linear polarizers won't work properly on SLRs because they will confuse the auto focus, or other auto features of the cameras, so we always use this type. Anyway, a polarizing filter works like polarized sunglasses, except better, since you can rotate the polarizer to achieve the best results. Without going into detail about the properties of a polarizer — not that I know a lot about the subject, anyway — you simply screw it on the camera lens," he said, demonstrating, "then, since you're actually looking through the lens in an SLR camera such as this one, you just focus on your subject and rotate the filter until you get the best image you can.

"They're good for cutting down reflections when taking pictures of the ocean, lake, or say, taking pictures of animals at the zoo when they're behind glass. They can also darken a sky to make it look bluer, enhance the contrast in dark areas ... Lots of things look better through a polarizer. The down side is that you lose a little light through the filter, so you have to drop down a couple of F-stops to compensate, but left on auto, the camera will take care of that for you."

Jessica grinned at him. "So, let's pretend that this is a zoo. You two sit up front by the windshield, and I'll take your pictures through the glass," Jessica laughed as Carla swatted at her rear.

Jessica took the camera and went back outside as Fred raised the window screens. When Fred and Carla sat in the front, Carla smiled over at him. "She's having a good time. She hasn't joked around much since Sam died."

"You seem more relaxed, too," Fred commented, smiling back at her. "You look damn good, too."

"Thanks, but I guess Jeff's invention has a lot to do with that, also. I owe him, and you, more than I can ever repay."

"Bullshit. We both know that Jeff's dragging my fat ass out to the retreat, then my getting involved with you two," he said, nodding out the window to Jessica, "are the reasons that I didn't eat my gun. I didn't have anything to live for — now I do."

"You damn sure do," Carla said as she waved to Jessica who was standing about fifty feet from the RV making some kind of motion to them. "She's fallen hard for you — and I have too. Diana says a woman can't resist an Alpha if he notices them and thinks sexual thoughts. She says that you have called us to be your mates, both with your mind and your pheromones. Have you learned to control those hormones, or are we going to have a harem to take back with us?" she half-joked.

Fred stared at her for a moment, almost joking back at her, when the seriousness of her expression changed his mind. Sighing, his train of thought momentarily distracted as Jessica came back inside, he said, "Jeff talked to me. I guess, other than the two of you, I haven't looked at another woman while thinking anything remotely like sex. I've been grieving too much about Brenda. But, well, it's been impossible to ignore — whatever the term is — you two. We've worked so hard together, cried together, slept and then bathed together."

"Fred," Carla interrupted, "we're yours, both of us. And we both think that you love us."

Jessica, who had been standing close by listening, put the camera on the dash and sat in Fred's lap. "Tonight. We've waited as long as we can. I'm so happy. I miss my dad, but he's not coming back. I wish I had waited so that I could have given you my virginity, but I didn't. I don't know much about sex, but I'll work hard to learn," she said, very serious.

Fred started to laugh, but thought better of it. "Virginity, doesn't matter, Baby," he very seriously said. "All that matters is that you love me. And yeah, I love both of you. And, I doubt that there is a man alive that wouldn't want to teach you about sex. If there is, then he's a fool." After kissing her lightly on the nose, "Now how did the pictures turn out?" he asked as he and Carla locked eyes for a moment, mentally tabling their discussion.

"They look okay on the camera screen, but can we put them on the laptop and see what they really look like? The camera screen is too small to show detail."

"Sure. Get yours and we'll upload, or download, or whatever you want to call it. I can never remember which is correct. Anyway, see what they look like on a high-res screen."

As they sat in the living room to wait as Jessica got her new laptop, Carla said, "So our laptops have a better screen than yours? That makes me think that you need to take my new laptop and I'll use yours. I'm feeling guilty enough about this as it is."

Fred laughed out loud. "Your new laptops have a little better — and a little bigger screen — big deal. I now have hardly any use for a computer at all. You two have been doing all the farm/ranch accounting. I don't need to write anyone; I just pick up my cell if I want to talk to them."

"We don't do much bookkeeping for the ranch, anymore," Jessica said as she put her new laptop on the table and plugged it in. "The Matthews' accountant takes care of most of it, as you know. Now come on and show me how to upload my pictures," she admonished.

They spent the next thirty minutes viewing and critiquing Jessica's pictures. "These are really good," Fred said, meaning it, "but what are these two thumbnails here that are totally black?" Fred asked, grinning, knowing they were two very drastically underexposed pictures.

Jessica just grinned back at him. "That's when I experimented with one of the manual settings. I had the F-stop way too high. See how the next several get better?"

"I like this one with just the front portion of the RV in the right foreground and the store in the background. Your mom and I are a lot clearer through the windshield than I would have expected. Your depth of field is just right to show both the store and the RV. This wasn't on automatic either, was it?" he asked.

Jessica grinned, "No, I was getting a little better with the manual settings by then."

"I've taken plenty of pictures of people in vehicles when I owned my business. Pictures through a car window, particularly when you have to do it in a hurry, can become an iffy situation. Well done, Jessica."

Jessica tried to play it down, but it was obvious that his compliment touched her. "I really like the effect of the polarizer," she said. "Look how much bluer — and clearer — the sky looks behind Wal-Mart in this one," she said as she hit PgDn on the laptop.

Carla interrupted from the galley with, "How about a fried bologna sandwich with tomatoes and lettuce?"

"How many do you have?" Fred laughed.

"As many as you want. If we run out of the fixings, Wal-Mart is fairly close," she laughed.

"Okay. I'll start out with three," Fred said.

"How many do you want, Baby?" Carla asked her daughter.

"Two," Jessica said as she got up to help.

"Then we need to roll," Fred said.

"And, just what's the hurry?" Carla laughed.

Fred thought for a second, then, "Good question," he said, laughing. "Good question. We're on vacation." Then, "There's no hurry at all."

Bill walked to the couch, but never remembered the few steps. Tentatively, he reached down to lift his wife's face as she wiped absently at her tears with the wad of tissue she had in her hand.

"Daddy, please don't be mad at her," Linda said. "She couldn't help what she did. He made her say things — made her do horrible things..."

"Is this true ... what you've told the Matthews about being drugged and hypnotized?"

Jill looked up at him as she tried to stop her crying. "I think so. He bragged to me and to a couple of men that he did it. I know that I always did what he said. I tried not to; you will never know how hard I tried, but whatever he told me to do, I did. A couple of times, he didn't tell me in enough detail, I guess. I did what he said, but not exactly what he wanted. He punished me. Uh, he shocked me with this thing, I guess it was a stun gun; it knocked me out. And he had this other thing. It was longer and I think it was a cattle prod. He used that on me until I wet myself and passed out. I don't know. Everything is a blur. But that was later. I remember going to his office, well to the examination room, but from then on, I just remember a few things about the visit. It's like a dream," she finished, her voice hopeless.

Bill, still standing in front of her, started to say something when she went on, "I didn't come back to interrupt your lives. Diana told me that you and Kathy are married. That's as it should be, I guess. I divorced you. She's a fine person. Linda said that Kathy has her commercial pilot's license and is flying as your co-pilot.

"I swear that I only came back to tell you what happened and to see my baby. I've done that now," she said, struggling to her feet. "Ingles said that I wouldn't live long, and I guess he's right. I think the withdrawal from his drugs is making it quicker. I feel strange. I'm leaving now. I'll find a place to live that's close enough to maybe come visit my baby again, if I'm able. Please forgive me Bill. I've always loved you — always will. But I'm trash now. Linda says that she already has forgiven me..."

Bill bent to pick her up, then sat with her on his lap. She struggled to get away, but he held her. She's weak, he thought as he overcame her strength with hardly a thought, though her efforts left her breathless. Linda moved to sit close to him, leaving Kathy to stand near them.

When Linda realized, she stood up and moved to the other side, lifting her mother's legs and sliding under them to snuggle to her father and hold her mother's legs across her lap.

"Here," Bill directed Kathy, who remained tentative nearby. "Sit here my wife," he said reaching to pull her down beside them. "We're going to work this out together."