Chapter 24

After Burt ended his call, I was out the door heading to the store to get a paper to see for myself if what he had told me on the phone was true. Finding the story I discovered the facts and rumors of my exploits were well known in school as Julie, Rachael, Sierra as well as the other girls on the softball team all contributed. Julie of course knew or suspected the most, as she spent a lot more time with me than any other girl, including Sierra. That was only the beginning of my problems, as the web links in his story not only tied the various videos to me. Adding fuel to the fire, he had somehow managed to get access to not only the two school reports, but also the police report of the attack at the ranch including the report covering the unresolved death of the fat guy.

Sitting in the parking lot, my first phone call was to my attorney who had already read the story and his first words to me were, "I was wondering how long it would take you to call." We agreed to meet later at his office. Returning home, I did as my attorney told me, telling my mother I was in the paper. Asking why I was in the news, I handed her my copy of the paper pointing to the article. I left her alone to read the article.

My mother and I had never had a real close relationship, with me preferring to be defiant to her authority. What I had never done to her was out and out lie to her, for her part, she made it easy of course not bothering to ask the right questions. Needing her on my side according to my attorney to sue for the release of private school documents, Mr. LeBois suggested that I would need to sit down with her and tell her. When I asked if he wanted to know if what was reported was true he stated that it did not matter to him, so I did not need to tell him anything.

When I returned to the kitchen, my mother stared at me saying nothing. After I got a glass of orange juice and sat down across from her. Looking at me, she asked if the article was true. Thinking that a demonstration would be more effective than just stating the article was true. So to show off in front of my mother, I put my hands about a foot apart, then after spreading my fingers started arcing electricity between my fingers just like a Tesla coil experiment. Although I never let the electricity touch me as I had found out exactly how much power I could pull and after giving myself third degree burns twice, I worked very hard on making sure I did not burn myself again.

Ending my demonstration, the shock of what I had just done was clearly on her face when she asked, "This thing that you do, is it from the accident last year?"

"Partially, yes," I answered.

"And the rest?"

"I think maybe my martial arts and more than a bit of luck."

As I never lied to her before I was not going to start now. I verified the parts of the story that were true. When she asked why I was telling her this now I stated that my attorney wanted her to know and understand because as I told her, he and I were planning on suing for everything we could centering around the release of my student file. She agreed to that and when I asked her to join me when I went to my meeting, she agreed.

That afternoon there were five of us in the room, with my mother and myself as well as my attorney and his two partners. To say that the meeting was long would have been an understatement and it was not until dinnertime that we broke up with them saying that they would start filing their lawsuits in the morning as well as contacting attorneys they worked with in California and New York to cover the suits there. All of them were very confident that I would be very rich in the New Year.

The only downside to our plan was the one group I really wanted to go after was the softball team. We had something of an arrangement of sorts, that none of us would ever talk about what I did for them. All that was mentioned in the article was what I did for them, and nothing of what they offered in exchange. I was told that because they only reported what I had done with them it was a lot harder as the case would depend on proving a negative and there would be a lot of doubt making the case difficult. I agreed suggesting that I would see them at a later time.

Even that statement got my in trouble with my team as well as my mother as all of them corrected me as anything I did to them would make my case that much harder. I agreed that I would not seek them out or have any contact with them.

While my mother and I were at the meeting with my attorneys, we had turned off our phones due to not wanting to be disturbed. When I turned my phone on, I was surprised to see that I had twenty-three messages, of those fifteen were for interviews by various news shows; I deleted those immediately. Five were from friends wanting to talk. The problem with those was that I did not consider them friends; they were also added to the deleted group. The next two were threats, both saying that I would burn in hell.

The last message was from someone claiming to be an attorney. He stated in his message that he represented an individual who was interested in the section of the article that dealt with the doctor who had met Burt and me in the field during the summer. The rest of the message stated that his contact considered the payment allegation in the paper acceptable, asking me to contact him to make arrangements. I figured to pass this information on to my attorneys for them to deal with since they had told me that they would handle all of my non-personal communications.

Checking the online article Monday morning, I was surprised at the number of hits recorded on the website because when I checked the night before there were only about fifty thousand. Now it was over two hundred thousand and when I hit refresh it had jumped another hundred, shaking my head as I logged off, I went down to get a bite to eat before heading to school. I was thinking that people needed to get a life instead of following mine.

Heading into the gym with my sisters, I was already expecting some looks because there were already people waiting in the parking lot when we arrived. Inside the gym, the situation was slightly better as there were only athletes there, though I did get more than few stares from everyone. Taking my normal spot with my sisters, I did my best to ignore them. I was fortunate in my classes because the teachers had either not seen the article on me or simply ignored the looks I was getting from my classmates.

What I could not avoid was my job after school, as I had more than just the people I was expected to tape, asking questions. Those questions covered what the article reported as well as a few things that were omitted including what I charged the girls who benefited from my services. Those I ignored the rest I tried to answer with humor. I did get some help from the coaches who came looking for their players when too many of them failed to report to their practice areas.

The last player I taped that day was of course Valerie, who like everyone else wanted to know if what was reported in the article was true. Thinking of only the areas that Julie and the rest got wrong, I stated that there were inaccuracies and that she should not believe everything put in the paper. Not being put off as I worked on her ankles, she asked if the reported videos of me were true and again I dodged the question, saying, I had no idea which videos she was talking about. Before she could rephrase her question, I finished working on her ankles and sent her out to practice.

Putting everything away it was off to Steve's, as I needed some time to relax and get my mind clear. Pulling up in his driveway I could see that was not going to be happening as there were cars parked everywhere most of which I did not know. Inside was even worse as the small lobby was crowded with parents, there signing up their children. I was lucky enough to make it through the parents without anyone recognizing me.

The class was less than helpful as most of the new students were more excited to have me in class than to actually learn to defend themselves. After class where I did have to defend myself once, Steve and I sat down and after a few minutes of talking of possible options it was decided that I would take some time off until my notoriety wore off. Steve did say that the studio was empty on the weekends if I wanted to come out. I was disappointed at that but he did add after that he finally received a callback with some good news. The downside being that they wanted me to travel to Korea to be evaluated.

We were discussing the possible problems with having to get passports and everything else we would need to travel when I got a call from my mother asking if I was all right. I asked why and she told me that someone had not only phoned a threat to the house against my sisters and me but there was a package too. Asking if they were okay, she said they were the ones to find the package that had been left on the porch, addressed to the spawn of Satan and his sisters. Sherri had called their dad at work and before he even arrived, he had requested the bomb squad who were at the house trying to identify what was in the package.

Ending the call I told her I was out at Steve's and I would head home after we finished discussing a possible trip. That of course got my mother asking what trip and I let her know when I got home. Filling Steve in once I got off the phone he sent me home saying that any trip was months off and the possible bomb threat had to be dealt with.

Heading out to my truck, I started to wonder if someone could have done something while I was in with Steve. Thinking how I might find out if something was wrong, I put my hands on my truck trying to feel for anything out of the ordinary. I found nothing out of the ordinary not that I thought that I would find anything.

Driving home, I called Mr. LeBois and told him about the bomb and the phone calls threatening me. I added as almost an afterthought the call from the other attorney along with the contact number he left. For his part, he stated that he would get my team on everything, and to let him worry about the other attorney.

That was a good thing because I never made it home. I was stopped two blocks away and when I told the officer who I was, he directed me to what they were calling an evacuation site, which was a elementary school, a couple of blocks away from our house. Arriving at the evacuation site, I found my mother and sisters and let them know I was fine and nothing had happened to me. Asking about Francis, my mom told me that he was at the house with the rest of the police determining if the package was a bomb. Everything changed twenty minutes later after Francis called, telling my mother that the bomb squad was going to attempt the move the package and detonate it someplace safe.