Chapter 102

Saturday was more of the same just plain busy. If anything more busy. There were always lines for the tanning booths even starting at 7am. The Marathoners were in use as soon as the doors opened. They were booked most of the day for two weeks out. There were even more demands for the gift packages.

The office was getting calls from Delaware Pennsylvania and Virginia inquiring and booking the marathoners. The out of state calls were sent to us from the manufactures web site. One group of 8 runners from Pittsburg had inquired about booking an entire weekend 24 hours each on both machines at the end of January. They were going to book rooms in the Holiday East chain for the weekend. With dollar signs flashing in Marcy's eyes she agreed. Jenny and I both suggested that Marcy try her connections to see if she could get another one or two at least for a while.

In the conversation with Marcy about them I found out that the connection was Jeanna. Mid Western Bank was doing the financing for the manufactures R&D department and the bank had the option to do their own evaluation of all products. We were the banks evaluator with the Marathon tread mill line.

The girls had all the Christmas decorations up on both the house and gym. We had a live tree in the house. The spruce forest smell was all over the house. I wouldn't let them put a live tree in the gym. I was afraid some might be allergic to the aroma from the tree so we had fake one that looked close to a live one. I had to chuckle at the tree they must have bought every kind of tree decoration the store had.

Jeanna called to say that she would be back a few days early. Mid west bank was looking at a group of Delaware Banks for acquisition in to their bank conglomerate. She was in charge of the pre purchase audit. Marcy's Christmas present a candy apple red suburban was in at the dealer and asked if I knew of any where it could be hidden till Christmas. She also had another surprise for us for Christmas but would not give any hints as to what it was.

We also had another surprise delivered in the mail on Saturday. It was called the electric bill and it was a whopper for no more than we thought we were using electric for. The heat was gas, the hot water was gas so we were surprised. The biggest part of the cost was the commercial rate we were being charged. Marcy had estimated the cost before we added the tanning booth and the classroom. I never would have dreamed that the tanning booth were going to cost that much to operate. It was a still within our budget with the extra income they were producing but never the less a shock.

On Saturday I spent another full day doing assessments. In the morning I worked with Carla James while Kirstin worked out in the gym. In the afternoon they swapped places.

At five the South side Girls came in even though Shelia was not having training today. They changed and began their weight work out routine that Shelia had designed for them. I noticed that the smallest of the group seemed to be moving slow. I had heard her called several things. Joey was her name but she seemed to prefer to be called Bones. I just assumed that she had over done the workout the day before.

I continued with the assessment I was doing but also made sure to keep an eye on the gang. It took an half an hour for me to finish up. Bones was sitting on one of the exercise bikes holding her side with one of the other gang talking to her.

I walked over to her and asked if she was ok. I could see she was in pain.

"I'm ok, just leave me alone," she replied.

"No you are not ok. Come with me. Let me get you checked out," I said.

One of the other girls they called Snooty who was the leader said, "Were leaving to take her home."

"She is not leaving until she is checked out," I said as I whistled to get the attention of Vicky and Lorrie that had just come in to work. I also waved Kirstin over. We all walked over to the store room where the whole gang wanted to come in. I held up my hand and pointed to Snooty motioned her inside. I also called Jenny to come in.

"You are to observe and to say nothing," I told Snooty.

I helped Joey take off her long sleeve shirt. Both her sides were red and starting to lightly bruise. Both her arms had bruises. Her stomach was pink. It was easy to see that someone had held her while her ribs and stomach had been worked over.

I asked her,"Who did this to you? You were fine when you left here last night."

"I fell down the stairs," she said.

"You want to try that one again. I know what a beat down looks like. Your arms are going to be bruised where they held you while you were beaten, ' I said. "Now who did this to you?"

She looked at the floor for a moment then said, "The North Gang. They were waiting for me when I left the house this morning. They were hiding in the alley. They tried to get me to tell them where we were taking off to every afternoon. I didn't tell them anything," she said.

"How did you get away?" I asked.

"Some one must have heard me screaming and called the cops. A cop car went by the ally with it's siren on. Then it backed up to turn into the ally. They dropped me and ran off. I ran the other way as best as I could," she said.