Chapter 13

I awoke with a yawn. I was comfortable and warmly covered. John must have taken good care of me last night.

LAST NIGHT!

Oh God! I remember not being able to breathe or move. I opened my eyes and was startled to see that I was in a hospital room. Why was I here? I looked for the call button that should be around the bed someplace.

That’s when I started noticing other things. I had straps around my wrists, chest and waist. Shaken up by these discoveries, I used the only tool I had available to me: I screamed at the top of my lungs.

That got a quick response for me.

Nurses as well as a couple of doctors and orderlies came running into the room. I continued to struggle with the bonds holding me in a place that I didn’t want to be. I could tell it was broad daylight outside and I needed to find John.

“Hold still, Michelle. You’ll hurt yourself.” One of the doctors told me.

“Where’s my husband? I want him here!” I demanded of them.

“I’m sorry, Michelle, you were brought in by an ambulance and there was no one with you. If you could calm down, I have some things you need to know.” He told me.

I tried as hard as I could to calm myself down but I was like a highly wound clock. I may have been in a hospital bed, but I was worried about my husband more than anything else. I managed to calm down a bit and nodded to the doctor.

“Since you didn’t see fit to actually check with us before you and your husband decided to start taking away our bread and butter by curing those children, we decided to take away your bread and butter. You see, the whole thing last night was set up by some of our more enterprising members of the profession. Unfortunately for you, we just can’t find good hired help these days. They were just supposed to take you to a pickup location and we would have taken over from there. But no, they just had to get their fun in before they did anything else.” He told me quite gloatingly. “I can’t say that it is a good thing for them though. I have no idea what your husband did to them but they will never be the same again. Every one of them has somehow been completely castrated and their dicks removed. All that remains of their organs is a pee hole and nothing more. Not that it matters to them anyway; every one of them is a living vegetable. It would have been more merciful to have killed them outright but at least they can’t turn against us now.” He seemed to care little for the ‘hired help’.

I couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen to me. They had me tied up so that I couldn’t escape, that was obvious. I hope John was able to remember my emergency plans that I had made for instances like this. I knew he was like a fish out of water in a city this size but I had underestimated the possibilities for things like this happening so quickly. My attention was distracted from my inner thoughts by a quick slap on the face.

“Now, if you would be so kind as to PAY ATTENTION TO ME while I’m talking to you. Thank-you-very-much… Now where was I? Oh yes, that’s right.” He seemed pleased with himself that he remembered what he was going to say. “You’ll be happy to know that your husband won’t be able to find you so quickly. He’s going to have a difficult enough time getting the police to even believe that there was even a call to the bar you were at, let alone that anyone even showed up. We had to stop you from continuing to ruin the racket we had going on. The trouble you caused us was nearly insurmountable but I think we can overcome it. Without you in the picture, your husband is just the simpleton that he has always been. Ah, I see you begin to get the picture! You were the brains behind the whole scheme to steal the money away from us. Therefore, that makes you most dangerous to us and it would be best to put you out our hair. If you aren’t alive, then you can’t say anything about us, nor can you do anything to us. So, I bid you adieu.”

He walked over to a cart near the door, picked up a syringe and filled it with a liquid. Once he had cleared the air out to it, he turned back towards me. He came back to me and swabbed my arm with an alcohol wipe. Cockily he said, “We must always be sanitary, you know.” Then he found a vein and slid the needle into my arm and pressed the plunger.

A burning coursed up my vein and was quickly spread through my body. My mind started going numb before I heard one last thing the doctor said to me. “Take care Michelle. It hasn’t been a pleasure doing business with you.”

Then blackness claimed me and I heard no more.

Chapter 14

John was very surprised that he remembered all of Michelle’s emergency plans in case she had been abducted, which he immediately suspected when there had been no police, attackers or witnesses after he came out of the bar. At her insistence, he had kept a supply of cash in his wallet (that he had taken to carrying, again at her insistence) as well as a list of phone numbers that he should call if something happened to her.

The very first call he made on his now-welcome cell phone was to Frank Tarkington, the officer whose child he had healed not so long ago. If there was anyone he could trust it was this man.

Even though it was past midnight, Frank answered the phone on the second ring. “Yo, talk to me Johhny,” was the instant response from Frank.

John had to be careful with how quickly he tried to talk. He needed to be understood completely. “Michelle’s been taken by unknown parties. They actually killed her before I was able to stop them. I healed her and then they took her away in an ambulance. I went to get her purse so that I could go with the police to meet up with her at the hospital but someone had taken it and stole everything inside of it and dumped the purse in the trash. By the time I got back outside, there was no one around. I looked for her car but it was gone too. I need some help, if you can give it.”

In typical police fashion, Frank got the location where John was and was quickly on his way to pick him up. Within half an hour, John was safely ensconced in Frank’s pickup and on his way back to his residence.

Once the two men were inside the house, Frank was rapid firing questions at John and writing down the answers. He also told John to start making the additional calls that were needed to follow Michelle’s instructions.

John proceeded to make the necessary calls. Fraud alert/protection was called in about her cards, bank accounts, driver’s license. John made one last call, which was the most vital one he made. He had Michelle’s GPS pinger activated. During the war on terror, too many soldiers were being abducted and killed because they were unable to find them in time. Someone had the brilliant idea of creating a device that when activated, would send out a signal that could be picked up with the right equipment and could guide rescuers to the precise location and recover them before they were killed. It saved countless lives in the war and it helped to shut down many of the insurgent cells that were doing the damage. Michelle had thought far enough ahead to have each of them implanted with a pinger. It was just a matter of waiting now.

While John was making his important calls, Frank was in contact with his department head to inform him of the abduction. Before the night was out, there was an APB on Michelle Coffee.

#*#*#*#*#

After all the calls were made, Frank set John up with a sleeping location and both of them went to bed.

It was shortly after 8:30 AM that Frank got the call they had been waiting for. Michelle’s pinger was found fifteen miles outside the city in an abandoned field. Frank got very quiet for a moment and hung his head. A brief exchange further and he hung up.

Frank walked over to where John was just sitting up and knelt down beside the man. Tenderly, he placed a hand on John’s shoulder, silently trying to put his thoughts together. “John, my friend, I have some bad news for you. They found Michelle fifteen minutes ago. She was dead when they found her. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

John held his head down and Frank heard a deep intermittent coughing sound coming from John. He thought John was crying. At least until he heard the most unusual sound from someone who had just been told their spouse was dead. John lifted his head in laughter…

He laughed for several minutes before he was able to stop himself from his own internal glee. He looked at Frank with a smile on his face. Frank was puzzled by John’s reaction. He thought the grief was too much and John possibly thought Frank was joking about it.

John’s smile was still on his face when he explained, “I’m sorry Frank but it’ll take more than you could imagine to kill Michelle. You see, last night when I healed her, she was already dead, but I fixed her so that she couldn’t be hurt with anything. Her body will repair any damage caused to it with in a short time. Normally, if she is killed quickly, her body will repair itself and restart living again within half an hour. She should wake up here in just a few minutes if she hasn’t already. Whoever took her couldn’t have know about it since I just barely did it. I just couldn’t stand the thought of her being hurt so badly like she was last night. That’s why I was laughing. I was relieved that she was found and was away from the people who could hurt her. I hope you understand.”

Before Frank could say another word, his phone rang again. He answered it and talked for a moment. By the time he hung it up, he was shaking his head in disbelief. “John, you’ll never cease to amaze me. You were right on the button. Michelle woke up a couple of minutes ago and she has been telling a pretty amazing story. They are in the process of collecting arrest warrants for the people involved. That is one very smart, as well as lucky, lady you’re married to. Keep a hold of her, you’ll never find another one like her.”

“You don’ know the half of it, Frank. But you’re right, she is one in a billion.” John smiled secretly to himself, though it was interpreted differently by Frank.

Chapter 15

I woke with a gasp for breath. My body ached and my head was throbbing with pain. I moaned in agony. I could feel that I was in a vehicle and that we were moving. I opened my eyes and I couldn’t see anything. I tried moving and found I was tied down to whatever it was I was on. I was getting really tired of some asshole tying me down.

I decided to go for broke and see what happened. It was possible that whoever kidnapped me wasn’t expecting me to wake up so soon after being sedated or whatever it was they did to me.

“God dammit you assholes, will you just let me go? I’m not out to destroy your livelihood. I just want to make the lives of some very sick children longer than they had.” I hollered out at the top of my lungs.

That got a reaction. Although not one I was expecting. The vehicle screeched to a halt, nearly rolling me forward from the momentum. I heard two doors open and close quickly. Another door opened up and whatever it was I was strapped to was yanked out that door.

I heard a zipping sound and sunlight poured onto my face. I looked up into the faces of two men wearing a coroner's uniform, who were white as a sheet. “Hi guys, would you care to unstrap me? I’m kind of uncomfortable here.”

All they could do was stand there gaping at me. Neither one said a word. One looked like he was about ready to vomit.

“Shit, Joel, I thought they said she was dead!” the younger man said to the older one.

“Whoa guys, I’m not dead. The creeps who kidnapped me just had me drugged with a pretty good sedative. Now could you let me up?” I asked them.

Neither of them paid any attention to me. “Bob, get on the radio and get those idiot cops here. They have a lot of explaining to do. We’re supposed to be transporting a dead body, not a live woman.”

Gee, how wonderful to be noticed for what I was! Needless to say, I had to wait in the body bag, strapped to a gurney for 10 minutes! I was fit to be tied. The police officers that showed up turned ghastly white when they seen me moving around. What is it with these people? You’d think they had never seen a person who had been sedated before.

Moments later, there was a massive flurry of activity when there were several more policemen as well as what looked like homicide detectives rushing to my aid. I doubt that I had ever had so much attention in my life. Everyone asked he how I was doing, how I was feeling, that sort of thing. I kept telling them I felt fine and nothing was wrong with me. Why wouldn’t they believe me?

One of the detectives brought a camera to where I was sitting now and showed me some of the digital pictures that had been taken a while ago. It showed what looked to be a dead body lying face down on the ground. There were several others he showed me that were clearly evidence pictures and finally one that showed the body face up.

It was me lying on the ground, dead!

Needless to say, I got nauseous and promptly threw up all over myself. How could I have been dead and now I’m alive? I’m not sure I’ll like the answers when I finally learn them.

After a few minutes, I decided that if whoever the doctors were that had given me the shot of whatever drug it was, he should hang for my murder. I started telling the detectives everything I could think of to help get the people arrested and booked for murder. I pulled a name out of the dregs of my memory. Palmer was the name of the doctor that actually gave me the shot. He had hidden his hospital ID under his shirt but a small potion of it had been sticking out and had shown his last name. I told the detective that I would recognize him if I ever seen him again but that he more than likely worked at the Trower Medical Center (where John and I had healed the children).

During the course of the day, I was told that John had been notified of me dying and that I was actually alive. I was going to be taken to another hospital for some tests and if everything was ok, I would be released into police custody for further questioning. I was going to sing like a bird for what they put me through.

#*#*#*#*#

After several extensive and exhausting hour of tests, the private hospital the police had taken me to cleared me of anything wrong. All blood tests failed to show any sign of poison or any other drug in my system. The police were baffled as well as the medical technician who ran the tests. Personally, I had no clue as to what was going on myself. The pictures that showed me dead sat heavily on my mind. I was starting to have some ideas as to how we could nail the bastards who did this to me so callously.

The questioning the police gave me afterwards was grueling to my mind. I had seen videos of police interrogating criminals but the victims were never shown giving their statements nor what was never shown was the literal hell fest that one went through emotionally trying to remember everything that happened to them. I couldn’t be much help due to the fact that I was unconscious for the most part. I was able to give great descriptions of the doctors and their cohorts from the hospital. Arrest warrants were forthcoming for as many people as they could get names for.

As a witness to my own murder, they were going to require that I go into a safe house to protect my identity as well as my life. Since I was supposed to be dead, I was going to be given a new identity so that I could be able to move around freely. Or at least as freely as I could under witness protection. Since I had no identification, I was going to be given a new birth certificate and a new name.

Because my skin could be termed as African-American and my name was as white as could be, I was loathe to change it at all. But knowing that I had to remain outside the clutches of the people who were out to terminate my life, I knew I had to change. In the long run, I decided upon the name of LaShara Mason since it sounded like a person of color’s name. I had been given the choices of at least a dozen names and I hated all of them. This was the lesser of two evils. My new birth certificate showed that my age was now 19 and that I had been born on April 1st. Only a fool would choose that date but it came with the birth certificate. I hoped John liked the new me.

I couldn’t help but wonder how he was doing. I hadn’t seen him at all since the night before and I was starting to miss him. I hated to admit it, but I was feeling really horny right at the moment and needed his attentions. I would have to wait until I saw him again.

By late afternoon, I was becoming physically tired and edgy. I was starving and needed something to eat. If anything, I was the police’s star witness and they were treating me as someone who didn’t eat, drink, sleep, pee, etc. In other words, I was being completely neglected. I raised a stink about not having anything to eat since the previous night and what I had had was thrown up a while before. The lieutenant in charge was rather sheepish about that and sent out for a meal for me.

By the time I had completely devoured the meal, I was still hungry. I didn’t know why that was, because ever since my complete transformation into a woman, I had had a very light appetite. I didn’t need to eat much to maintain my wonderful figure but what I wound up eating then was five times more than I had eaten since I was a growing young boy so many years ago.

Once I was finally sated, I then became sleepy. I was packed up into an unmarked police car that had darkened windows so that no one could see into the car and I was driven away from the police station.

The house I was taken to was on the complete opposite side of the city than I had ever been to before. If anything, it was more upscale than I had ever been in before. There were at least four bedrooms and three bathrooms in it. A large family room with a 70” plasma TV and surround sound theater system. The kitchen was huge in comparison to the size of my small camper, all of the camper size. I felt I could get lost in the house easily.

I was guided to what was termed the master bedroom. Master didn’t come close to a decent description. The King's bedroom was a better fit. I felt you had to be royalty to be in this room, let alone sleep in it. I explored around the room for a moment. I was checking out the huge walk-in closet that held a decent amount of clothes of all sorts, when I heard a thump on the floor of someone taking a step onto the hard wood surface inside the door.

I panicked, thinking that some how the group that had taken me and killed me had found me and were back to finish the job. I started to hide but I wound up peeking out the door to see who was there. I got the biggest surprise of my life when I did.

It was John!

Chapter 16

I flew out of the closet with a squeal and launched myself at him. As I collided with him, I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him as if my life depended on being near him. His huge arms gently wrapped around me and as lightly as a butterfly’s kiss, he picked me up and hugged me to his body and *KISSED* me like I had never been kissed before. My nipples went *BOING* and my pussy started dripping heavily.

I started ripping his clothes off as quickly as I could, and as well as I could. It was rather difficult to do, seeing as to how I was still suspended off the floor by nearly two feet. I didn’t care. All I wanted was to wrap my hot box around that wonderfully hard shaft of man-meat.

What seemed like hours later, I was sweltering in a post orgasmic bliss unlike anything I had ever felt before. I had had so many orgasms that my whole being was one massive tingling sensation. I was in heaven. I fell asleep in my man’s arms, at peace with the world.

#*#*#*#

I awoke well before the sun was up with a gurgling in my stomach. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong but I knew I had to make it to the bathroom really quick.

Since I hadn’t really had anything to eat for dinner last night, I had mostly dry heaves. This was the second morning in a row that I had been sick. I wondered if it was some remnant of being killed that was causing me to throw up. I was feeling better now so I just shrugged it off.

I went back to bed to share the rest of the morning with my wonderful husband. I still couldn’t believe how much different my life was now since John came into my life. I didn’t want for anything, nor cared for anything except to be close to the man that I loved with my whole being. My life was centered around being with him, sharing my experiences with him, and sharing my body with him. I was content for the first time in my somewhat long life.

When John finally started to rouse out of his sleep, I decided to help him into the land of the living with the type of kiss that most men would die for. I went in search of the one-eyed snake and gave it the kiss of life. It wasn’t too much longer before it had risen from its slumber and was on it’s way to devouring me. Or for that matter, me devouring it...

More fun ensued for us.

Once John was fully awake and smiling, I escorted him to the kitchen where I made him a breakfast unlike any he had had before. What the heck, I had a larder available to me that put to shame a 5 star restaurant’s food storage.

John was a big eater so I had to make a meal that could have fed half a dozen people. I ate a little but I wasn’t really hungry so I didn’t eat as much as I normally did. What was left went into the gullet of my husband. It seemed that if I let him eat, he could demolish a whole turkey by himself.

Once breakfast was done, I cleaned up our mess, humming in contentment the whole time. When had my life become so domesticated? I was acting like Suzie Homemaker and I was happy about it. I didn’t ponder it too long since I knew I had better things to worry about.

I sat down with John and told him about the witness protection issues I was going to have to deal with. I told him about the new name I had been given so that I wouldn’t have to worry about being sought out. He wasn’t too happy about the new name because it meant that I was no longer married to him, since I was officially dead. After all, the police were going to arrest the people responsible for my death.

I had to remain out of sight for a while. I had told John about the police showing me the pictures that had been taken at the ‘crime scene’ and about my recovery a short time later. I don’t know why he had that little smirk on his face. I got a bit upset that he was making light of my supposed death, when I *knew* that I had just been sedated with something that made it look like I was dead. He comforted me because he felt he had made me angry.

It felt so good being wrapped up in his comforting arms that I finally released the pent up emotions that I had been repressing for the last day. I sobbed and cried for some time. I was refreshed once I was done. I finally looked up at John’s face and saw the concern written all over it. He really didn’t know what to do when a woman cried in his arms. He would learn though that it was a vent that women had to have to release the stress they felt in their lives.

I kissed the concern off his face.

I knew he had an erection because I could feel its hardness through his pants. I let my hand wander down to stroke its length with a loving caress. How had my life come to this stage where I had to cling to a man to find comfort when I had never done it before in my life? I didn’t really care, it was just the old me voicing a concern. I quashed it with an errant flip of my mind.

I was feeling rather cooped up, so I went in search of the current guardian of my life. He was sitting in what might have been the den in a normal house, but had been converted to a security center so that he could keep an eye on the outside monitors as well as the internal ones. I hadn’t seen anyone around the house at all since John had joined me. The strangest thing was that I hadn’t really said all that much since John had arrived. I think it was the enjoyment of being around him that didn’t require words or sounds to convey what I was meaning to say.

I told the guard that I was restless and needed to go out for a breath of air. He tensed up at that. He signaled to me to wait and he put a finger to his ear for some odd reason. I belatedly realized that he had triggered the talk button his radio and was subvocalizing what he needed. A very brief conversation later and I was told that I was granted the permission to go out but that I would have to go with a disguise since I was still recognizable as I was. There was a disguise expert on the way to take care of that issue.

#*#*#*#*#*#

I hated the look I had been given. If anything, I looked more African-American than I had ever looked before. My hair was coal black and shiny with tight corn row braids through it. They had cut off nearly half the length of my hair to make the rows and at the end of each braid were multi-colored beads. I clacked if I moved my head too much. I had hoop earrings that were about three inches in diameter, each earring feeling like it weighed an ounce a piece. They were heavier than I had ever worn before.

I was given clothes that were semi-whorish but they said it was in line with the young black woman I appeared to be. Looking in the mirror at myself, I felt disgusted at the sight. My large bust stood out as the primary focus of my body. They figured that if there was anyone looking for me, they would notice it before they did my face. The corn rows were an added factor that served to render me invisible to people who might be looking for me.

John came up behind me as I was inspecting/hating my reflection. His reaction was one that I wouldn’t have expected.

“Ya look absolutely beautiful, Shara” He told me. “The look they gave you brings out everything that I love about you.”

A quick click in my mind and I looked at my reflection again with relish. I no longer saw anything to hate about the way I looked. If John liked it, I was happy to look this way for him. I gave him a hug and kiss at his wonderful compliment.

Once I did a quick primp and touch up of my makeup, I told the guard that we were ready to go. I wanted to do some shopping but I was vetoed from that plan. John thought it would be nice to go to a park and just walk around and enjoy the sunshine. The guard was reluctant but it seemed like that was in line with his superiors.

Off we went.

Chapter 17

The trip to the park was in a van that was big enough to hold John without having any problems. After we got out, the driver told John that he would be back in an hour or so to pick us up. We were also told that there were agents all over the park who would keep an eye on us in case of any trouble.

We proceeded to make our way into the park where we walked hand in hand for a while. A short time later, I needed a trip to a restroom and it took us a while to find one. I had to pee so badly that I was in there for several minutes. After cleaning up, I went back to join back up with John.

He wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I searched for several minutes before I heard a horrible gut wrenching cry of anguish. I sought the sound out since it was John’s voice that was creating it.

Several other people had heard the sound also and were making their way to a wooded area of the park. The wailing continued to get louder as I drew near the area.

A few feet into the woods and I stopped cold in my tracks. In front of me was a sight I wished I had never seen. John was sitting on the ground with a very young girl, about 8 or 9, on his lap. Both John and the girl were covered in blood. The area around them was splattered with the blood also. John continued to wail horribly in anguish.

Behind me, I heard other people come up and I heard a high pitched scream. I turned around to see a woman in her mid to late 20’s with her hands over her mouth. She was screaming into her hands. Her husband, or who I assumed was her husband appeared, out of breath, beside her. His eyes opened wide at the sight in front of him.

With a primordial yell, he ran forward, fists balled, and proceeded to strike John in the face. Several blows fell before he was pulled away from further assaulting of John. I could hear people talking on cell phones, some calling the police, some calling news stations. But I also heard the sobbing of the mother to the child John still held. I was sobbing too, not really understanding how my husband could resort to such heinous actions when he was so loving to me and to the children he had been healing.

Then I remembered the words that the police lieutenant had told me those months before: “I would try to stay away from this man or get away from him as quickly as possible. He has a family history of murderers and it could very easily run to him if you aren’t careful. I don’t want to see you hurt. Please take my advice and keep away from him.” Those words came so prophetically true. John had hurt or killed a little girl. How could I have ever loved a man who had such a beast residing inside him, waiting to get out?

I sobbed out my anguish over the lost love I had in me. My love had killed a child, one he had sworn to protect with his life. Suddenly, I stopped crying and looked closer at the scene. The parents of the little girl suddenly became known to me. It was Mr. and Mrs. Stanton. John was holding little Sarah on his lap!

Oh God! How could he do that? Wait, he couldn’t do that at all. He was too kind and gentle to harm a child, especially one he had saved the life of not too long ago. There had to be some other person around that had done the deed and placed it so that John would get the blame. Like what happened to his great-grandfather so long ago.

The police showed up quickly and proceeded to haul John to his feet after pulling Sarah off his lap. He was thrown to the ground by several officers and handcuffed as best as they could. I had had enough of the treatment to him.

I stepped forward. “Stop!” I yelled to them. “He didn’t do anything. He was trying to help her! Mr. and Mrs. Stanton, tell them he wouldn’t harm your daughter. Not after what he did for her. Tell them!”

I could see the puzzlement on the parent’s faces when I mentioned their names. They both looked closer at John’s face and realization dawned across their features. Then both turned to masks of hatred as they looked back at their daughter, lying on the blood covered ground.

“How could you do this you monster? Save her life just to end it yourself? What sort of monster are you? Why would you do this? Why??” Mr. Stanton yelled at John.

The police held him away from attacking John again. In grief, I knew that he would harm John as severely as he could. Retribution on the loss of a child in a horrible crime such as this was enough to push a parent over the edge of sanity and rationality.

My thoughts earlier about how John could do this came back to me. I knew in my heart that he couldn’t do so. It had to have been someone else who had done it but I had no idea who. If anything, John was trying to heal the grievous wounds that Sarah had suffered and it had been entirely too long since it had happened to here to be able to heal her. His gift was good but it wasn’t omnipotent.

The police hauled him off to a waiting squad car. I could see the car settle lower to the ground as he sat in it. An inward smile wondered as to how long the car would last before it gave out under his weight.

Everyone else was shooed away from the area so that the police could start their investigation into this brutal killing of a child.

Prophetically, I knew John was going to be held accountable for the murder, even though he didn’t do it. The worst part, I didn’t have any evidence that he didn’t do it. I only had my feelings and they wouldn’t stand up in a court of law. I had to find out the truth and who actually did the crime. I had so much to do and so little time to do it.

I didn’t even know where to begin…

Chapter 18

I met back up with the driver of the van within minutes of leaving the park. He had a deeply grim look on his face as he held the door open for me. I sat in the seat and held myself stoically silent. I was in a whirl of thoughts surrounding what it was that I needed to do.

I knew I was going to have to find a good lawyer do defend him in court. I knew that I would have to pay a lot of money to get him free. It was a good thing that I still had access to the money that John had made in healing the children. A sickening wrench of my tummy said I shouldn’t count on that being available to me, since I was no longer the person that I had been when I opened the accounts for the money. John’s name was on the accounts but my new name wasn’t. I would have to talk to the detective who was in charge of my witness protection case to see what I could do about getting access to the money.

For all I knew, it would be confiscated by the court pending the outcome of the case now against John.

I paid no attention to the trip back to the safe house. I was startled out of my reverie by the door opening next to me. He never said a word to me before shutting the door. He just went back around the other side, got in and took off, leaving me standing in front of the house by myself.

Depressed, I went into the house and found a quiet corner in which to cry away my hurt. Once I was done, I galvanized myself into action. I called Frank Tarkington for some information.

Frank was aghast at the charges that were being leveled against John. One of his co-workers had contacted him because of his friendship with John. Frank felt that something was amiss, also, when I told him about my feelings towards the possibility that someone else did the deed.

We had no where to go with this at the time. Frank came and picked me up to go talk to the witness protection people about the funds I no longer had access to. John needed representation and there was no way that he could get it himself. Because it was so late in the day, I was not able to talk to the WP people. I couldn’t even get in to see John because he hadn’t been completely processed yet. He was supposed to be arraigned in the morning. I could tell I was going to go through hell that night. Not to mention what poor John was going to go through…

#*#*#*#*#

I was up early the next morning getting ready to go with Frank to John’s arraignment hearing. I grabbed a quick bite to eat and finished getting ready to go when I got the weird gurgling in my tummy again. I barely made it to the bathroom before my breakfast came back up. I vomited until I had nothing except the dry heaves again. I think the whole thing that was going on in my life was causing me to have a sour stomach all the time. I was going to have to see a doctor once things settled down in my life. Hopefully things will take care of themselves.

Frank picked me up and I had a body guard with me from the house. He would just shadow me and keep an eye out for any trouble that might be brewing around, then he would step in to protect me. I hated all the trouble the city was going through to ensure my safety.

On the way to the court house, Frank tried to engage me in conversation of current events. He was talking about a hit and run on the far side of the city that left a nine year old child dead. The parent were grieving because their child had come up cured for leukemia recently and had been looking to having a long life and then some senseless tragedy had ended his life before it was time to end.

I really didn’t listen to what Frank was say, except with a polite nod or two every once in a while. I was too busy thinking about John and his predicament. I had missed him so much last night and I really wanted him back in my bed. My body had gotten used to having sex with him so much that it had become addicted to having sex. Or I should say, *I* had become addicted to having sex with him.

It took a while to get into the court house due to the high number of people attending. I was scanned for weapons, as per usual procedures. Of course, Frank had to check his weapon with the city police before he would be permitted into the courtroom. We entered and sat down closest to the defendant’s table. I wanted to be as close to John as I could get.

We had to sit and wait for several hours before his arraignment started. He was brought out with ankle chains, waist cuffs as well as elbow cuffs. They wanted him hog-tied and unable to move. I could tell the guards were terrified of him because he was so big. No matter how many times I have tried to tell people, he is a teddy bear at heart and wouldn’t hurt a fly. It doesn’t sink in and he is treated harshly out of fear. Was I the only person it the world that could actually see what he was? The answer to that is no, the children can see it when they talk to him. His size does intimidate them at first but once they know that he is a gentle man, they latch onto him with pleasure.

He was brought up to the table to be sat down. He saw me immediately and smiled at me. It was a tired looking smile as well as one that showed a tremendous amount of pair at what was going on. My heart went out to him. I blew him a kiss to show I supported him. I started weeping for him.

Once he was seated, the judge banged his gavel to bring the court into order.

“What are the charges for this prisoner, bailiff?” He asked.

“The charges against John Coffee, the Fourth, are as follows:
1 count of Murder in the first degree
1 count of Felony Rape of a child
1 count of Desecration of a corpse
3 counts of Assault on an Officer of the Law
1 count of Resisting Arrest
There may be other charges, Your Honor, depending on the District Attorney,” the bailiff responded.

My heart sank. They were going to throw the book at John. I just wished there was something I could do to help him out right now. I just wished that I had never wanted to go out to that park or anywhere else. I felt so guilty over this; I just wanted to die… I couldn’t help it at all; I started to cry out my guilt.

John heard me crying and I couldn’t even face him. His life was now in shambles and I was the cause of it.

“Defendant, how do you plead?” I heard the judge ask John.

“Guilty, Your Honor.” Was the reply.

I couldn’t believe my ears. I stood up and screamed, “What? You aren’t guilty of ANYTHING, John! Your Honor, he doesn’t understand what he’s saying!” I blurted out.

“Order in the court! Madam, I won’t tolerate any outbursts like that in my court. If you have anything to say about this matter, bring it up with the district attorney.” He said. He turned back to John. “Son, I hope you know what you’re doing. Do you need an attorney before you make any rash decisions like this?”

“Your honor, sir, all I can say is that someone has to pay for what happened to dat precious child. I’ll take full responsibility for the actions.” John said bravely.

“Were you offered any incentives for this plea, or were you pressed into making this plea by anyone?”

“No, Your honor.”

“Very well. A guilty plea has been entered into the court records. The plea was given freely and without duress. The plea has been accepted by the court. Sentencing will be in 30 days pending the results of the pre-sentencing investigation. Any mitigating factors need to be turned over to the court before sentencing so as to weigh in to the sentence to be passed. Case dismissed until 30 days from now.” A bang of the gavel and the court rose for the judge’s departure.

Before John was lead out of the court, he bent over and whispered to his guard. The guard looked over at me quickly and nodded. John came over to where I sat with tears in my eyes.

I couldn’t look at him, so entrenched in my guilt over what had just happened. I couldn’t meet his eyes. He knelt down on the floor in front of me. “Michelle, I know how much this is going to hurt you. Believe me when I say, I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this for the kids. Remember that from now on. I don’t have much time here, since they need to take me back to my cell. Before I go, I have to tell you that you need to read the letter that is in your night stand next to the bed at the house. It will explain everything. I have to go now.” He stood back up and shuffled his way back to the guard. He was lead out of my life again.

I just sat there and cried.

The whole time I was there, Frank sat next to me trying to comfort me. I was practically inconsolable. Frank finally lead me out of the court and to his car. The ride back to the safe house was done in utter silence. I don’t remember the trip, I was wallowing in my self-guilt. I was lead into the house and sat down on the couch in the living room. I sat as a zombie for so many hours that I had completely lost count.

When I finally took notice of my surroundings, the first thing I thought about was the letter John said was in my night stand. When had he put it there? I know he hadn’t had time to do it since I was so busy jumping his bones after I saw him again. I ran upstairs and opened the drawer he had said. Inside was an envelope that had a substantial thickness to it. With trembling hands, I reached out and pulled it to me. They shook even harder as I ripped open the flap and pulled the letter out. It seemed to be several pages thick. I started reading the first page.

“My dearest, darling Michelle,”

End Part 3