Epilogue

The ringing phone interrupted her thoughts. Looking at the number, she smiled and picked it up and heard "Hey girl friend, how you doing?"

"Sitting down here at the old plant. Going down memory lane." The blonde replied.

The caller, a very successful attorney who was her life partner, replied "Don't' be getting all morbid and morose on me again."

"I won't. Just sitting here and thanking god that this is over and we were both lucky. Heard from the boy yet today?"

"He is finishing up his packing and getting ready to go to Northwestern this afternoon. We have a drive tomorrow girl."

"Just what I need, another lawyer in the family."

"You can blame that on Carol. She really pushed that boy. Hell, he had to listen to them while they pushed me. Besides, He didn't want to be a doctor, after seeing all you went through. I think too many people didn't think you would make it there while running four restaurants."

Margaret would. Helen would. Elizabeth would. And David would. "Some people had pretty high opinions of me." She replied.

"That is true, alpha bitch. Especially me. Get your ass home."

Stacy had died two years after her son was born. Her will decreed that her son live with his godmother and her partner (now married legally) as she felt that he would have been better treated there then anywhere else. And he had gotten along with the two other children that the couple had themselves by a posthumous sperm donor named David Findley in his will.

It had been pretty good in the Post Findley world. She would never have made the friendships she had without being yanked out of the stream that scary Friday morning.

She had been thrown into a close quarters for a long time with the most intelligent people she had ever met, and they had treated her as a confidant, daughter, friend and equal ever since. She had gone in with no expectations and come out with a totally different life, far and above the goals of a country girl in the city.

The federal rehabilitation money had paid for college, but the attraction of medicine really didn't take as much as running a business did. Strange, but the restaurant and then later hotel management was where she found her real niche in life. Making people comfortable, giving them a great meal or a social experience was work that was rewarding, and that she had a flair for. She ran three hotels now, one downtown, one lakeside resort and one that was a upscale wooded hide away in Michigan. As well a management contract for the convention center.

Because of her history, the commercial insurance required her to continually be in therapy. She still had arguments with her shrink. The fact that she was alive did not bother her shrink as much as the fact that she didn't feel guilty about it. She often wondered what Helen would have thought of her current shrink. Probably would have said she was full of shit.

I miss Helen most of all. I owe Margaret and David the most, but I miss Helen the most.

The Federal investigation into prosecutorial abuse had dragged on for almost a year. Of all the various states that had conducted different investigations and hearings, only Illinois had the single court action. And the backlash of that investigation scared every other state away from any sort of prosecution.

Carol and Nancy's investigative book on the aftermath of the legal mechanizations had been an international best seller, and made them a guaranteed attraction on the rubber chicken circuit for several years...

Carol highlighted in the book the real case that the prosecution wanted to make. David was charged with coercive force and discrimination. The key evidence would have been the filings of the goat registration extensions. The reasons given for the extensions were "Required for the continued successful operation of the business". In those terms, the state contended that the women at Findley's were in fact non-compensated forced labor. In other words, labor slaves at the least. At worst, slaves forced to perform prostitution.

The financial defense would be the combination of Union memberships and the escrow accounts maintained for all of the people at Findley. David had followed Carol's advise from the beginning, and with careful accounting, all of which was in the book, the evidence that would be in trial would show that none of the participants were ever paid less then minimum wage, and that housing food and medical had been provided free of charge. And David never got more then 50 people working for him. The facts of the case in the "Special circumstances" would have blown Charlene out of the water.