Chapter 89

The state had pulled my certification. Without it I was unemployable, even as a game warden. That really hurt, not that I really wanted to back to being a rabbit police person. Even if I found a small town police force that wanted me, they could hire me without that certification.

I could bring an action against the state but if the damage to my hand proved to be long term, I would lose. I doubted that any court anywhere would force them to do any more than make a monetary settlement with me. It sucked, but that was the reality of the situation. I had two days to make my plans, with that in mind I made sure to go to the drug store with my sitter. I bought a bottle of generic 12 hour pain killer and a bottle of a different kind of 4 hour pain killer.

"Why are you buying more of the same thing you have at home?" my sitter asked.

"Nothing personal, but I didn't break the seal on those bottles." I looked her right in the eye when I said it.

"You do know how paranoid that sounds?" she asked.

"There is a fine line between precaution and paranoia," I replied. In addition to the pills I purchased one of those prepaid burner phones. I took the battery and the sim card out of the old one the mission had given me, Then I tossed the old phone into the trash can on the way out.

I finished out the day without making any decisions. I wanted to be absolutely sure that if they had switched my meds, the tainted ones were out of my system. I wanted to be absolutely sure before I made any life changing decisions.

The next morning when I awoke my pain was about the same, so I figured the sitter had been right, I was just paranoid. But someone was really after a few of those people who thought there were people after them. I did not want to make a bad decision because of a dopey brain.

It was about 9AM when I placed the call to the Warren County Sheriff's office from my new cell phone. I asked for Deputy Learner who had been my last partner in the Warren County Sheriffs department.

"I'm sorry, he isn't on duty right now," the receptionist said.

"Okay, how about Chief Deputy Simpson?" I asked.

"Who shall I say is calling?" She asked.

"Former deputy Sylvia Porter," I answered.

"Sylvia how have you been?" she asked.

"Not bad, thanks for asking," I replied.

"I'll get the chief deputy for you," she said. It took a few minutes before Simpson came on the line.

"So Sylvia, what can I do for you?" he asked cautiously.

"Don't worry Simpson I'm not begging for a job, but I do plan to move back to County Seat. I have only been gone three months so I was calling to get Learner to check my old apartment. I wanted to see if it is available. But since he isn't working, I was hoping I could get his home phone number from you. I know the receptionist wont give it to me."

"Tell you what, I remember where you were living when you left. I will have a car run by there to see if the apartment is vacant. If it is, we will ask the owner for his phone number. How is that?" he asked.

"That would be perfect," I replied. I went on to give him the number for the burn phone.

"Do you still need to talk to Learner?" he asked.

"No, I'll see him when I get there," I replied. So at 10AM I carried the cell phone while the sitter and I went out to breakfast. I had dropped from a high risk target to a low risk one literally over night. So we went to Hardee's for a bacon egg and cheese biscuit and cheap restaurant coffee. I had convinced the sitter to take me to the local park to eat the breakfast.

Half way through the biscuit the cell phone rang. "You got a pencil handy," the receptionist from the Warren County Sheriff's office asked.

"Hold on," I said as I scrambled to find somewhere to save the number, I finally just decided to enter it into the phone, Which is what I did as the receptionist read it off. "Thanks, I really appreciate this," I added.

"You just come by to see us," she said.

"I will and I'll stop by Granny's Donuts at the plaza first," I said.

"You remembered," she said.

"Some things one never forgets," I replied.

"People up there really seem to like you," the sitter said. I thought of her as the sitter, since they changed every couple of days I had stopped trying to remember them by name.

"They seem to like me better when I'm far away," I replied with a smile.

I pressed enter on the phone and waited for the blue haired lady to answer. When she said hello, I began, "Hello, this is Sylvia I rented your carriage house apartment for a while. I called to see if it was available again."

"I remember you Sylvia. You weren't any trouble, except you left the place empty while you traveled. Then you left in the middle of the night," she said.

"Was it really the middle of the night, when the movers came?" I asked. I would not have been surprised if it had been.

"I guess it just seemed that way. But they did pay an extra months rent to give me time to rent it. They also left the cleaning fee, so I guess you were fair about all that. It is empty so sure why not."

"I can be there on Friday to make the financial arrangements, and move it on Saturday. If that is okay?" I asked

"Sylvia tomorrow is Friday," she said.

"Yes I know," I admitted.

"Very well," was her answer and then she was gone.

"So, you are going to make the deadline to be out tomorrow," the sitter commented.