novella THICKER THAN WATER  is first episode of the OK TWINS franchise

                                                -short synopsis, 

                                             followed by novella

     THICKER THAN WATER is the story of psychic twins, male and female, Sharon and Edgar Mullen in Oklahoma City. Sharon is kidnapped by an obsessive stalker and local rich boy Strode Bollings, and OKC Detective Dayton relies on Edgar’s ESP skills to track them into Texas and back to Oklahoma.

     The twins are independent film makers and Quaker pacifists, and Sharon’s non-violent convictions are tested by her survival instinct. In captivity, she also experiences Stockholm syndrome, falls in love with Strode even as she is aware of what’s happening.

     Eventually, Strode petitions give her to kill him to save herself. Him or her.

     An ancillary character and romantic interest is their friend Cameron, the unmarried mother about whom they made the first film, and ironically their planned second film was to address capital punishment.

      THICKER THAN WATER has potential as the continuing franchise, THE OK TWINS, and there are a full length screenplay and treatments for sequels completed..

     .

                                        THICKER THAN WATER       

                                     novella by Patrick breheny                                         

     It suddenly became a rainy May day in Oklahoma City, the earlier in-town vibrant hues on signs and buildings dismal, the blue sky turned a dark steel plate. Sharon didn’t like the way clouds blew toward each other, nor how many degrees the temperature had dropped in the last twenty minutes. Those were signs. Yet the siren system was reliable and no warning had been given. It being Saturday, she was downtown shopping for a more comfortable pair of shoes for her waitressing job, and was standing at the bus stop to go to her home on the perimeter of downtown. The posted schedule showed a twenty minute wait for the bus she needed. It was warm in the morning, a sunny spring day, parking in town was expensive, so she’d come in by bus. Though there were seats on the bench she was standing because she was cold and the rain was mixing with sleet. She’d just worn a sweater and needed a jacket, but at least brought an umbrella.

     She heard “Sharon Mullen!” exclaimed like she and Strode Bollings were old and amiable buddies. She didn’t know Strode well, had no particular like or dislike of him. She’d gone to high school with him until two years ago. He was on the football team, a second stringer who occasionally played a quarter, and had a rep as a hell raiser like a country boy, though he was from an oil family that had one of those fancy houses in the division. If she had any unarticulated judgment of him---never gave him much thought--- it would have been, maybe given too much and earned too little. She had no idea what he did these days.

     She was, however, a civil young woman, and said all she could, which was simply, “Why hello Strode.”

     “I’d say you look like you’d turn to salt standing there, like Lot’s wife, but it’s more likely you’ll turn to ice.”

    -  But I didn’t look back-   was the repartee that came to mind, but she wasn’t inclined to encourage familiarity She noticed he was mostly dry, so hadn’t been walking long..

     He asked, “So what have you been doing since high school?”

     “Pancake Heaven.”  She didn’t want to tell him about film, get that started.

     “Cashier?”

     “No sir, I handle Accounts Receivable.” Distributing invoices for meals eaten and collecting tips.

     “Bookkeeping?”

     “Accounts!” 

     “Excuse me.

     He now read the schedule sign too. It occurred to her that, however he arrived avoiding the elements, maybe he was also there for a bus

     “You have a long wait to go out your way.”

     She shrugged.

    “How about get out of this for a few minutes with a cup of coffee?”

    She’d considered exactly that herself a few minutes before. It was a five minute walk to the next block and five back, but now the rain and hail were getting harder,  the sky angrier.

     “Has to be a quick one.”

    She was five three. Strode had no umbrella and shoved all six two of himself under hers. He wanted to take it from her, control it, hold it over her chivalrously, but she wouldn’t let go. His closeness was tempting him to put an arm around her. He raised his hand a couple of times to try, but she karate blocked with her arm. She was only dry because the wind was blowing the rain from the outside of Strode and his bulk was blocking her from it.

     The coffee spot was the Greyhound station’s rest stop. Once inside, the outcome of their stroll became apparent. Strode, in his jacket and jeans, was soaked on the left side and dry on the right.

     He quipped, “Maybe I can wash the other half on the way back.”

     The way back? 

     “Are you taking the bus too, Strode?”

     “Heck no. My car is over there.”

    She went for the counter, didn’t want to get entrenched in a booth.

     “I could give you a ride.”

     “I live too far from your area.”

     “Don’t mind a bit.”

     “My sister’s meeting me at my stop.”  She was going to say,  And I forgot my phone,

but he’d have one .”I know she left her phone home charging.” None of it made sense. He could give her  a ride to where her sister was supposed to be meeting her, but she just hoped he’d get the idea.

     They were at the outer end of the counter and their coffees arrived. Strode glanced at a notice for the rodeo coming, with a prize offered for would-be bull riders who could stay on a certain number of seconds.

     “I’m tired of just being a scholar. Might come back to OK City to try my luck with that bull.”

     “I could have sworn you’re here.”

     “Nah, I’m in college in Lawton.”

     “Cameron?”

     “Yes’m.”

     “And you live there?”

     It was ninety miles away so that could make sense, but Cameron for a Bollings didn’t, good as its reputation was.

     “Soon as summer is over, I’ll have the credits I need, going to transfer to Oklahoma State. Norman here I come, and I can live back here then.”

     “What are you studying?”

     “Oh, just getting requirements now. I might have played football for State, but right now they got everybody they need. After college, Pa will have something for me. I’m thinking of majoring in business. Finance or economics, like that, just haven’t pinned it down,”

     “Success seems inevitable for you.”

    She put a dollar on the counter for her coffee, said “Don’t worry about taking me back, short walk” and went for the door so fast that by the time he thought to object she was outside. He stood in the doorway and called, “Mighty nice to see you see you again, Sharon. I’ll give you a call.”

      But she’d never given him her number. One problem was, the Mullens were listed.

     It was brother Edgar who was meeting her at the bus stop .Older sister Ellie had her kids around on Saturday and they would visit her later. She wasn’t sure why she told Strode she was meeting Ellie. Maybe to emphasize family involvement. I come as a package. Love me (not), love my tribe and forget about your fantasies.

     If she loved anyone she loved Edgar, an uncarnal attachment to a male who wasn’t what you’d expect of one, probably because he was her twin. .

     She was back at the same bus stop five minutes before the scheduled time. The sun had become a golden light through a scrim of now white clouds .that ceased that brooding unnerving lunging. It looked like central Oklahoma was spared a tornado at least on this mid May day in a year of our Lord

     It was another five minutes before the bus arrived, and by the time it did the sun was brilliant, baking dry her damp sweater. You just never knew how to dress in the spring. A beautiful sunny day and Kansas blew in, as her Dad always put it.

     It was about a twenty minute ride, and mid-afternoon going out of town the bus was uncrowded, she had a seat alone. She tried not to think about the prospect that Strode would call. Presumptuous and impertinent. She didn’t think he could have her cell number. He must have meant the house phone, so she’d let Ma or Dad answer and say She’s not here, would you like to leave a message, maybe  How did you get this number?

      When she got off the bus, Edgar was waiting for her with an umbrella, using it  for shade.

      She said, ”Looks like Texas blew in now.”

      “Yeah, I wonder what the people over in Kansas and down in Fort Worth blame Oklahoma for.”

      “Like the flu always comes from somewhere else. Asian flu, bird flu from Thailand, Zika from Brazil.”

      He concurred, “Never a red blooded USA flu.”

      It was the connection between them. They had the same ideas, same likes, dislikes.

     “I ran into Strode Bollings.”

     As she knew, before he did it, he made a face like he’d tasted something bad.

     “He plans to call me. Without invitation.”

     “The folks can make sure he doesn’t get you.”

     She hooked her arm easily into his, and let him shade both of them with his umbrella. He was slender and only a few inches taller than she, about five six. She felt free with him, even knowing he felt stress at the possibility of ridicule, or worse, for simply the delicate gesture of the sun umbrella. Though the threat would be deflected because he was with her and being gallant, if a bully wanted to be a bully he would be.. Guy stuff she understood he had to deal with. She wished him a big size and muscles, though with the same sensitivity, but that was not the combo he got. He was her in a male body. Not identical twins, being opposite genders, they were yet almost each other.

     Mr. Mazza’s was an Italian restaurant with red checked tablecloths and all the variety of dishes, including pizza, which meant a basket of Italian bread with cubes of butter were brought while the pizza cooked. Might not have a lot of appetite left when it arrived..

    The waitress was Ciss,  Mr Mazza’s wife, Sharon and Edgar knew was a full blooded Chickasaw. She joked she was 1/8 Italian as counter to the satirical claim by Mr Mazza, formerly of  Brooklyn, that he was 1/8 Cherokee  Mr Mazza’s joke was a commentary that  everybody in Oklahoma seemed to claim Indian blood, and be proud of it.

     Mr Mazza was in the usual booth with the usual newspaper. They were in one of the front booths, Sharon facing the back where Mr Mazza was. She paid little attention to the man and the newspaper until, as they finished eating, she glanced toward the kitchen to get  Ciss’s eye to bring the check, and then did notice the booth the owner was in..

     She said to Edgar, “Don’t turn around, but guess who’s sitting with Mr Mazza?”

    “Ciss?”

    “Edgar!” He could periodically disappoint. But…

  : “He didn’t come in the front door.”

     “Must have through the kitchen.”

     They were keeping it at a whisper. “He must eat here sometimes if he knows Mr Mazza.”

     “It’s no coincidence.”

     “How did he know you’d be here?”

     “He offered me a ride. He followed the bus, then tracked us on the street.”

     “How do you want to handle it?”

     “Right now, let’s just get the bill and go. And look out for him following us.”

     Cis brought he check, they paid it, were almost out the door when Strode boomed,

     “Sharon again! Must be a double blessing day.”

     “Wait, Edgar.”

      She walked to the back booth where Strode beamed in anticipation..

     “Mr Mazza, I was wondering if you were expecting Strode today.”

     “No, surprised me. I haven’t seen him since he used to hang around out back during high school.”

     “Oh?...Why did he do that?”

      “What were you doing out there, son? Smoking something?”

     “Just being a kid.”

     “I guess that’s how you knew how to get in without using the front door.”

      “I’m parked there.”

      “There’s parking in back, and an entrance in front.”

     Sharon said, “Thank you then,” and began moving toward the front, where Edgar waited. Strode persisted, “Sharon, we just have to get together.”

    She snapped over her shoulder “Not happening,” and continued to Edgar at the door, from where they left.

     They went to Ellie’s and spent a family afternoon---Ellie’s family and their own, Ma and Dad there too. She told her parents that Strode would probably call, and she didn’t want to talk to him. With nobody at their house this afternoon, if he called so soon he’d get the machine.

         Sure enough, when they got back there was a message.

     “Hi Sharon. I’m over your way still, finished at Mazza’s, wondered what you’d be up to. Maybe we can meet for dessert” And a number.

    Later the phone rang a couple of times and Dad answered it. They were a business call and Ellie calling back once to tell Ma what the kids had accomplished in the hour and a half since she’d last seen them.

      She thought maybe spared the rest of the day if he went home, but then she saw she had a text on her cell from the same number he left on the answering machine: NOW MY NUMBER’S IN YOUR PHONE. CAN U CALL BACK?  STRODE

     How he got it she had no idea, but it was early enough to go to the Walmart phone center for a new number .

      Ma said, “All your contacts! Isn’t that extreme?”

      “Not what my instinct’s telling me..”

      Edgar concurred, “she’s right then.”

      She decided when she told everybody  the new number, she’d be sure also to say who they shouldn’t give it out to .A week went by, and she began to think maybe he was getting  Not Interested .There were no more attempts, and she was able to start putting aside an apprehension he’d get creepier.

     Edgar lived downtown in what there was of  the “new loft district”, an area of a few lofts and lots of other industrial and office spaces filled residentially by sculptors, brush and paint artists, writers, musicians, any vagabond seeking the bohemian and less expensive rents. Edgar had an office room above a former warehouse, in which he had a cot, TV, his clothes, a hot plate, all of which he perfunctorily hid once a month when the owner came for the rent, and they both pretended he had an advertising agency, for which charade he did have an old desk and a land line telephone. His actual means of survival was as a clerk in a bookstore, but he and Sharon’s passion was independent film, so the ad agency really was an aspiring movie production company, except that phone didn’t ring often, and so far not from any investors. Their only film was about their friend Carmen who had a baby out of wedlock and was raising him herself.

     When they filed a tax return, Sharon was a waitress and Edgar was a bookstore clerk Film was aspirational,  though using a digital camera  they’d finished  the film,  put it on You Tube, and got some encouraging  reviews. Edgar sort of kept office hours, ie. he was available during the many hours he was present as a resident. Let’s say no appointment was necessary.

         The film was a documentary, a testament of love they’d made for Carmen, who was  an Oklahoma City College student. As Catholic Carmen saw it, she had sinned, confessed and repented, and went on being a devout regular communicant. She didn’t see raising Jorge---Georgie---as penance or any cross to bear, simply her willing duty and bond.      

      As much as possible, she had wanted independence, didn’t want her mother to become a mother again, and her family had a rear guesthouse that became her residence. She contributed to the family restaurant by baking desserts and taking shifts when somebody in the front house could watch Georgie.

     Sharon and Edgar’s relationship with Carmen was a little more than friends. They each spent time there, held hands with her, knew about each other and were fine with it, as was Carmen. There were no secrets and it was Platonic.

     One morning in the middle of the following week Strode Bollings arrived at the loft without one of those unneeded appointments. He’d made a stop at Donuts, and had with him coffees and assorted sweets.  Edgar, partial to chocolate éclairs, accepted one and a coffee. Strode sat down in the business section where the desk and chair were and space being limited Edgar sat over the back edge of the cot.

     He was sure Strode wasn’t there to invest in their next project, but waited for the purpose of his visit, which or course was Sharon. Strode got to it, but he seemed to be floundering with his ill planned scheme.

     “Saw you at Mazza’s. I guess Sharon told you me and her hooked up again.”

     Edgar well knew there had never been any previous hook-up with which to establish an again

     “She didn’t mention anything like that.”

     “Before  Mazza’s I ran into her downtown. I’ve called her a few times, but I think your sis plays it coy. Well, I can pursue. Could you tell her I’m quite eager to resume our interaction.”

     “I can mention I saw you, but…”

     “Do it!”

     “…I can’t tell her what to do.”

     “Everybody knows you two are like fingers in a glove.  Do you like me?”
      Edgar managed half a smile. “You brought me breakfast.”

     “So tell her that. No recommendation like yours”

     “I don’t know you, Strode.”

    “Just speak favorably.”

     “I can relay your message.”

     “With an endorsement.”

     “Guy knows I like eclairs”

     “They said at Donuts it’s what you always buy.”

     “Never know when you’re leaving a trail.”   

   “You’ll mention the éclair and coffee?”

     Edgar shrugged “Why not?”

     “Just don’t say I bribed you.”

     “You want me to credit your generosity of not?”

       “Do you think it’s a bribe?”

      “What difference does it make what I think?”

     “If you think it is, she will. Do you?”

     “You never did this before.”

     “Hell just tell her I want to talk. Can you do that?”

      “Sure, but I think she already knows.”

      “I got to go.”

      And in the doorway: “And say I’m a good guy.”

     “There must be worse.”

     He must have been looking for a higher rating because he slammed the door at that. Hard. But at least he was gone.

     When Strode was 13 he lived for a while in Vinegar Hill, 135^th Street between Amsterdam and Broadway. It was Harlem, with a lot of Irish still living there, mostly de facto segregated, and it was the Irish American kids he hung around with. He had lived in the West Bronx too briefly, and the kids he’d known there were Irish too, common sense practical and oriented toward a future. In Harlem they were tougher, with more than a few bent toward the criminal .Looking out a second story window into the forbidding alleys, it was not hard to grasp why. The buildings could not have been constructed with the intent of expressing danger and despair, but it was there, without a single human being in sight. The yard of alleys spoke of it. It was not simply indifference, the impersonal brick and concrete of New York---except for those you know you are alone---there was menace, the alleys didn’t say simply Not Welcome, they said this is a bad hard place, don’t you dare think to come down here. Even without people, race, history and sociology spoke loudly.

    There was a candy store with a soda fountain on 135^th Street they hung around in and in front of.. In the Bronx he was Strode. In Harlem when he made the mistake of telling them he was from Oklahoma they called him Tulsa, and he only encouraged the moniker  and laughter at it by  protesting he’d only been by Tulsa in a car a couple of times. Maybe Oklahoma City had too many syllables for a nickname.

     Harlem was a shock to an Oklahoma boy, but with his acclimation came identification,  the realization that even if his new pals were born there, their parents or grandparents came from Irish farms and made the same adjustment.

     His family was in New York that year because his Uncle Vance died and left apartment buildings he’d bought with oil money. The family lived in  buildings they owned, first in the Bronx and then in Vinegar Hill, and his father made this short  relocation to first claim the properties, then oversee their sale, and he essentially left Strode alone in the Vinegar Hill apartment. He found a way then to hide from the scary alleys outside his windows and the tough neighborhood with periodic oblivion drinking. At 13, he started going on solitary, delusional hallucinatory binges

    What happened on 135^th  Street one day near the candy store, on a stoop where they were sitting in a group, was that he almost lost his manhood as it was arriving. Without any provocation or warning, an older kid grabbed him by the testicles, and told him he could squeeze them dead.

     Strode said, “I didn’t do anything to you.”  He hadn’t advertised that his family owned half the buildings on the block.

    The bigger kid looked at him as though what he’d said was a profound point he’d never before considered, and some gleam of awareness seemed to come into his eyes..

      “You didn’t do anything to me?”

     Strode managed  “No” in an aspirate whisper

     And the guy let go. Luck, Strode thought, and knew it could easily have gone the other way.

     He was a skinny kid and maybe wouldn’t have stayed like that anyway, in that he had the means to eat what and when he wanted. Back in Oklahoma he pumped iron, did eat like a hog, took steroids, played football (as well as he could, at least got chosen for size) and in all ways aspired to be a big good old big country boy cursed by being a rich kid.

     He wasn’t a hit with the women. He didn’t seem, even to himself, able to turn off the macho demeanor, to show the consideration needed. When he tried for suave he waxed buffoon. If he tried to bully them into pretending to like him he scared them away. Either way, for all the money, he came across as uncool. With all he had, it wasn’t enough.

     He knew Edgar patronized a club in the lofts called Town Talkin’ and found him one night at the bar. Strode bought a pitcher of beer and asked for a conference in a booth.

Reluctantly---yes, intimidated---Edgar hoped humoring him might get rid of him again. .

     When they were seated, alone, Strode asked, “What’s Sharon say?”

      “She hasn’t said anything.”

     “You’re not representing me well.”

      Not representing you at all. “I gave her your message. She didn’t say anything.”

     Strode had adapted that technique from Vinegar Hill, used it often on those smaller than him, and it netted results, though, having been spared himself, he had yet to follow through to mangling. Yet .He practiced it now on Edgar..

     Edgar was, as Strode had once been, breathlessly defenseless. Resist and the vise would tighten more. ”I tried,” he gasped.

     “Is you sis a lez?”

     “I don’t know.”

      “You know everything about her.”

      “She doesn’t know so neither do I.  I know she’d want somebody sensitive.”

     “We’re all sensitive. You think I don’t have feelings?”

     “Let go, Strode.”

     “ I want you to tell her you’re attracted to me. Are you?”

     “What do you think?”

     “I think…that.. I wish you were because she would be. Will you say you are?”

     “She won’t believe it.”

     “I didn’t ask what she’d believe. I want you to plant it. Just say it.”

     “Let go.”

     He did.

      “I can always grab them again, Edgar-ie.”

.     Edgar slid out of the booth, his hands defensively positioned lest Strode changed his mind.

     “I always know someplace I can find you. Tell you have the hots for me.”

     Sharon knew that despite his disadvantage of diminutive size, Edgar was no wimp. He had also spent a year in Lawton at Cameron U, taking film classes. The Chain Gang was a group of locals there who attacked guys who weren’t local, beating them with bike chains. The non-locals they got were often GIs from Fort Sill, many of whom had seen Iraq and Afghanistan, so it was the gang’s way of thanking them. Edgar felt it even more personally when his dormie’s younger brother, visiting from Commerce for a weekend, wandered away from downtown at ten at night and got beaten. Edgar’s roomie Denton knew which area most to the Chain Gang lived in, and they conspired one night to re-pay the visit. She got the details from Denton. They accosted somebody who by attire and tattoos looked to be a chainer. Their weapons were a couple of large rocks. Denton was bigger than Edgar, but not that much. The guy they stopped was bigger than both, and claimed not to be Chain Gang. He said he was from Poteau, over on the other side of the state, near Arkansas. Denton told him he thought he was lying, and when he raised his hand in a gesture that could bring a small boulder crashing down on his head, the guy knelt in front of them, swearing to God---swore to God!---he was only visiting his aunt in Lawton, cried  actual tears, begged them not to hurt him. He had to believe that totally diminishing himself beyond any vestige of self respect would work Edgar confirmed Denton’s account, told her that in his life he had witnessed both honor and cowardice, but that was the most abjectly craven. Neither of them really believed him, but he’d become so despicable and pathetic they left him unharmed.

      Beginning the next night, retribution started against the dorm students. In the coming weeks a lot got ambushed and beaten. That guy did tell his pals, certainly not what had happened, but a glorious recounting of his valor.

     Edgar had been assaulted, they were being stalked, and Oklahoma City has a squad that takes reports of stalking incidents and related assaults. They were met by a uniformed desk sergeant who listened, typed into a computer, then referred them to the Criminal Investigations Squad.. There they were met there by a well three piece suited  Detective  Dayton. He was crisp, polished, courteous, sturdy, and could be All American Jack Armstrong all grown up were he not a black man. To the twins, that  could be a plus. He might not be swayed to favoritism of a rich white boy. Oklahoma City is as much a big town as a small city. There are generations entrenched politically and religiously who know or know of each other. The Mullens, while certainly not  poor-as-church-mice, didn’t have Bollings influence, and as Quakers might as well have been Martians.

     Detective Dayton, behind his desk, directed them to sit in the visitors chairs, and did not sit himself until they were seated. He then read to himself what he brought up on his screen before turning to Edgar.

     “So, he did a crotch grab and threatened you, and he’s stalking you?”

      Edgar nodded, face flushed. .Sharon said, “Yes.”

     “But, Ms. Mullen, you have no witnesses except those to say he was in the restaurant when you were, and the only evidence is the answering machine message and the text.”

     “Right.”

     “He can make those calls justifiable. Edgar, do you know if anybody in the bar noticed him grab you”

    “ I’m  not sure. I had no indication anybody had.”

     “Do you think you could ask?”

     Edgar shifted weight in the chair.  “Maybe if you did?”

     “People freeze up when the cops ask questions. And policy, I’m afraid, is we don’t have the resources to pursue assault without visible injuries. Are there any?”

     Again Edgar’s embarrassment manifested with flair on his face. “No.”

     “None you’d care to show anyway. Have you laundered the clothes you wore since then?”

      “Yeah”

      “Okay, I was just thinking DNA , but even that’s not proof of assault. There is something I can try--- getting him to come in voluntarily, question him, confront him with the calls, the assault, pretend we have proof.. Maybe he’ll admit it. If he does we can charge him. On the other hand, he might deny. Another remedy you can try is a restraining order, though again if Bollings contends you’d need witnesses”

      Edgar was so discomfited only Sharon replied before they left.

     “Thank you. sir. We’ll think about a restraining order. Please let us know what Strode Bollings says when you talk to him”

       For mutual protection, if only in that one might bring help for the other, Edgar and Sharon stuck together, except when they couldn’t, like when they worked. Edgar still had his room at home--- the warehouse office had been his independence statement--- and though he kept that .he started sleeping in the house again

     They first procrastinated, but then went ahead with filing a restraining order. If Strode didn’t bother to appear, they’d have that .He had to be served papers, and they didn’t want to involve anybody they knew or family, so they paid for deputy service, which took. After he was served, there was a week before the court date, and then one day during that week Edgar was served at the bookstore and Sharon at Pancake Heaven on restraining orders separately file against both of them by Strode Bollings. Strangely, thought the filing date on both on theirs was after their filing--- and service—dates on Strode, their court appearance date was earlier than his..

     Sharon took a needed break after the spectacle in the full morning restaurant of a deputy walking in and placing paperwork on a tray of breakfast she was carrying. She immediately called Edgar to tell him, and he was recovering from a duplicate experience over town at the bookstore. She then called Detective Dayton on the cell number he’d given, and he answered his phone. She identified and asked if he’d spoken to Strode.

     Dayton said, “We talked by phone. He declined to come in, and denied everything.”

    “Did you tell him you advised us to get a restraining order.”

     He snapped with authority and conviction “No, I did not.” She wasn’t sure what there was familiar about that. “Are you implying something?”

     “No, but we filed, and now he filed against us. Curious”

     “Have you ever harassed him back in any way?”

     “Absolutely not.”

     “Then show up in court and deflect his petition.”

     “And ours?”

     “I f he goes in, you won’t get yours either without proof.”

     “Thank you, sir.”

      As she hung up, she couldn’t help thinking  that old boy network just might have  gotten dexterous at jumping new barriers.

     They appeared in the court of the octogenarian Magistrate John Lemmond on the summons date of June 8^th.  Strode’s petition for restraint was based on testimony that they had followed him to Mazza’s Restaurant, and were frequently observed scouting his house at night. In reality, they didn’t know where he lived, but Strode had photos of an  Econovan that looked like theirs cruising the neighborhood.

    Two witnesses, a husband and wife, testified that Edgar and Sharon entered Mazza’s Restaurant after Strode, and Sharon verbally abused him. The twins protested unexpected false testimony, and asked for a second hearing to provide their own witnesses.

     Judge Lemmond seemed of an irritable humor that morning.

     “Both of you were in the restaurant at the same time, and you don’t like each other, is that not correct?
     Edgar responded, “He likes her too much. That’s the problem.”

     “Then why’s he want her stay away from him? I can’t waste court time and expense with a second hearing. Just stay away from each other. Simple as that. Restraining order granted.”

     It was two days later that they saw Lemmond again, and his disposition wasn’t brighter. Strode did show. The twins had Ciss and Mr. Mazza as witnesses that he came in after they did.

     “Still wasting our time? The first order states you don’t be near him. Only stand to reason if you’re not near him, he’s not near you, so I don’t need to hear your witnesses. Both parties simply need to abide by the first order. Your petition is denied. Now what else is on our docket this defiled day?”

     Edgar knew by now no visit by Strode could be a happy occurrence, and he was waiting one afternoon at 5:00 as he was leaving the bookstore.

    “Your sister aint called me.”

     Edgar concluded he might be a prospective Univ of OK undergrad, but he still saw bad grammar as macho.     

     “Did you tell her of your obsessive compulsion toward me?”

     “She knows about your visit to the bar.”

      A lazy smirk formed on Strode’s big round face. ”Funny you didn’t address that in court.”

     “Couldn’t prove it, and the judge didn’t want to hear anything we had to say.”

      “No. .I don’t really know why I bother so much, knowing once I had her I wouldn’t much care…”--- Edgar saw the comment as false bravado--- “…but if I can’t have her, it will be you. Make it happen Edgar, or you me get down and dirty.”

     Guns were available for protection. Oklahoma is an open carry state, though most people didn’t walk around looking like they were in old Dodge. Edgar carried, reassured Sharon it was only deterrent, and even when he started hearing “Doc” and “Wyatt” he considered the ridicule better than Strode’s alternative.   

      One night, arriving at the loft alone of necessity to collect mail, he suddenly felt himself gripped from behind in a lock, with both arms pinned. He couldn’t reach the gun belt, and was pushed down to the ground, face first into gravel. He felt the gun pulled from the holster. Strode began grabbing his hair, slamming his face into the pebbles. His lips cracked against his teeth and his nose started bleeding.

     “Tell her she won’t help you, next time you an me are gonna have that date.”.

     They thought to call police again, but by then had no expectation of more cooperative results. Sharon and Edgar formulated a plan. Sharon called Strode.    

     “Did you ever hear about the Chain Gang when you were in Lawton?”

     “Know ‘em. Ran with them sometimes.”

     “Wouldn’t they target you too? You’re not Lawton.”

     “Oh, they’re see-lective.who they mess with.”

      “They do with Iraq veterans.”

     “ Just smelly ones or yankees.”.

     “Do you know what Edgar did there once to get even with them in kind?”

     “Edgar? Ha!. No. Heard that was tried once by a couple of guys but the Chainer guy drove them off.”

     “That’s what he said?”

     “Yeah.”

     “Not, I guess, that he got down on his knees, swore he was visiting Lawton, and begged for mercy?”

      “None of them would do that.”

       “No? Edgar was one of the two who confronted him, and he doesn’t lie to me. He can’t.”

    “Well, look, that was then and this is now, that was there and this is here. Nice you finally saw fit to call me.”

     “You put Edgar on the ground when he had a gun in a holster. Can’t help but admire that.”

     “Just a little jujitsu.”

      “You’re modest. All things considered, Strode, I think I do want to see you now.”

     She thought he must have suspected something in this abrupt change of outlook, there was a several second silence from him, yet there had to be hope ignited too because finally he asked  “What did you have in mind?”

    “Maybe a few drinks at the loft.”

    “I don’t drink usually.”

    “You bought a pitcher of beer at Town Talkin’”

    “For Edgar. I drank soda.”

     “The point of the loft is discretion. No need for rumors starting right off. I can bring a home cooked dinner, or order delivery. Just talk first, you understand, get to know each other”

      “That sounds fine indeed Sharon.”

      “I’ll be in touch with details.”

     Strode had that weakness he kept secret, and they knew, just knew, that he drank periodically, and sequestered himself somewhere with a lot of booze, ice in the freezer, enough mixer, and his demons---which they were not intuitive enough to fathom, but had to exist.   

     Their date was at 7:00 PM on a weeknight, just a crock pot of chicken, potatoes, vegetables from home.  Sharon was down home laid back in faded jeans, worn

boots and a plain blouse. Strode looked rhinestone cowboy, western in a way Elvis did on stage, except his thick squat physique in no way matched that tall slender look. She tried to back hand compliment him on it, told him he looked like Tex Ritter.

     “Tex. Yeah. Long time ago.”

    “Great is forever.”

     “Well, he was.”

      “What’s your favorite Tex song?”

     “Didn’t he sing ‘Your Cheatin’ Heart’?”

      “Sure did..  I like ‘Tennessee Waltz’.” Pretty sure he had covered that too.

     “A sad song.”

     “So many are.”

    They’d have to eat on the desk, and it was set with plates and glasses, and two chairs beside that would have them sitting beside each other, three feet between. In that space was the pot of food, and the desk was covered by a decorative cloth. She used a long steel spoon to ladle the contents onto their plates. She’d brought a liter of lemonade and one of water. She thought he’d be imaginative enough to bring dessert, but he arrived with one arm as long as the other.

     What could she talk about? High school and OKC were the extent of their commonality. That may not seem like much--- wasn’t---but it was what was.

     “Heard we had a reunion. Did you go?”

     “ Too soon to be missing each other, don’t you think?”

     “I do. Didn’t go either. So, you’re officially living in the city now?”

     “Just about. School’s finished at Cameron, except I have to take exams.” 
     “You must be excited about going to school in Norman.”

     “Don’t know if I’d call it excited, but looking forward to it.”

     “Well, that’s a degree of excitement.”

     “I reckon.”

      It wasn’t that she wanted to talk to him. That was just to push their plan forward. Maybe his reluctance to converse was in sensing that, but she thought it was more likely,  by everything he’d said to Edgar,  that he hadn’t thought to bring dessert because he figured, once this ritual of dinner was over, she was. He just didn’t seem to understand any dynamic of verbal communication, and eating in silence with him loomed  deadly. Well, in that part of the country in June you can always say,

     “Sure have been getting weather.”

     “The sirens were blowing when I left Lawton last.”

     “Didn’t hear they got hit.”

     “Nah.”

     The rest of dinner talk went like that, but when they finished she got to something that could connect his tongue to whatever brain it must have once been attached.

     “You don’t drink, but do you mind if I have an after dinner glass of bourbon?”

     “Not at all, Sharon.”

     Maybe believed that would make his agenda easier.

.     And then, well, would it be so surprising that Edgar dropped by the loft?  Without a knock, because after all he’d have a key.  And without the open carry now, because…

     “Oh, am I interrupting something?”

     To Sharon it seemed  Strode’s softening manner was losing to the former less pleasant one, and of course he knew she couldn’t surprise Edgar with anything.  

     He said to Edgar, “Not at all. Your face okay now? Hardly can tell.”

      “Heal quick. Wasn’t much.”

     “Okay then. I see you did employ some magic with Sharon.”

     “None I know of, but welcome back to the Fourth Dimension.”

     “Huh?

     “4D Film Productions…and now apparently restaurant. Don’t mind me. Just left some things in the wardrobe.” 

     “Like some dinner, Edgar?”

     “Ate.”

     “You’re just in time for a drink.”  

     “Don’t mind if I do.”

      “Strode?’

      I don’t drink. Usually.”

      Edgar said, “Now’s a special occasion, isn’t it?”

      “I’m wondering. Whatever happened to three’s a crowd?”

      “Strode! He’s Edgar. And you’ve expressed your affinity for him.”

      “She admires your aggression, Strode, and since  we’re so alike, I have to applaud it too, even if I was the subject of it.”

       In what she believed was probably as close as he could get to an apology, he said, “Nothing really personal.”

     “I think that might be true.”

     Sharon poured, and she and Edgar clinked glasses, and after they did it once, did it again. Their interchange became trivial. At the beginning of each round, and all through the third, they extolled Strode to get with their wave length and have at least just one.

     They were actually dinking RC Cola with food coloring added for authentic whiskey tint, but had a concealed open quart of Seagram’s with which to make a real drink, though they knew when Strode started it was bottoms up time, no niceties like mixers need apply. And yet, if anyone ventured into that space when he was in the throes of a binge---like a room service waiter bringing re-supplies---the twins knew he begged  not be left alone .It was hard to have empathy for Strode, but they didn’t have to be shrinks to detect an abandonment issue lurking somewhere.

      His inclination toward occasional blessed oblivion, and the suggestion of carefree abandon their chatter portrayed, seemed to ping the impulse. “Only one,” he said.

      They had to make the transition from RC Cola in an Old Granadad bottle to the real stuff. Sharon said, “Let’s go now with the Seagam’s VO I brought. This is an event for only the finest. Mixed drink, Strode?”

     He seemed surprised they’d think he’d do otherwise .  ”Why, of course. Only civilized.”

     He did drink two highballs, but soon the bottle was beside his leg, and he tried to divert attention---first with “What else you keep ‘sides clothes in that wardrobe?”---and when they looked away, swigged from the jug. After a couple of those distraction he gave up pretending and owned the quart of VO. Seemed, as he saw it, they still had their bourbon.

     It didn’t take long for him to become hopelessly drunk and when he was, they gathered the pots and plates as if to depart.

   Sharon said, “You’re welcome to stay and finish that fifth, Strode. Just remember to depress the door knob lock as you’re leaving.”

      “Nah, stay.”

      “Was just for dinner. We have things to do.”

      “One of you stay. Both of you stay. Don’t go.”

     “Well, if we do--- just for a while longer--- can you talk?”

     “I’ll try.”

      Sharon, being his ‘date’, continued, “You’re not much of a conversationalist.”

     He started to blubber then. “Okay, okay, I’ll talk.”

     They relented, put down the dinnerware bags.

      “What do you want to talk about?”

     “Why are you so afraid of being alone?”

     “Just…doesn’t feel…feels bad.”

      “Why do you think that would be?”

      “Look, my Pa raised me after he drove Ma away.” It seemed they could as well have given him sodium pentothal as VO. “ Even when she was still there, he treated me like one of his peers he had contempt for, lower on the totem pole, like he was annoyed  at the responsibility when all the pleasure that brought me into the world was gone, and he was saddled with a wife he no longer wanted and a demanding kid Yet when he deserted Ma he kept me like a car or a house. He took me to New York at 13, then left me alone in an apartment in Harlem, and I couldn’t tell anybody I was by myself. Sister Mercy at the Catholic school I had to go because at least they were Christians wanted to see a parent once, and I plotted with a friend to bribe his father to come in as a stand-in. Money I had. The nun only knew my pal’s mother so it worked, but afterwards, when he’d been paid, the father actor grabbed me by the collar and said ‘Don’t you ever put me in that position again.’”

      “What had you done?”

     “That was the worst. I didn’t know, so how could I not do it again. And that pal was no pal. I had no friends there. Had no friends anywhere until I took them. That’s what you do, you know. You don’t just get them, you force them. Make people fear you, they’ll like you.”

      “They don’t Strode. They’re angry and hate you.”

     “Don’t matter long as you stay on top.”.

     “This is your philosophy of life?”

     “Only as I discovered life to be. Way it is.”

      “Edgar and I like each other.”

      “Blood is different.”

     “Your father is blood.”

     “Yes, but---I mean, you’re almost each other.”

      “We some times have opposing opinions.”

     “Like?”

      “Well, such as what are we going to do with you?”

      “You have no power over me.”

     “You’re defenseless.”

      “Never defenseless.”

      Edgar said, “Shitfaced.”

      “Strode, wouldn’t you like to be caressed?”

     She put her hand where he probably never dreamed it possible she would.

     “Ah-ha-ha”

     “Let’s get his britches down, Edgar.”

     “No, he can’t do that. Not right.”

     “Do unto others.”

     “I never meant either of you any harm.”

     “Then why’d you harm?”

     From under the cot she pulled a lariat and an industrial steel clamp.  Dropped the loop of the rope over his head down to his mid-section and pulled the knot.

     “Reminds me of the rodeo.  Strode you ever ride that bull?”

     “Rodeo ‘as over ‘fore I could put my bid in.”

     “Lucky that bull, huh?”

     “I still have my legs.”

     Before Strode could stumble upwards Edgar used the end of the rope to secure cited legs. Sharon opened his belt and zipper, pulled down trousers and drawers, Strode was moaning at the humiliation, though perhaps sensed it was only the beginning .Edgar took the clamp, put it on his testicles and squeezed tightly enough to have him believe, even through the alcohol filter, that he might be on the edge of castration. Sharon hadn’t objected in the belief he wouldn’t go all the way through with it, but she wasn’t sure..

     “I let go of you, Edgar,” he petitioned.

     “I reminded you I hadn’t done anything. Can you say that?”

     “I didn’t…OW…I didn’t WANT to do anything to you.”

     “Who did you want to do something to, Strode? Sharon?”

    “Sharon, I try to be a machine, but I’m not a good one. .I’m sensitive. Underneath the muscles and the good looks.”

      It was Edgar who laughed at that.

     “Well, buff, anyway. I have passable looks.”

     “Why can’t you operate on that then? There must be somebody. Just not me.”

      He was waxing slobbery, said with pity for himself, “I dunno”

     Edgar said, “As she says, Strode, we’re of opposing views here. I don’t want to just let you go. She’d forgive you for a show of remorse, and you are groveling pretty good.”

       “Never meant a bit of harm. Just advancing my interests”

      “From a practical position, if we were to emasculate you, even kill you, something like that, we could say we were preventing a rape. It’s only the truth.”

     “No, never wanted her that way.”

     “You kept threatening me with it.”

     “I wanted her.”

     “But she didn’t want you.”

      “I wanted her to want me. She would have if you did.”

     “That’s still against her will. Not to mention mine.”

     Sharon said, “Strode. I can pour the VO into you slowly while we discuss disposal of this matter. Little swallows. Don’t want you to drown on us.”

      “Why not?”.

     “Ed-gar.””

     It didn’t take much more VO before he was snoring in loud tormented snorts. Edgar released the vise, and they could have their discussion. Sharon said, “We know you don’t want to just let him walk out of here okay, but let’s review. We made that film about Carmen because she’s Carmen, we didn’t want any political endorsement, but didn’t they call it correctly, that admiring Carmen meant endorsing their position? And we both oppose capital punishment.”

      “Knew you were going there. You oppose it on principle. I think it can be justified. It’s the finality I oppose, the possibility of executing someone not guilty.”

     “What would you have us do now? We can do anything to him. What should we do?”

      “You want to do nothing.”

      “I think we’ve taught him something.”

      “He said what he thought we wanted to hear.”

     “You’re thinking Lawton.”

     “I am.”

     “He’ll have to consider those confidences he shared, the shame he expressed for what he’d done to us.”

      “He won’t remember anything beyond the third or fourth drink.”

      “It’s me he’s after. He must know by now he can’t convince me you’re attracted to him. And there’s that beating you might still press charges for.”

      “The cuts are healed, so we’re still without evidence or any municipal willingness.”

      She would petition the Holy Spirit for guidance, and he knew It would decide her way. That wasn’t con. If she said the Spirit spoke, the Spirit spoke, and he’d have to accept--- unless It also spoke to him---but It wasn’t known to rule toward revenge..

      They untied him before going. There wasn’t much to vandalize if he’d be inclined. They operated the film company from a lap top that was no longer on the premises. Paper records were in an accordion file in the small cabinet, and they took the file. They unplugged the refrigerator again, and took the mixer bottles, poured the tinted RC into the sink in the only toilet in the outer corridor..

       They waited till the next day to check up, and did then because they didn’t want a corpse found in the loft. Strode had left without exacting vengeance They saw that he did from differing viewpoints, Sharon that they had reached him, Edgar that he’d only experienced an alcoholic blackout

      They tried gingerly to go on with life. They’d keep the production company at the loft, and Edgar would move back there, just not yet. As always, they still hung around together, but slowly relaxed the being constantly in each other’s company. Sharon was the first to believe things were back as had been before, with Edgar more inclined to keep watching his back, though with time both relaxed vigilance.

     . Edgar drove home one Monday evening and parked the family Corolla across the street from the house because Tuesday morning was NO PARKING on their side for street cleaning. The suburban street was dark, fog rising from sun baked asphalt as temperatures decreased from a suddden downpour half an hour ago. The nearest lamppost was halfway up the block, lending just a dim amber corona at the top of the pole to the misty night.

     He started across the road. He didn’t know there was a vehicle coming until he heard the rumble and saw the bulky outline of an SUV without lights as it closed on him. His reflexes were good, and he dove as if off a board. The car struck his left leg as he did, and he met the sidewalk pavement with his shoulder and then his head, but believed, as he was losing consciousness, that his shoulder had taken the worst..

     When he woke up confused and sore in a hospital bed, his parents, Carmen, sisters Sharon and Ellie were there, and the nurses began talking about excitement and doctor’s restrictions. They said some of them would have to clear out. Slowly they did, deferred to Sharon, and left the two alone. Edgar was intimate now with a broken tibia and ankle on the left leg and had a cast on, though his head was only jarred and bruised, fracture or concussion ruled out. He’d taken the fall on his right shoulder, that was bruised and sore too, but not broken or dislocated. The prognosis was that he’d be well enough in a day or two to be discharged, but would be taking things easy for some time.

     Sharon unsealed a bottle of water for him and poured into the plastic cup on the bedside tray. She said, “It was Strode.”

     “No doubt, but I couldn’t see him.”

    “No witnesses. No evidence. If they look at his SUV, there must be something.”

     “We can try.”

     “You’re not hopeful.”

     “Well, no.”

    “Maybe if we had…”

     “We couldn’t., Sharon”

     “How do we know when its revelation or what we’re telling ourselves?”

     “We can’t Maybe they’re the same thing.”

     Oh, my brother...”

     She didn’t leave until he’d had his pain meds and relaxed into a peaceful slumber .By then it was almost 6:00 AM, dawn entering as a bronze  promise to the sky.. She thought to wait a half hour for full daylight, but she’d parked on the first level of the garage, which was well lit, and at this time of day hospital staff would be arriving and leaving.

     Staff would be, but they weren’t using the visitors’ parking spaces. That section of the garage was quiet, empty of people and cars. Her car, the only one, sat alone in A18, but directly under a light. Keys and remote  in hand, she shut the alarm, unlocked the door, and got into the driver’s seat She started the motor, let it warm up a few minutes, and then, when she had the car in gear and started forward, he came up from the back seat .and said, “Hi Sharon.”.

     He had what she recognized in her rear view mirror to be a 9 mm Glock  pistol pointed at  her head.

     “What’s the gun for, Strode?. I wouldn’t be what you want dead.”

     “One way or THE other.”

     “I don’t think so.”

     “Drive where I say or find out.”

     To show he meant business, he smacked the back of her head with the muzzle of the gun, so recklessly  the gun could have fired.

     He said, “Turn right when you get to the street.”

     Edgar opened his eyes at 9:00 to a touch, a grasp on his good shoulder. Detectiove Dayton was in a chair at his bedside..  

    “How you feeling?”

     “Don’t know yet. Still sleepy.”

     “Sorry, but this is important. The rest of your family is in another room, and you’ll see them soon. Sharon didn’t get home. She’s missing and so is her car.”

     “It has to be Strode.>”

    “It is. The garage camera showed him picking the car door lock and going into the car. But night security at the hospital wasn’t watching the monitors. Somebody will get fired, but that doesn’t change things.”

      “Everybody, the court, the police could have done more all along. You should have.”

    “Mister Mullen! Judge Lemmond is an irascible old eccentric, should be retired. What I said about budget restraints is real. I might have moonlighted on it, but my time is constrained too. We did find Bollings’ car already, and there’s a fender dent. I have to take the clothes you were wearing to match fabric or paint. Your family brought something else you can wear to come with me.”

      “Go with you? I’m getting discharged?”

     “The doctor will release you within the hour. You’re banged up, but nothing bad enough to keep you lying in this feathery bed.”.

      “Is that what it is? I  want to help but I’m groggy from meds. You know. Stoned.”

      “You’ll shake it off as the day progresses.”

      “What do you need me so urgently for?”

      “Find her.”

      “I don’t know…”

      “Not yet, because you just woke up. We need you. You’ll know where he took her.”

     “The police believe in this stuff?”

       “When we think it’s real we do.”

      A right turn meant going toward I-44, which he told her to take going south, and after that it was a silent hour and a half to Lawton, during which time he slipped himself into the front seat as he kept an aim on her. By Lawton, her gas gauge was reading empty  She hoped he wouldn’t notice, but he found his voice again.

     “Get off where I say and we’ll get gas.”

    She’d like to do that downtown where there’d be people, but his choice was to go to the far side of town. It gave her hope they’d just run out first, but they made it to an outlying exit and got off, to two competing gas stations with mini-marts, and little else.

     “The one on this side of the road.”

     She started to pull into the self purpose pumps, but he hollered,

     “Oh no. We’re staying in the car. You think of giving any signals, remember my back watcher here”

     The attendant was a teenage boy who asked her to pop the hood. Strode snarled, “We just want gas. Fill it up.”

      He looked at them like---well, as if they must like paying more for gas, but that wasn’t any of his never mind.

    The fill-up was fast, Strode, gentleman he was, paid in cash, and they were on their way again, headed toward the Texas border.

      Wichita Falls, Texas was another half hour from Lawton. Past Wichita Falls and Tinker Air Base they took the old two lane and the terrain took on a flat, sandy beige, lunar quality, looked post-apocalyptic because there seemed no trace of a surviving humanity, just power lines and the bobbing mechanical arms of oil derricks. It was only the occasional approaching or passing car that confirmed a continuation of life.

      Funny how the mind distracts from reality. She was remembering Edgar’s account of hitchhiking to Dallas once on the same road because he couldn’t hitch on the interstate, how he’d wait fifteen minutes before he saw a car, but inevitably the driver would stop. Problem was, it was always a farmer or oil man ‘just going a piece’. The farmers declared as such, but, as it was for her now, no farms were visible from the highway.. Edgar thought he’d never see Big D until the payload ride came along and got him to Fort Worth.

    She could entertain such fancy because Strode still wasn’t saying anything. Then, twenty minutes south of Wichita Falls, he ordered her to pull off the road at a spot where there was a derrick and a corrugated tin structure big enough to be a hanger. He said, “Get out with me.”

      Keeping the gun low at his hip for concealment, he directed her over to a door the full height of the structure, which he unlocked .and pulled up. There was a pick-up truck in there, and it was set up like a house. He then led her back to the car, which they both got in. ”Drive in there,.” he said.

     And they were staying. He pulled the door back down from the inside, then secured it with a giant padlock.

     “Now Sharon,” he said, “I believe you and me can get to know each other.”

     The interior was paneled with tan plywood, overhead were arc lights, and one corner was set with a dark blue sofa, matching armchairs, a varnished brown coffee table, a big screen TV, a refrigerator, and several low cabinets A settled layer of dust covered everything. In another section not separated by any door or partition was a king sized bed, a portable wooden closet, a dresser and more short cabinets.

     Stride said, “Sit here in this chair.”

      He moved away from it so she would, and he continued, “I come here sometimes to do what I did last in the loft., but won’t today. You can have a drink though.”  

     “I don’t think so.”

     “No? Why not?    

     After the loft, she’d better not say it was because she didn’t drink---another of the few differing tendencies from with Edgar, who drank moderately.

      “Somehow not feeling like it.”

      She was convinced surviving would be a time game to engage him for as long as possible.

     “You told us a lot about yourself last time. You remember?”

      “I remember your brother had that gadget on my balls.”

     “That was just to give you empathy, Strode. Let you know what that feels like.”

      “You think I don’t know?”

      “We didn’t know, but you told us.”

       “I did? What did I say?”

    “You talked about your experience in New York, in that neighborhood---is it Bitter Hill?”

     “It was bitter alright. I told you about that?”

     What she gleamed was that his blackout memory was selective. He remembered what he could stand to, and forgot what he couldn’t bear to. And that he’d blabbed about more than he recalled, or wanted her to know about him, was getting him agitated.

     “It only made us feel sympathetic, you know.”

     “Don’t want nobody’s sympathy. And you are going to have a drink”

      He had a liquor cabinet, with a set-up and ice in the refrigerator.

     “I have scotch. Black and White, Chivas Regal. Soda mixer.”

     “Can’t we just talk?”

     “Oh, one will make you inclined to that. Some TV?

     “Sure.”

     He clicked it on with a mouse. Sharon suddenly saw herself in her high school yearbook photo on a full color wide screen and heard a female voice say, “…Oklahoma City woman Sharon Mullen…” before Strode shut it off.

     Glass was trembling on the mixing table and she could see his hands shaking. She wondered it that boy in the gas station in Lawton ever really saw her, or if he’d at least remember the transaction with a peculiar pair who didn’t want to leave their car to use a self service pump.

     She didn’t doubt that Strode was thinking the same thing.

      They were sitting in a booth in Donuts with coffee. Dayton refused to meet cop stereotype, got a bagel with cream cheese, and convinced Edgar to order same on the basis that he needed sustenance and not the sugar rush of an éclair. Edgar was spread out on his side of the booth, his cast leg elevated on the table.

    “Are you getting a feel for anything?”

      “Percocet’s messing with me.”

       “Don’t take any more of them. How many you got left?”

      “A few.”

      “I can hold them for an emergency, or you trust yourself?”

      “Myself.”

      “Remember what’s at stake.”

     “You don’t think I’m forgetting.”

     “We’ve gone to his house, have surveillance at every property they own here You think she’s still in Oklahoma City?”

     “I’m not sensing her presence.”

     “Does that mean you’re sensing she’s not?”

     “Only by implication.”

      “Try for a direction they went from the hospital.”

      Edgar was trying hard to concentrate without falling asleep. “Nothing’s coming.”

      “Let’s go drive around.” 

      He’d clumsily made a drink, came over and put it on the side table of her chair.    

    “Strode, I’m on some female mediation for cramps now, not supposed to drink.

Can’t we just get to know each other. Alcohol will be sloppy. I’ll get sick.”

     He moved to the sofa three feet away and sat. Giving space at least seemed to indicate he wouldn’t force a drink down her throat. At least not yet. He had the Glock now stuck into his waistband.

     He said, “So, I apparently told you my life story last time. Let’s hear some of yours’”

     She had no intention of following that up candidly. As a local he already knew a lot, so if she was going to be disingenuous she’d have to do it carefully. However, she could always create accounts and angst without end.

     “Well, you know, we’re Quakers.”

     “Like communists, aren’t you?”

     She was able to laugh.  “Why would you think that.”

     “Those funny ideas. A church that’s not a church. Like in China.”

     “In China, the state regulates the church.”

     “Okay, so you’re the opposite, right? Nobody regulates you but yourselves. Same thing.”

      “Excuse me?”

     “Not run by God.”

    “Oh, quite the opposite.”

     If he was going to listen to the explanation of that, she had indeed bought herself some time. Talk..

      Edgar was now sprawled in the back of the department Crown Victoria Dayton was driving. Dayton drove back to the hospital. They went into the visitor’s parking lot. A18 had yellow crime scene tape around it, a female uniformed officer there .She recognized Dayton, they waved to each other, and Dayton left the garage at the exit Sharon and Strode would have taken. They went straight first, came back to A18, then went right, came back to A18, went left. .

     Dayton drove back to the hospital, went to A18 again, exited one more time, and parked at the curb exasperated.

     “Nothing?”

     “South. They went south.”

      “Which way did they turn out of here?”

     “Not sure. But they went south out of Oklahoma City.”

     “The Bailey Turnpike would been a right turn”

     “That’s logical. I just don’t know.”

     “But you’re sure of south?”

     “South.”

     She’d, as best she could, explained her religion to him. Did Strode realize the thing he wanted she couldn’t give him---that she’d want him? That being so, she’d have to get him to believe she could, that the possibility existed.

     No sooner did she think that than he immediately made it more difficult by demanding she take her clothes off.

     “Strode, I’m…shy I m a virgin. I’ve never undressed in front of a man.”

     “Edgar?”

      “Only as babies..” And to advance the notion that she cared about his opinion:

     “You’d be disappointed. I’m not so beautiful naked. Flat chested. Ripply belly”.

    “I’d be the better judge of that.”

    She managed to smile. “It’s true. Too much of  Mr. Mazza’s  pizza.”

  . He pulled the pistol out and fired it into the ceiling with an ear ringing bang  The round left a hole that crumbs of particle debris fell from like chunks of a bird’s nest. Strode seemed surprised, as though the gun had gone off by accident. That wouldn’t be so reassuring, but she was brave because she knew he wouldn’t intentionally hurt her yet.

     “You might as well shoot me too, Strode. If it happens between us I’d want it to be right.”

     “I think you’re conning.”

     “Not in me to do that.”

     Or never was before.

     They were still parked in front of the hospital garage.

     Dayton said, “What you say we see what your girlfriend’s doing?”

     “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

     Dayton smiled. “Carmen from the hospital.”

     “A friend.”

    “Yeah…..I think maybe having her with you could enhance your craft.”

     “I can call and see what she’s up to.”

.      He dialed on his smart phone.

      “Edgar? What’s up?”

       “Was about to ask you that. I’m with Detective Dayton and we’re looking for Sharon.     He seems to think you can help us. You busy?”

      “No class this morning. Mom isn’t free today though and I have Georgie.”

     Dayton overheard., said “Diapers and formula.”

    “You hear? Can we swing by for you?”

   “Give me fifteen minutes.”

   Even for her survival, she was getting worn out talking to him. There was a gap and she pretended to be falling asleep in the chair, though with eyes open just a slit to ascertain he was staying where he was. She perceived he wouldn’t force her to undress because whatever he fantasized he might do, he wouldn’t be able to. She got that that inability to perform was his real issue, and continuation of her life depended on him not knowing she knew.

     She was snoring, and believing she was sleeping, he began to masturbate. If having her asleep for that was alright, would dead matter? If he reached orgasm and she knew, he wouldn’t have her in the world with memory of that. Was that why so many pedophiles and rapists killed? To remove the awareness, the memory in the victim who saw their shame?

       He couldn’t even do it. He wasn’t getting any lift off, was handling putty. Despite herself, like a kid at the worst possible moment, she giggled. For cover, she leaned forward and dropped her head onto the arm of the chair away from him, began snoring loud uncouth snorts in a pretend dreamland far from this potentially deadly failing stroker.

   Yet she couldn’t help thinking with contempt. “He couldn’t even get it up.”

    He came over and “woke” her up.

    “What did you say?”

     “I didn’t say anything.”

      “I thought you said something about me.”

     “No.”

     Holy Ghost! She’d have to watch what she thought? And what she thought, and hoped she wasn’t transmitting, was that if he hadn’t been ready to kill her before, he was getting closer.

      Edgar was still lying in the back seat, Georgie in front on Carmen’s lap. Dayton said,  “This is not good,  baby in front, no restraining car seat.”

      Carmen and Georgie were snug inside the same belt. Carmen said, “He’s secure.”

     “I see he is. It’s illegal though.”

     Edgar said, “It’s not likely a cop would give another cop a ticket, is it?”

    “That’s not the point.”

     “As long as it’s safe?”

     “If it was all that safe it wouldn’t be illegal. Your compass telling you anything new? We’re close to Lawton, and that’s almost out of Oklahoma.”

     “Keep going south.”

      “I’m out of my jurisdiction now, and Texas is way out. If he crossed the line that’s federal, but I can’t call in feds and local on premonitions.” 

    “We have to keep going south.”

        “Here’s the game now, Sharon. I’ll give you the gun and you have to shoot me to save yourself.”

         He came over again, put the gun on the chair armrest, went back to the sofa and sat.

        “If you don’t, I’ll take it back and use it on you. So you’ll have to abandon your convictions to live. Necessity of survival. Life is conflict.”

     She thought, this is bluff, a test. There’s no clip in that gun. When he last took one out, he forgot to clear the chamber. That’s why he was surprised when it fired. Maybe if she exposed this game she could neuter it.

     “It seemed like you didn’t expect it to go off before”

     “I flinched because I hardly pulled the trigger. It’s set so taut it goes off on touch”

      “It was like you thought it was empty.”

      “Not empty. Pick it up and find out. It’s me or you Sharon.”

      She was starting to believe he wanted her to pull the trigger because he could then engage in gargantuan self pity that she had been capable of killing him, and he’d have gotten her to contradict her principles.

     “No.”

     “I’ll take it back then. My turn.”

      She did pick it up. That she didn’t use guns didn’t mean she’d never been familiar with them. She was right, It was too light.

      “Might as well. No clip.”

    . “You don’t think I’d really let you shoot me.”

     “So all this was for nothing.”  

      “Oh, for entertainment. I have lots of ammunition.”    

       He crossed to her and took the gun.

     From Wichita Falls, on Edgar’s say, they took the two lane. Dayton said, “The farmers down here might not be paying much heed to what’s happening in Oklahoma. He could take this road to avoid people, worried they’re looking for her car now.”

     “It’s not that. We’re close.”  

     And at that instant, he snapped up in the back seat like an elastic band that was holding him had broken.

     “What’s wrong? You hurting?”

     “No something’s happening”

    “Oh, don’t say that.”

      “That driveway on the left. Turn in there.”

      Dayton did. He stopped far enough back on the long unpaved entry road that he could expect nobody inside the building ahead heard the car. He groused to himself,

      “My posse is a man with a couple of broken bones and a woman with a baby.”.

     Carmen said, “Edgar can watch Georgie.”

     “You armed?”

     “Well,…No, just moral support.”

    “Stay here. Georgie’s gonna need his momma a while longer.” 

     Edgar said, “This isn’t feeling right.”

     “You’re killing me.”

      He advanced on the structure like a shipping container with his pistol drawn, leaning his weight on his toes to minimize the snaps and crunches off the woodsy path.

     They watched, and when he got in front he stopped, then his tensed posture loosened, and he holstered the gun.

     “Edgar, come here.”

     Edgar painfully managed his way out of the car, with Carmen’s help got his crutches in place, and they both came.

     “It’s locked from the outside. I don’t know what we’ll find in there. He could have left her.”

     There was a huge padlock locking it, high up the front. While Edgar and Carmen discussed ways and tools to employ breaking it, Dayton took his gun out again and shot it off.

      He pulled the door up on the carriage .Immediately inside was Sharon’s Corolla, some living arrangements, and nobody alive or otherwise they could observe offhand.

Before they could go in to look, Edgar said,

      “Let’s go back toward Oklahoma City.”

     “You’re giving up?”

     “No. we have to go back to Oklahoma. When I bolted up from the back seat, it was because they went by going the other way.”

     “Why didn’t you say something?”

    “I didn’t know yet.”

    “Oh?...Oh, okay… Well, shit, let’s go back the way we came. I don’t have anything else to do.”

      “It’s what is.”

     .“We haven’t cleared this yet. I have to look inside.”

     Edgar was resolute that there wasn’t any reason for him doing that and wasn’t entering.

     Carmen said, “We do have to look.”

     “You’re doubting, Carmen?”

     “No, I know you’re right, but I’d have no peace of mind if I didn’t know she wasn’t here.”

       Dayton said, “Exactly.”

       Carmen tried to leave Edgar leaning against the fender, gingerly enveloping Georgie in his good arm, but Dayton commented, “I appreciate all your input, but this is a crime scene. I shouldn’t be going in down here either, but I have to determine she’s not  there.”

     From outside, they saw him turn on lights and look through the rectangular interior. There was only one door inside, which, when he opened it, revealed a bathroom. There were no other possible hiding places and Dayton quickly finished searching. When he came back, he said,

      “This is interstate kidnapping. I have to bring in local police and feds. I’ll call it in, but I’m not waiting. They have a good head start on us out of here, but---Edgar, do you happen to know what kind of vehicle we’re chasing?”

    “Afraid not.”

   “We have to chase what we don’t know.”

   “I’ll get a feeling.”

         “ Terrific.”

         “Can’t help it. You wanted me.”

         “I know. I said terrific.”    

        A little before the trio, or foursome, from Oklahoma arrived, Sharon said to Strode--- and was beginning to mean it---“Honey, I feel attraction for you, but this is all wrong. I’m a prisoner. I can’t make a free choice?”    
     “I can put the gun halfway between us. Then you can choose. Go for the gun or come to me.”

     “Don’t you understand? It’s atmosphere. This is like a warehouse. The air is awful in here. It’s dusty and hot.” 

   “What I usually use it for I don’t notice..”

   “Yes, but you’re not drunk now. And I’m certainly not.”

   “You’re telling me, Sharon, you’re only deterred by the environment here?”

    “Couldn’t we go somewhere more civilized? Even a hotel in Wichita Falls?”

    “I think statutorily I’d probably be at great risk checking in anywhere with you..”

      “Maybe we can find something along the road. Just not here.”

       It wasn’t quite a prom date. Strode tied her up, put her in the small back compartment of the pick up intended for a dog or small child or suitcase,                                covered under a blanket except for her head, and they left. He stopped just long enough to lock the shed again from outside, as Dayton had found it when he arrived.

 .

    “We have to remember what we saw.” That was Dayton, and they were on the forlorn two lane back toward Wichita Falls.

      “I was lying down. Couldn’t see the road.”

     .”Looked like some kind of farm vehicle,” Carmen said,.

     “Yeah,” Dayton agreed, “An old pick up. Metallic silver color but dull finish from age. Edgar, what’s the license number?”

      “What?”

     “Ha-ha-ha.”

     “Yeah, ha-ha-ha”

     From Carmen came, “Can we focus?”

    “Sure but this will help us. Keep us sane.”

     She said, “It was one of those pick ups with the small back seats.”

     “Good.”

     “Detective, do you have a family?”

     “Oh yeah .My son is a 10 year old sandlot champ, and my 8 year old daughter might become a gymnast. I want them to be a doctor and a lawyer. And my wife is a firefighter with OKC fire.”

      Edgar popped up. “Can we call you something besides Detective Dayton?”

      “Detective is okay for short.”

     Strode drove right past Wichita Falls, stayed on the old two lane, and crossed back into Oklahoma. He said to his---accomplice?

     “Like we never crossed a state line. Why would you have drove to Texas, Sharon?”

     She had to turn her whole body to look up and engage in a conversation that seemed otherwise normal.

     “I have cousins in Wichita.”

     “You didn’t tell me. Maybe we could go there.”

     “They wouldn’t be expecting such company, but they might be a reason I drove down here---there.”    

      But why would my car end up where it is? She knew the same question just occurred to him because his hands were shaking again. So was the steering wheel, and the pick up suddenly felt out of alignment.

      She said, “Take it easy, baby. I’ll tell them everything was consensual.”    

     “Where can we stop, Sharon?”

      “We’re back in Oklahoma?’

      “Right.”

      “Let’s get to Lawton at least.”

     “Lawton’s good or me.”

     “At least we’re back in Oklahoma. What are you sensing, Edgar?”

     “Lawton”

     “Still out of my jurisdiction, but better than Texas. You’re saying go into Lawton?

     “Yes.”

     “ Chief is gonna have an aneurism over this. I’ve gone rogue or he’ll say I have.”

      “If it turns out good?”

      “Not then.”

      Lawton  was good for Strode. He had a destination there.

     “Don’t know why I didn’t consider this in the first place,” he said to his girlfriend in the luggage space. “The Chain Gang’s old clubhouse.”

     Which, she found, when he assisted her to her feet to walk tied, turned out to be an abandoned  bar  with an old name sign designated it The Bare Ass and a

drawing  probably intended to pre-empt protests from the gentry, of a donkey with G string poking its pokey. Humor for a certain type. It was a street of abandoned girlie bars, obviously awaiting the wrecker’s ball. A pack of stray street dogs circled each other like clothes rotating in a washing machine, and, as the got out of the truck, they growled and sniffed  them from a distance. Strode had a key, and they went hastily inside.

    Once they were in, he explained the disarray---ripped vinyl booths, a stage with follow spotlights dangling above, neon lights that were, after turned on, burned out or continued flickering on and off---explained it with, “Used to be a strip club.”

     What else would be the fate of an old strip club? Despite her predicament, he was apparently of a mind they’d become consorts, so maybe she’d be allowed some democratic opinion.

     “This isn’t much better than the cubicle in Texas, honey.”

     She’d wanted to call it a crate, but she also found herself using those “love” appellations she’d always detested and thought trite, but  now felt.

     “It was premier once. Just needs to be refreshed.”

      He started the refreshing by taking huge chains from a closet and securing her to a steel stake driven far into a floor that was concrete beneath a worn carpet..

      “Strode, are we a couple?”

     “Of course we are. I’m just taking a precaution. Big transition we’re having.”  He added as afterthought, with an enthusiasm that indicated he hoped she’d appreciate the legacy as much as he did, “This is where they held people when they captured them.”

      “What did they do with them later?”

      “Ohh…Well, what happens in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse.”

      “What made them give it up if they loved it so?”

      “They all ended up in prison.”

     He seemed to forget about doing any more refreshing. She was secured by iron bracelets at the ankles and wrists. Her hands and fingers were loose and she had limited freedom of movement. She wanted his amorous attention back.

     “Strode if your Achilles’ heel is alcohol, mine has always been the Spirit. I’m not flat chested, just have small breasts, and my stomach’s firm and strong. I was just joking about that.”

     To prove her claim, she began using those nimble free fingers to undress. That got his undivided, and he came over. She was not herself .As an intelligent woman, she knew about Stockholm syndrome .yet it was happening even as she was aware it was. And he wasn’t happy, he was in anguish.  She comprehended he was having the same erectile problem She tried to help him overcome it. His belt was of the military web type with a buckle that easily released from a clasp. She opened it, got her hand inside. Probed.  To no avail

     “You fuckin’ bitch.”

     Me fuckin’ bitch because you  CAN”T?  She knew his lust was there, even as he couldn’t perform. He began wheezing and strangling with big disconsolate sobs, a frightening catharsis of grief. .He was angry at her, humiliated. This was a shame he’d want no one on earth to remember.

     “Coming up on Lawton, Edgar.”

     He pulled himself up to look out the window

     “This side of town.”

     Dayton took the first exit.       .            

     But the gun had dropped from his loosened waistband, was back in her hand. She wasn’t quite his captive now, and the feelings she’d had for him were quickly turning back to contempt.

     He saw the weapon in her hand and said,

      ”Just kill me, Sharon. Please shoot me. Have mercy on me.”

      “That’s what you want?”

       “Yes.”

      “If it’s what you want, why should I have mercy? Take these chains off me.”

      “I…I don’t have…keys.”              

    “Give me some room. Go back where you were.”

    “Will you do it then?”

    “I can’t think. You’re too close”

    “Ah, Sharon. What happened…”

     “GO over there!”

      He did 

        Later, he’d found a bottle of whiskey overlooked by whoever, if anyone, had cleared out the bar. “You sure you won’t have a drink, Sharon?”

     “I don’t drink.”

      “You did at the loft.”

      “That was soda..”

      “Oh, honey…”

      “Don’t call me that..”

      “If I go back over there to you will you shoot me?”

      “I might.”

       He took a one step advance in her direction, as a teasing gesture.

       She fired, not at him but toward him. Close, the explosion was deafening and it shook him. He stayed where he was then, and she knew then he didn’t mean for her to  shoot him. .He’d do what he did, die temporarily, maybe hope he wouldn’t return

        He said, “I don’t think you can leave me alone this time,”

      .“Don’t be so sure of that.”  Edgar had to be looking.

       He upended the bottle to his head, continued swigging until he fell over, then puked in the self induced coma. He gurgled from it, and even if she was inclined to, there was nothing she could do for him. Eventually the waterfall subsided, and she didn’t know if he was unconscious or dead.

        The whole street they were on was obviously set for demolition, as forlorn as the two lane south from Wichita Falls. If she were to do what Strode had asked, just to keep him permanently away from her---and that was against her deepest convictions--- she could starve. If he ever came to he might at least go and get food.

     One of the feral dogs had found a way in, It approached Sharon, sniffed, then went to appraise Strode, the prospect exciting him..      .

     ”Don’t you even think that, doggie.”

     Unheeding, the dog approached Strode, slavering.. More dogs entered, started that rinse cycle pattern of motion again, like a long fur dust devil, to join the leader..

     She had to stop it, fired in the general direction of Strode and the head dog. That startled all of them, backed off the front one, but they quickly found a new interest---her incapacitation.

      “NO, NO, NO. None of you are that hungry.”

      This time she fired into the group, still hoping just to scare off, but one yelped in agony and blood from the top of his paw where it met his belly spilled on the concrete. That stopped the advancing, and she fired several more times, into the ceiling, the noise deafening, The violence of the shots and zinging ricochets worked and they began a retreat to wherever they’d found entry from.

      .She screamed for help until she was hoarse and her throat burned, and then she could only wait. With no further signs of the dogs, absolutely exhausted, gun at the ready, in time she began to doze, fitfully at first, but then more deeply of fatigue. She woke up periodically, pleaded weakly again for help, and Strode never seemed to move.

   .   

  Edgar told Dayton, “She’s in one of these empty buildings.”

   Dayton called his chief in OKC, then told Edgar and Carmen Lawton was sending what they had, including a battering ram.

     Edgar said, “Fort Sill is here. The artillery center. The Army can come and shell this street to slate.”

     “I’m glad some of us can keep our sense of humor. Overkill won’t be necessary if I knew which one she’s in.”

     “She’s in that one with the donkey.”

     “You’re sure?”

     “Yes.”

     “He doesn’t know yet its over.  I’m going in before the cavalry arrives.”

     “Why’d you call them then?”

     “To cover my ass. I live in the real world. You and Carmen stay here.”

     This dungeon had a regular bar front door, heavy, but Dayton opened it with one good kick and went in brandishing his issued pistol..

    And came as quickly back because Lawton PD was coming with the sirens on.

     “I see two down in there not moving.  Edgar, Sharon’s locked up in chains”

     “Strode?’

     “Looking dead.”

      A lot more time had passed. Some dreams were so awful she couldn’t remember them, another was about being safe at home, her Dad asking her to speak, and all the while she hugged the pistol like a teddy bear.

     The voice came again, like on a loud staticy radio. Speak?

      “IF ANYBODY CAN HEAR ME, SPEAK.”

     Now she was awake.

     “IF ANYBODY CAN HEAR…”

     She shouted louder than she believed she still could.

    “I HEAR YOU. I’m Sharon Mullen. I’m here.”

      He came right in holding the megaphone and a gun, a young Lawton PD guy, other guys and women in uniforms with him, guns also drawn. With this unexpected company, she remembered her open blouse and began buttoning it.

     One of the females approached her cautiously and said,

    ”I need you to put that gun down.”

    She was reluctant to give it up. The officer saw that.

     “Throw it, honey.

     She was waking up more, getting she was rescued not dreaming, and flung the gun in a direction away from the officer.

    They couldn’t get her loose immediately, didn’t arrive with a locksmith or tools to break the steel bracelets. and when they saw Strode’s condition,  all holstered guns.

    The same female officer said to her, “Did you have to shoot him, sweetie? Your gun’s been fired.”

     “Just in his direction. Missed.”

     “He sure looks dead.”

     “Maybe dead drunk.”

     “There’s blood on the floor.”

      “From a dog. Shot it by accident.”

     “How long ago did that he pass out?”

     “I can only guess  Maybe ten hours.”

      She went closer to determine if a living or dead carcass, then screamed, “Bring the coroner in here,” as Edgar and Carmen came in with Dayton.

     Dayton shouted, “A coroner before he’s declared dead?”

     “He’s good with checking vital signs.”

     “Aren’t you?”

     “He has gloves and a mask, and I don’t.”

    The fire department arrived with a pair of giant pliers, and used those to snip the chains on her wrists. Sharon figured the Lawton Medial Examiner guy had a quip line he liked to throw out when he could because in his line of work he was rarely able to, and because his job was immediately made simpler: “We got a live one.”

        That got a few laughs, even a cheer. 

       “But he might need his stomach pumped.”

       Somebody said, “She says it’s been ten hours.”

       “Hose him down then and see if he responds. Or ice from7-11. Otherwise you’ll  need a tow truck.”

     They got him awake and coherent, if suffering from a monumental hangover. He seemed confused himself about just where he was and what all the commotion was about. You’d think Dayton was on his own turf when he got him on his feet and read him his Miranda rights, which she thought some smart defender down the line might discredit as not being enacted right, done by an out of town cop. Dayton was asserting his claim to this one. Of course he couldn’t have done it without Edgar, but he’d had the faith in Edgar.

     The Mirandizing brought Strode to an immediacy of situation, compounding his physical and psychic distress, and he said to Sharon,

      “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about all of this.”

      Like he got drunk and then the rest happened. Like the televangelist saying “I have sinned” when what he meant was “I got caught.”

      “Oh, I think I can forgive you, Strode. With time I should be able to. Oklahoma and Texas, the FBI---I don’t think they’re much into that.”     
    “God has his reasons for everything. I just don’t know why.”
     “I could tell you a few.”

     There was a logistical discussion. Lawton police had to transport him, book him. Dayton wanted pre-eminence. Oklahoma City TV crews were on scene, representing national stations. The feds had arrived. Dayton couldn’t stop Lawton from taking him, but he declared he’d meet them at the station house

     Dayton promised to deliver Sharon to the police house for statement and medical exam. Who were left in the bar beside Sharon and Dayton were a detective from Lawton, their forensics team, Edgar and Carmen.

      Sharon said to Edgar, “My faith’s been tested. I don’t know if I would have killed him to live. I didn’t have to choose ultimately.”

     Dayton said, “You didn’t kill him, so you chose.”

     “No, he made it easy for me by attacking himself. And it ended, so I don’t know.”

     “What about you, Edgar?  He hurt you. Can you forgive him?

     “If he’s paying, maybe. She has the wisdom because she’s older. She was born a minute before me.”

       “He’ll learn quickly in a federal pen you get what you gave.”

       “I’m still a virgin. I might have killed over that matter, but I didn’t have to find that out either. And for a while there he had me thinking he was what I wanted.”

     Maybe Dayton liked to mess with people a little sometimes because he said,.

 ,   ”Hey, Edgar, are you a virgin too?”

    “Why do you want to know?

      “Ha-ha-ha. Does it not occur to you I might admire that?”

      “No.”

      “No you’re not, or no it doesn’t…”

       “No, it doesn’t occur to me you might admire that.”

       “I might.”

       “Well, I am. So do you?”

       “Yes…Ha-ha-ha….No, I do…Yes…Actually, yes. It is admirable.”

        Maybe he was embarrassed, couldn’t believe he was sounding so sincere, so, she thought, it was possibly for cover when he added another laugh. Keep them wondering.

      Sharon asked, “Detective, have you ever been to a Friends meeting?”

     “What’s that?”

      “A Quaker service.”

     “Oh, I’m a Baptist!”

      “You believe in the Holy Spirit, don’t you?”

      “Of course. Amen.”

      “There’s no contradiction then. Carmen’s Quaker and she’s still a Catholic. An agnostic can be a Quaker. You just have to accept that the Spirit, or some spirit, can bestow revelation.”

      “Oh, well now.. My minister is mistrustful of any diversion, but I will think about it.”

        “You will”

       “I seem to you like somebody who talks to hear himself? What are you doing next Sunday? You want to go to my service?”

         “I’ll think about it?”

         “Really?”

         She smiled real for the first time in what seemed to be months.

         “Sometimes we do talk to hear ourselves, don’t we?”

         Funny, Strode’s postulation that if one of them wanted him both would was not inaccurate. Sharon, Edgar, Carmen and Georgie lived together after that. The twins sometimes had differing inclinations and opinions-- or similar ones--- but they didn’t oppose each other .They both were attracted to Carmen and she to each of them. They  cared too much for themselves and  each other for jealousy. Everything they did they tried to do with love and conviction, reconciled with the Spirit, and all they chose to reveal about domesticity was to say What happens in the home stays in the home At least in theirs’ And maybe it was nothing that happened. They just didn’t say about that either.

     The film production office was open again, staffed variously  by the three of them, and the publicity was getting them scripts submitted, actors dropping by, resumes from make up artists, grips, caterers, and---even queries about investing in their next project, about which they  wondered how to make it  sound they could be hard to get for that.

     And an e-mail from Dayton on a day when they were all three there: “We have a confounding case we could probably use your skills for. Could you be available to help us?”

     Their eyes met, three pairs. Carmen was finding that that ESP was catching. They didn’t have to say anything to each other. They all knew how they’d reply.

      Yes, they could be of service to Detective Dayton.