Chapter 27

I was going out the front door, heading for the garage, when it hit me. Something had been bothering me about this whole thing. None of this had started until the shooting at the barn. That made me wonder if Sally's mom had been approached and paid by the church to have her and her boyfriend grab Sally. Still, it just didn't make sense to me because I had done my little raid on the church years ago. I hadn't had any contact since then. I stopped and sat down on the porch to work this out in my own mind.

Thinking about it from that angle, everything that had happened didn't make any sense to me at all. Why did the church come after me after all these years? What were they looking for in our files, and why, after all this time, were they pushing so much? There had to be a reason, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what it would be. I was as puzzled now as I was when all this started. I wished Bill would contact me, 'cause I needed someone to bounce all this off of who was familiar with what had gone on. If I hadn't heard from him by tomorrow evening, I would contact everyone I knew to start looking for him. Since he was a former senior Senator, there would be a lot of people who wouldn't take kindly to anyone that harmed him. I already had a list of numbers he gave me to call if there was an emergency.

Then it hit me between the eyes, now I would have to keep a careful watch on Kat. If they had listened to the tape from the limo, they would know how much we cared for each other. Dammit, just what I needed, I thought, another target for them to snatch. I had to warn Kat before she went home tomorrow so she would be aware of any strangers hanging around in her vicinity. I would also make sure Tiny had someone on her at all times. I opened the garage and got my first glimpse of the car I had been loaned. It was an older Olds but it was in almost pristine condition. Looking it over and underneath, I could see it had self controlled air bags on each side as well as a beefed up suspension. The bottom was completely covered by a sheet of what looked to be steel, with small holes cut to change the oil and grease it. I counted eight airbags underneath it, and upon closer inspection the new style run flat tires. I didn't know what Tiny had paid for this boat and I would be willing to bet the gas mileage sucked. Speaking of that, when I opened the trunk, I noticed that there was a large extra tank in it, surrounded by plating. The trunk lid was also plated with steel, and it wasn't the light stuff either. No wonder there were so many air bags under it. It had to weigh a good two or three tons over what it had been when it left the factory. I sat down inside and there were buttons all over the dash where the radio used to be. None of them were labeled as to what they were for and I wasn't about to be the one to find out. I pulled the hood release and got another surprise when I looked at the engine. Tiny had said it had some kind of interceptor engine in it, and from the label, it was an Olds 455 ci. It had headers and dual carburetors on top of the engine. I won't pretend I am a mechanic, but everything I had seen so far said money and a lot of it. As Tiny had said, this had been custom built to someone's specifications, and it had cost a pretty penny to build. I went back to the driver's side and got the keys from under the mat on the passenger side, and cranked it up. It started with the first turn and sat and rumbled. I gassed it and it was so quiet I had to put my head outside to hear the engine. Damn, this thing was quiet and powerful, I thought. It rocked from side to side as I gassed it. I shut it down and closed the hood, then headed to the back to close the trunk. That's when I noticed the other car sitting in the far stall. I almost laughed out loud when I got a full view of it.

Kat and her car definitely matched. It was as small and dainty as she was. I walked over to look at it still chuckling to myself. It was a baby blue colored Ford Festiva. It looked like it had just come off the showroom floor; it was so clean and shiny. When I looked inside, I broke out laughing at the decorations. She had fuzzy dice hanging from the mirror and the seat covers made me laugh even harder. They were both were big pictures of a nurse in white with a big needle in her hand with the caption saying; "Nurses have bigger needles to work with." I was laughing out loud at her sense of humor when I noticed the back seat had the same thing. Only there, it had a man lying on a bed, looking scared to death with the nurse standing over him with a syringe that she was holding with both arms. It had to be a foot long and she had a big grin on her face as she looked down at the patient. I was still laughing as I went out and started to close the garage door. Then I noticed her personalized license plate. It said NURSE 1 with a frame around it that said "I like big needles." I closed the garage door and laughed all the way back to the house.

While I went up the steps still laughing, I wondered what I was letting myself in for with her and her sense of humor. I had to admit to myself, it would be a refreshing change for me since I had a very dry sense of humor and always had. The experiences I had with the Legion had been responsible for that. All of us always had a macabre sense of humor to cope with all the gore that seemed to surround us wherever we were sent. Then I had another thought, I wondered if Sally had seen her car yet. With her sense of humor, she would be in hysterics when she did. I sat down in the porch swing, and thought about everything that had happened, still wondering why the church was pushing so hard after all this time. There had to be a reason, but I sure was in the dark about it.

I was still sitting there watching the sun go down when I was joined by Kat with a kiss for me.

"Hello, did you miss me? I was finally able to slip away from Sally for awhile after enlisting Myrna's help. Jon, she is so sweet, but I think she is starved for company her own age."

"Yea, you're probably right, Kat. The only time she's around kids her age is when she goes to school. She used to go to the fairs and stuff with Sparky until he was killed. I guess it's pretty lonely around here. I am going to take us all on a vacation in a week or so. Maybe it will help her overcome her boredom."

"Jon, aren't you going to ask me to go too? I have almost a month of vacation time coming and I would love to spend it getting to know you better. Besides, if we can find something for Sally to do, then we could have a little private time to ourselves."

"Well, I don't mind the idea, but you're gonna need a passport to go where we are going."