 
# Motivating Maddie: Sloth (Seven Deadly Sins 4)

## Text copyright 2012 Ruth Munro

## All Rights Reserved

## Cover Art Copyright R L Sather. Accessed online at https://www.selfpubbookcovers.com/RLSather

## Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

## Dedication

To my beloved son Joe who I admire because of his laid back attitude to life, for I am driven. May he always find the best balance between contentment, ambition and love.

## Foreword

I declare that I am the original writer of this book, wrote it in 2012, and claim all rights to it. However I want you to remember this book is fiction. You may meet some characters you think you know. They aren't them, but may carry superficial resemblance because people are alike. We are products of our upbringing, our society and our genetics. We are also all human, and so all flawed. I apologize in advance if anyone thinks they see themselves in this book, and gets a shock.

This book is intended to be humorous. However I reserve the right to fail in this book, and to get serious in the last few chapters, or at times during serious events. This is a Christian book.

According to online sources sloth is defined as laziness and can be both physical and spiritual. Some people, wiser than me, define it also as an absence of action when something must be done in a situation.

Proverbs has its own list of deadly sins and one of them is a heart that devises wicked plots. This one must be opposed by caring people. So often though we don't care enough to notice what happens to others or are too lazy to make the effort to defend those snared by a wicked plot. I have never understood this attitude.

This is why this book and this heroine were hard for me to relate to. In my real life I'm a teacher and I'm a control freak. I want to save the world, wear myself out trying to, and I admit to all these faults. I know us control freaks annoy the rest of the world, who prefer not to micromanage everything. In return those who aren't control freaks annoy us. May you find my heroine easier to like and get along with than I did! May all of you be non-control freaks who still care, as opposed to control freaks who care too much and won't leave anyone alone.

## Contents

Prologue: Close Encounters with Cars

Chapter One: Genesis and Genetics

Chapter Two: Synthesis and Sudden Death

Chapter Three Suspicion and Saving Face

Chapter Four: Adventures and Adversity

Chapter Five: Dissonance and Discovery

Chapter Six: Catastrophe and Coincidences

Chapter Seven: Disasters in dating

Chapter Eight: fact-Finding for Fools

Chapter Nine: calamities and Cantankerous behavior

Chapter Ten: Slip-Ups and Sincerity

Appendix: Bible Story References and Synopsis.

About the Author

# Prologue: Close Encounters with Cars  
Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you. - Augustine of Hippo

## Maddie

I was in an uncharacteristically bad mood. Normally I was laid back and I'd ignore what I couldn't change, but instead I was fuming when I got out of the car. Who did that guy in the pick-up think he was? What a road hog! Most people stay on their side of the road. Especially in suburbia, where kids race around like suicidal lemmings on bikes. Not him.

He was an invitation to road rage. I'd never been good at fighting anything, least of all temptation. I needed his address and my base-ball bat.

Of course the downside to that was it would require energy. More energy than I liked to use. Hmmm. Maybe I could send someone else round with a baseball bat, like my Dad.

I'd been right this morning when I'd wanted to call in sick. It wasn't a day for home visits, road rage and aggravation. I was too grumpy to want to deal with anything annoying. Perhaps it was because I was tired.

Instead it was a day for lazily sunning yourself on the beach. If I hadn't used up my sickies last time I got tempted I'd have a spare one now. I sighed aloud at the thought. It would take a couple of weeks before I could pull my next one.

I reached into the car, and grabbed my home visit kit. From a nearby construction site a series of wolf whistles distracted me. I straightened up and looked round for the stupid woman walking too close to a construction site.

Then I realized the whistles were probably for me. I'd forgotten how I was dressed. In my defense I was commonly dressed like this, although mostly I dressed like this on the beach, after work.

Two of the creeps were waving at me and whistling, and one other was clearly looking my direction. The third one, the one not waving now, looked like that construction worker I'd repeatedly encountered at the beach over several years, - the jerk who called me Princess Madison. The one who said he was a Christian and insisted on constantly annoying me. He could take his religion and shove it where the sun doesn't shine. Anyway, if it was him he was a hypocrite. Christians shouldn't harass or perve at girls; they should stick to their bible reading.

I sighed at that final thought. It was partially my own fault. I hadn't bothered to get into my nursing clothes since I was running late. I'd already known the woman I was visiting wouldn't care. She wasn't conventional at all! Besides, this would be my only visit before noon. I had my uniform to change into later when I got the motivation. Call me unprofessional, but this morning it felt like it took too much effort to dress up, and too much time. So I hadn't done it.

I'd merely showered and got into my bikini (my standard underwear) and thrown the cover up on. I intended to sit on the beach at twelve, catch some rays and eat lunch there. I was wearing a cover up, but it was short and almost see-through and when I bent over... But it wasn't my fault... It was beach wear and I was two blocks from the beach.

Besides it was their fault... Perverts! Men were all the same. In a perfect world I wouldn't have to worry about how I dressed. In my opinion men should control their inner caveman! Virtuously, I gave the workers the finger, and then content I'd struck my blow for all women everywhere I went up the path to the door.

I stuck my finger on the bell and pushed it. From inside I heard something fall over and then complete silence. It was disconcerting, but it wasn't unusual to come and find quiet in a house you visited. Maybe the woman had forgotten. Perhaps she'd been desperate for a quick nap. New mothers needed their sleep. This one was only one week on from the day she'd survived a horrendous labor.

I'd heard about the labor from my supervisor. She no doubt felt obligated to tell me even though the details were in the patient's file. She'd had a natural birth, if a little long, but then hemorrhaged and needed to be rushed to theatre.

I hadn't wanted to hear the details. Once you've heard one horrendous labor story, who would want to hear more? Honestly it was enough to put you off ever having a kid. I'd been smart enough not to object though.

My supervisor believed even one week on we should be looking for complications. Knowledge, she said, was power. I didn't agree. I'd found most people with complications had already sorted it by the end of the first week past surgery.

I wasn't usually needed for stuff like that. I was there for the kid and for breastfeeding difficulties. Why bother hunting for the proverbial nail in the haystack. The serious cases didn't ever get out of hospital till all their problems were solved. Anyway the mother was a grown woman, not a child. She had access to a phone...

I pressed the bell again. I could hear the sound of it ringing, and from inside I heard the baby start to cry. I'd woken it up. I waited at the door and thumped on it but no one came.

The baby was getting frantic. I hated hearing its cries, but I didn't know what to do about it.

I don't know what you think about babies, but I see them as little monsters. You heard me! Monsters! They look charming asleep, but they have this scream that can even motivate someone as lazy as me. They motivate me to shut them up. Anything for peace.

I couldn't see how any woman could sleep through cries like that. I started to get this creepy feeling that something was wrong. Maybe I should have listened harder to my supervisor after all. Maybe the woman was unconscious? Maybe she was bleeding?

The baby was hiccupping now in between heart rending episodes of rage. No one was responding. So with my heart in my hand, (I was after all dressed like a beach bunny not a legitimate home visitation midwife), I turned the handle on the front door.

It was not locked. Trying not to think about how stupid that was in this day and age, I pushed it open wide.

The baby was getting louder. I was relieved I could go in and rescue the kid, but also a little nervous. Other than the noise from the baby there was no sound. In fact it was almost creepy.

I took my first cautious steps inside the house.  
"Hullo... Is anyone home? Hullo?" I was greeted by silence from anyone old enough to answer, and a frantic redoubling of the baby's shrill cries. I took the noise as long as I could, but then I moved towards the sound of the baby. Any normal person would check on the baby first, not the woman. So I did.

The infant was in a bassinet in the main bedroom, so I picked the kid up. There was no sign of its mother. Its cries stopped for a second, then redoubled.  
"Give me a break," I told it when it started rooting around my chest, quieting suddenly as it searched. "Do I smell anything like your mother?"

The kid took no notice and clamped on through my cover up and bikini and sucked hard. "Ouch!" I managed to pry it off. The kid had a grip like superglue.

"It's not gonna happen sunshine," I told it, turning it around to face away from my chest. It wasn't pleased, and redoubled its screams. "Let's see if your Mum has expressed some stuff for you, and then let's find your Mum. She has to be somewhere around. Someone's been feeding you."

I could tell that from the smell of its nappy and the weight. The kid smelt disgusting and was sopping wet. I wrapped it in a nearby baby blanket so it wouldn't drip on me.

First things first, I thought. Shut up the kid before dealing with the excrement. We went into the kitchen and I found there was a made up bottle in the fridge, whether of breast milk or formula. I shoved the teat in the frantic kid's mouth without heating it and then walked into the lounge room.

Some women would condemn me because breast milk comes warm. The kid was too frantic to wait. Anyway, it wouldn't be me dealing with the kid at the end of the day. It would be the mother walking the floor with her child hysterical from tummy pain. Besides I still had to find her, urgently! Now where could she be? Why wasn't she waking up!

I turned towards the living room...

It was then my day turned upside down. I screamed, then clutched at the baby, the bottle and the blanket. I'd almost dropped them in shock. Then I ran. I ran screaming out the front door, through the open front gate and straight into the path of a pick-up. Brakes slammed. Two voices rose in male anger.

"What the hell?"  
"Lady if you want to kill yourself put the baby down first."  
"Huh?" I said.  
"I said--," the bloke in the passenger seat began again, but my brain had restarted. I needed help. I also needed someone to hold the kid while I got it.  
"Give me your phone!" I said to him.  
"What? ... No!"

The bloke driving the pick-up looked about twenty. The bloke in the passenger seat who was refusing to be reasonable and hand over the phone was about thirty and was furiously angry. I knew him. It was my nemesis the construction worker. Now there was a coincidence.

It didn't matter. I had no time for this. The kid was starting to scream again. Who could blame it? The kid was hungry. It only added to my impatience. Sure I could have got my own phone from my car, but it was ten steps away and his was closer!

"Take the kid!" I said, and dumped the baby in his lap, bottle, blanket and dripping nappy included. "Now give me the phone!" Fortunately he caught the bottle and the kid and had the presence of mind to stick the bottle in its mouth. It left him with no hands free. He still had a mouth though, unfortunately.  
"Look princess," he said, "if you don't want your baby there are better ways to handle this... Joe, give me that towel on the floor."

I ignored him and half crawled into the car through the open window, squashing the baby who objected. Unfortunately I placed my sparsely clad chest a little close to my nemesis' face. His eyes went wide. At least it shut him up...

I managed to grab his phone.  
"Give that back!" he yelled. I ignored him so he turned to his friend. "Do something!" The driver started to take off his seat belt, but I was already dialing as I wriggled out.

It rang and connected.  
"Yeah, hullo. I need the police and an ambulance," I told the emergency operator. I paused while I was instantly redirected. "Yeah hullo, I'm at 25 Newton Avenue and there's someone here I think is dead."

It was lucky I'd gotten connected so fast because the bloke who had now gotten out of the driver side of the car stopped in his tracks. He didn't take the phone off me as he'd clearly been intending. Instead he was shocked into immobility.  
"Holy hell!" he said. Who says I can't stop men in their tracks when I try?

"No I think she's dead," I told the operator ignoring both men. "I'm a nurse not a doctor, but I've never seen anyone recover from a wound that's bled like that... Plus her head looks... damaged... I don't know, she looks like someone hit her head with something big... Yeah okay, I'll go back in and check her pulse... Yeah I'll try not to do anything or walk anywhere that interferes with the scene... Yes I'll go straight back outside after I check..."

"So they are on their way. Thank you... No, she really looked dead to me... No, I don't think there's anyone else there. I didn't see anyone else inside... I'm sure! Yes, I'm really sure! ... When they come I'll be waiting out front on the steps. They'll be able to come straight in, the front door was unlocked when I got here." I hung up and handed the phone back to the driver.

Then I turned to the jerk in the passenger seat. The one I'd climbed all over trying to get the phone he wouldn't give to me. The jerk whose continuing encounters and repartee had almost made me give up my favorite beach. He was looking blessedly shocked. I hoped it lasted.

"I need you to stay here and feed the baby."  
"What? ... No!" I sighed.  
"Look, I have to check on its mother and there's no one else to do it. Try not to be any more of a jerk than you need to be. Be a saint instead. Feed the kid and wait here. I'll come get him when I can."

"Princess, you don't know me well enough to call me a jerk."  
"No?" I smirked. "First, you've annoyed the hell out of me forever. Today, you whistled at me with your idiot friend when I was going into the house." I was sure it was him on the roof earlier.  
"I didn't whistle--" I ignored him, continuing my rant.  
"Then you nearly run me over as I'm running out for help. Now you can't be bothered spending twenty minutes feeding the baby of a mother who's probably dead. All that spells a-s-s-h-o-l-e to me."

"Princess you don't even look like a community nurse. You look like a teenage beach bunny. And you have poor impulse control. You could have just yelled for help. You didn't have to throw yourself in front of the car."

"I have no time for this jerk," I snarled. "Grow a heart! Watch the kid! I'll be back." I turned around to run back into the house.

"You sure can pick 'em," said the driver to his mate, as I ran for the door. "I pray to find women like that and they drop into your lap."  
"In what alternate universe is an insane red-headed ditz like that an attractive woman?" His friend just laughed and said something I didn't quite hear about living at the coast and gorgeous women in bikinis.

I was fuming. Red-headed ditz? Why was it every single time I encountered him he ruined my day. The guy was a train wreck. If you got in his way he smashed apart your good mood like a car stuck on a level crossing! Now I thought about it that car earlier that had ruined my mood looked oddly like his...

I would have gone back and given both idiots a piece of my mind, but I didn't have time. I had other priorities. My life works like triage. I only deal with what I must. It's part of my life plan.

# Chapter One: Genesis and Genetics

Play is the beginning of knowledge – George Dorsey

## Alistair

I was sitting on my bed trying to brace myself when my Dad came in. He sat down next to me and he sighed.

"What were you thinking son?" I didn't answer him. I wasn't sure what I was thinking. I'd just thrown the stuff at my sister. She was annoying. It was her fault.

He didn't say anymore, just waited. I knew from experience my Dad would wait a really long time and meanwhile I was going without dinner. I was hungry. I hadn't eaten in ages!

"Why did God make girls Dad?" It made him smile, but then he sobered up.  
"Girls are the most amazing thing God made in the world in my opinion."

"Huh?" He smiled at my response.  
"God made girls so one day when you need to marry and are all grown and want children of your own they can do some really hard stuff you don't want to do."  
"Huh?"  
"Also some things about girls are really very good."

I rolled my eyes. None of that made any sense. I was sure he was leaving out a lot. I was sure God had made a big mistake. Girls were annoying.

"I can see you don't believe me son, but one day you'll think the same."  
"Uh uh, I never will." He just smiled again, but he didn't bother to try to convince me any further.

"So you threw the plate of food at your sister because she's a girl."  
"Girls are yucky Dad. They follow you everywhere and they wreck your toys and they stop all your fun."

"Well that is true. One day it will be your wife who follows you everywhere. She'll make sure you don't spend all your money on toys you don't need, that you're nice to everyone and you do your work so it gets done. It's a very important job she'll do Alistair and you'll appreciate her doing it one day."  
"Uh uh!"  
"It's the truth son. You'll even like your wife following you around everywhere."

I gave him a look that said that couldn't ever be true. I wasn't going to marry a girl. I was going to be a fisherman and live on a boat! There wouldn't be anywhere for her to put her stupid dolls, and her hair brushes.

"There are two things I want you to remember Son. The first is I'm going to punish you so you remember not to hurt a girl. You mustn't throw things at girls Alistair. You mustn't hit them, and you mustn't shout horrible things at them, and make them cry." I sighed.

That was a lot of rules. That was more than two. Why were there so many rules? Why couldn't he count?

I knew better than to say that out loud, or to tell him I could count. It would not end well. Dad was always right, even when he was wrong. It was a rule about Dad's. You didn't ever argue with them.

I sighed again before I faced up to what I had to do.  
"What's my punishment?" I asked him morosely.  
"Oh... You're going to stay in your room while we eat dinner and you're gonna pray son. You're gonna say sorry to God for what you did to your sister, and you're going to talk to God and ask Him to help you next time you want to hurt a little girl."

"Won't I get dinner?" I would die!  
"Sure, after you can tell me what you prayed."  
"Oh." This was bad. I didn't like to pray. Besides I only knew one prayer. I was sure my Dad wouldn't accept – 'Now I lay me down to sleep'...

"The second thing is I want you to ask God about a future wife for you. Right now you don't want that wife, so I want you to start praying now about what kind of wife you should have. I want you to think about what you want your wife to be like so you won't get angry at her. Then I want you to pray and ask God for a wife like that when you are a man." That was a really long prayer. This was so unfair!

"So I can ask God to make sure my wife hates dolls and likes to play with frogs and fish?" I had to make sure I could do this right. I knew my Dad. If I didn't get the prayer right he would only make me do it again.  
"You can ask Him anything you want Son. He'll only listen if it's a good thing."  
"Okay Daddy."

I had him now. If I could pray about anything I liked then I could ask for what I really wanted. He stood up.  
"I'll see you in the kitchen after you've prayed."  
"Okay Daddy."

So he walked out of the room leaving me with only one dilemma. I still didn't see why God liked girls. My sisters were so annoying. There was nothing good about them.

I knew Dad was right though. It was bad of me to want to hit them and yell at them and throw stuff at them. I hated when they did that to me.

I thought for a while and then I prayed. What I prayed was very simple, but unknown to me someone upstairs was listening. Now I can laugh, but I am also awed that He listened to my insane requirements.

"God," I said. "I'm sorry for hurting her and I'm sorry I hate girls. I think they are yucky. One day my Dad says I'll have to marry one. I don't think I'll like that unless you make her like what I like. I like spending hours in the sand and in the water. I like to fish too. If she's gonna follow me around she'll have to like doing that too..."

"I don't like it when girls talk too much. So could you make her very quiet...? And could you make her sleep a lot, so when I need some peace she'll fall asleep...?"

"I think that's all I want... Oh wait, can you make her hate dolls too God because dolls are really annoying. I don't want to have any in my house."

That, right there, is how I sealed my fate. Luckily for me I was still a kid, and growing up was still a long time away. I would need the time to mature, and to appreciate with the hindsight of years, just how great an answer to prayer was coming my way. I like to think now, that was the year she was born...

# Maddie

When I grew up I wanted to be a princess. Other girl's first ambitions were to be mummies, or nurses, or movie stars. Some strange girls I met wanted to be astronauts or world explorers. Not me.

To my mind princesses had the best life. They had gorgeous clothes which mysteriously appeared without them having to go shopping. They got rescued from sticky situations by princes without lifting a fingernail.Lots of times the princess slept through most of the rescue. Best of all they were rich so that meant they had everything they wanted. Princesses, I thought, could laze on a beach all day if they wanted, and they never ever had to make their own beds. I blame my dad a little. He liked to call me princess. It stuck.

We lived near the beach from when I was five. Before that we lived in some tiny flat with windows too high to look out. My dad was always too busy to do more than work late. Many things changed the year I turned five.

The first thing that changed was my Granddad and Grandma died. They had an accident on the way home from our New Year's day celebration, and I overheard Dad saying it was a blessing. It certainly was a blessing for us, but I don't think that's what he meant. Blessings don't make Mothers cry incessantly, and Dad's say 'there, there' continuously. I remember we moved into their house soon after. It forced Dad to find a new job. He liked this one much better.

The second thing that changed that year was Mum got enormously fat. She asked me if I wanted a little brother or a little sister. I told her boys were nasty, and not to bring one home. She hadn't given birth when I started school in late January, but she brought home the little brother I didn't want sometime in March. We were only three months into the year and everything in my life had changed.

Some little girls are half in love with their Daddy's, or the little blonde prankster at school who makes everyone laugh... Not me. I was in love with the sand, the sun and the water.

I did like my Dad. There wasn't any point in loving him though. Mum said he wasn't worth the trouble because he wasn't a prince like I wanted. Besides he was already taken – by her.

It was easier to love the beach than any living person. Mind you that may have been because it was the place Daddy took me at the end of every day when Mum had had enough of us kids and needed a break.

By the time I was eight I had decided she was right. The beach was better than Dad, and sometimes I thought it was better than any prince. It was more fun. It didn't make you go to bed early without supper, and you didn't have to kiss it.

My awful little brother liked it too. He liked to pretend he was Prince Eric from our favorite movie, 'Sleeping Beauty'. (I know it's an odd choice for a little boy but I wasn't giving him the remote control to choose, so it's all he knew.) He'd run madly at the waves and rocks pretending they were evil villains and fighting them off with his trusty imaginary sword. The waves always won.

I preferred to be Princess Aurora, who as far as I could tell did nothing but swan around singing and dancing with animals and being rescued after sleeping for some time in a gorgeous bed. So on the beach I would lay back on the sand at the edge of the surf, and pretend it was Aurora's bed, which had a thick, comfortable looking mattress. The waves would try to pick me up and carry me away, but I would lay there as long as I could. To me it was heaven at the end of the day.

Possibly, the love of the beach was genetic. Dad had it too. Our conversations frequently proved it.  
"What are you doing Daddy?" I'd say, when the waves tried to drown me and I sat up spluttering.  
"Nothing," he'd reply.  
"Then why are you holding that pole in the water."  
"You never know pumpkin. If I stay still enough and you stay quiet enough we might catch a fish."  
"You say that everyday Daddy, but you never catch a fish. I don't think there's any fish on this whole beach. Or maybe fish don't like poles..."

"You have to promise me something pumpkin."  
"Okay Daddy."  
"I have to tell you what it is before you promise it."  
"But I already know what you're gonna say. You always say don't tell Mummy I'm doing nothing or she'll give me a job. I always say okay Daddy. Then you say run away and play, and I say--"  
"That's right pumpkin. You remembered."  
"I always remember Daddy. I always remember doing nothing is the best fun. I just don't know why you gots to do nothing with a pole in the water."

"How else would I catch a fish?"  
"What do you want to catch a fish for? Fish look stupid and they make ugly faces when they open their mouths like this." He laughed when I demonstrated it and made me do it again.  
"I don't want to catch a fish pumpkin. If I caught one I would just throw it back."  
"Why would you throw it back? Don't you like fish?"

I was interested in this because I didn't like to eat fish either, but Daddy had never not eaten dinner when there was fish. He always came late to the table when I was already in bed. Maybe Daddy really didn't like eating fish either.

"Fish belong in the water, where they don't have to be cleaned, just like you and I belong on the beach in the water doing nothing."  
"Okay Daddy."  
"Now settle down princess. The fish will hear you."

That made no more sense than before. I was sure fish didn't have ears, but there was no point saying that. He'd just repeat himself with that same grin on his face. It was almost like he enjoyed confusing me.

As I grew the beach only got more interesting. Daddy didn't just teach me to be quiet around fishermen. He also taught me to surf from about nine, taking me out on the board with him on weekends at first and helping me learn to stand and ride it with him. We had to wait for weekends so Mum could watch my horrible little brother.

The feel of that board flying over the water effortlessly, held in my father's arms, when I got my balance right, was the best feeling I'd ever had. I would have changed my ambition to becoming a surfer if it hadn't been such hard work. I still liked surfing, but at first I only liked it on days when Daddy was out there with me doing the work.

I never really discovered boys. They discovered me. The first boy in my life was my little brother Tom. He was creepy. I'd go into my room at night and find he'd left me the present of a slug on my pillow, or some smelly oyster shell complete with the dried out and stinky occupant of the shell.

He didn't seem to get the fact that princesses weren't attracted to slugs, or oysters. They weren't fascinated by smelly sea creatures; not even fish. They certainly didn't sleep on pillows that reeked. They shouldn't have to change their bed-linen after a weird brotherly present.

The worst thing about my brother was what he did to my dolls. At the beach he sent them sailing out to sea draped in seaweed to test his new toy boat. At home I'd just get them all dressed up for a princess wedding, and he'd scream up, grab the bride and launch her off the second story verandah on his plane. He'd tell me she was leaving on a jet plane or a broomstick. (He got Aurora confused with Barbie and the wicked witch because he was dumb).

When I got her back her dress was always ruined and she needed another haircut. Haircuts and dressing up dolls took a lot of work. I learnt having a doll was too aggravating to be worthwhile. I decided I hated the frilly things.

Being a boy he never learnt any different and complaining to my parents just made them laugh at his antics. In self-defense I made Mum buy me a lock for my door, mailed all my dolls to the Salvation Army, and I got a journal where I could record his evil deeds and blackmail him later.

He paid me by being my slave. He was never smart enough to realize the folks didn't care about his wild ideas, or my aggravation. I learnt to collect dirt on people who annoyed me. I learnt observation of people paid, especially if you could exaggerate the story and make it sound worse than it was. The art of exaggeration is such a useful skill. I also learnt some boys were very stupid. It's been useful knowledge ever since.

The second boy was little Arthur Martin. Now there was a prince! The boy pushed me over the first time he met me and I cracked my front tooth on the pavement. I was six. Fortunately the tooth was loose anyway. At least I got money when it fell out.

I hated boys from then on. My brother had already convinced me boys were creepy and annoying. I didn't realise some boys were worse than others. Surely, I had thought naively, all boys were just like my brother...

Yet Arthur was worse. Luckily he didn't have the excuse of being family so I didn't have to even pretend to like him. Unfortunately I could never blackmail him into leaving me alone.

He had no sister to collect the information, and no shame. He would just laugh and pull my hair if I accused him of something. He preened when I got my accusations right. What kind of a person was proud of being bad?

He would try and kiss me. He always tried to catch me in 'catch and kiss'. I always tried to hit him.

Yet he taught me a lot. I learnt not to say anything about my accusations until I could work out how to make someone pay. I learnt to dob only when I was desperate to save myself from trouble. He taught me all over again that sometimes saying nothing was the best thing.

Our relationship didn't improve. He told me at ten he was going to marry me. I tried not to puke. Arthur always had boogers up his nose and skinned knee caps. It wasn't the worst of it. He had a black front tooth. I am not kidding you. I'm sure the boy had never cleaned his teeth.

For a whole year I used to wake up screaming he was the creepy villager Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. He was my nightmare. Fortunately Arthur fell in love with another woman at age eleven, and the rest as they say is history.

After that my relationships with boys went downhill from there. It wasn't that I hated them. I'd just never found a real use for them.

I am that rarest of red-heads, my hair is more like red-gold. In the sun it looks red like fire, but I have the advantage that my skin tans easily. Before I was twelve I was just called a 'wranger'. That's the Aussie nickname for any red head.

After that the boys suffered from 'cat-got-your-tongue-itis' when they first met me. It was annoying. I felt like I was surrounded by a sea of Arthur's clones.

On the beach something about the sun on my hair and my face drew all eyes. From twelve I learnt to go to the beach surrounded by girls or with my Dad. I never went alone. Guys would come up to my Dad and subtly try to gain an introduction from when I was thirteen. They were poor estimators of age, and apparently my beauty was now so great they could face braving the terror of my Father.

You would have to see my Dad to understand. He was a very strong bloke, hugely muscled. He never took mercy on the boys at all. My Dad would raise one brow, but never speak my name or invite them into conversation. Occasionally he'd frown and then they'd run away.

That was the summer he taught me how to play baseball with big rocks. Not with pebbles, rocks! It gave me a hefty swing. I could hit the rocks far out to sea.

Sometimes when he looked at those boys I could see him measuring their heads as if they were something he wanted to use to practice his aim. Yes I knew what he was up to. He was always very honest about his motives. He told me,  
"A baseball bat is a good weapon for every girl to have. It isn't just useful for hitting a ball!" Then he'd look at some boy who was being annoying meaningfully.  
"Ok Daddy!" I'd reply. You see my Dad was a smart man. He tapped into my dislike of boys every time he said it.

When I wanted to go to the beach with my friends alone, he'd say,--  
"Sure honey, but take your baseball bat." That was when it would get annoying because my friends were particular about our fashion accessories.  
"But Dad, Jennifer and Alana don't like playing baseball."  
"So? ... What if they go off with their other friends and you have nothing to do?"

"Okay Daddy." It was always easier not to argue. It got me what I wanted. Besides even if Jennifer and Alana didn't like baseball I'd learnt to feel more secure with the bat with me. My Dad might be annoying when he constantly reminded me, but that didn't mean he was wrong.  
"And remember, I'll be up the beach in fifteen minutes, so stay there and I'll take you surfing."  
"Okay Daddy."

Of course not all boys were stupid enough to approach him. Some of them actually learnt from their mistakes. They were the dangerous ones.

More often as I got older, he wasn't with me and I was alone with my friends. Then they would approach directly. I learnt a lot from those times.

Some believed firmly in a sideways approach. They reminded me of crabs. I lost count of the boys that cannoned into my surf-board, innocently fell over my bikini clad body while pretending to play with Frisbees, or came up and sat down beside me spinning some yarn born out of sheer desperation, trying to get my attention.

It was best never to notice them unless I had to avoid a collision. It was better not to talk to them. It was better still to feign sleep than be polite and listen. It was important to pretend I was the most unobservant girl on the beach, and the sleepiest. Something about pretending to sleep on a beach full of people kept everyone away. Sleeping was a sign to go quietly away. It was a skill I needed to acquire.

That was the disadvantage of hanging with girls and not my Dad, who could repel all annoyances with a simple eyebrow quirk. The boys were all lame and excessively irritating. The other girls didn't want their Dad around. They wanted the boys. I was pleased to let my friends have the boys and obligingly pretended to sleep so they got the attention they wanted. Boys I found would readily settle for the consolation of another girl in a bikini.

Only when my Dad was there did I really have peace to enjoy the sun and surf. I was holding out for my prince. I wasn't accepting substitutes. Rich wasn't enough, good-looking was passé, personable wasn't anything special, only my prince would do. Of course, my prince would surf and fish!

I think I was fourteen when the dream of marrying a prince died. No man or boy caused the death of my dream. My prince didn't die hard, disillusioning me. I didn't suddenly wake up one morning and fall in love.

In truth it was a gossip magazine that changed my mind. The gossip magazine was discussing the death of Princess Diana and why she would be missed. It was the first time I realized princesses actually worked, or died. Then I saw the picture of the man she'd been married to long ago, read the story of her tragic past, and rethought my priorities.

I hadn't realized real life princes were so ugly or so old or so unfaithful. My Dad wasn't like that towards my Mum. It wasn't just that he was good looking, and still looked young at forty-two, but he was also in love with my Mum. He never even looked at anyone else. I decided I could do better.

That was the year I had to pick a career goal at school and start working towards it. I talked it over with my new friend Geena.  
"I don't want to work. I just want to marry someone with money."  
"Good luck," she scoffed. "There aren't that many millionaires. Everyone has to work or the country will go broke. Dad says whatever I do I'm not to be a dole bludger. He will disown me. He says he won't disown me if I'm a stripper, or a prostitute, but he won't accept anyone who's a bludger!"

Geena's dad was a very interesting bloke. Geena really didn't understand her father. She believed every word that came out of his mouth. I liked to think I saw him a little bit more clearly than my friend.

Her Dad had a death wish even talking about that kind of stuff to Geena. His wife could hit harder than he did, and frequently had. I'd seen her slap him and swear at him in Czech. She, like my Mum, was the scary one in the house.

I was also familiar with his much expressed belief that women only had three uses – in the kitchen, in the bedroom, or as objects of ridicule! It wasn't like he was a quiet bloke. Of course I was about ninety percent certain he wasn't serious. He had the same look on his face most of the time he was talking as my dad always had on his.

"But I'm lazy and I want an easy job. It also has to fit my talents. I'm not that talented."  
"That's so true," Lori agreed. Lori was the sensible one of the three of us. "You can't sing, even if you can dance a little. You look good in a bikini though. Maybe you should be a model."  
"I can't do that. You know I like to eat. I can't stand wearing make-up either. It makes my skin itch!"  
"Maybe you could pose on a surfboard, or do commercials for TV. That would be so cool Maddie!" It always took Geena a while to keep up with the conversation; she always took a while to exhaust all the possibilities.  
"No way! You know I hate people looking at me. There'd be too many there. I couldn't do it!"  
"She's right," Lori finally agreed. "Besides they'd start filming and she'd fall asleep. My cousin Hana is a model. She says they get up at 3am."

"3 am? I can't wake up before 8! I've tried. Dad always wants me to get up and catch waves and watch the sun rise over the water. I can't do it."  
"You could become a pro surfer."  
"No I couldn't. That chick Jenny is training to be a surfer. She runs 20 km a day!"  
"No one runs 20km a day!" Lori argued.  
"She does. She told me she runs 20k, swims 5, and that's only the easy stuff. Sometimes she has to run with a boat on her head."  
"Are you serious? You can't do that. It would mess with your hair," Geena exclaimed. My friend Geena spent more time on her hair and her face than I thought was normal.  
"I don't care about my hair," I said. "It's the hard work."

"Well what about a life guard?" Lori suggested.  
"You do have the beach skills," Geena agreed.  
"Are you sure they have female life guards? I've never seen any on our beach."  
"Yeah there was one where we went on holiday at Bondi. She was so cool. Dad said I could become one if I wanted, but I can't surf."

Trust Geena's Dad to say that. I could imagine his reasoning for Geena becoming a life guard. It would have nothing to do with reality and everything to do with teasing his wife. It would have involved wearing bikini's all the time and looking amazing. We needed a reality check in this conversation. We needed to remove Geena's Dad's opinions from it.

"Except they don't sit around and laze on the beach. They all spend hours searching the water, which looks so boring. Besides, when they do rescues they have to give mouth to mouth \- after someone's puked up!  
"They have to be really fit too," said Lori. "I don't think Maddie wants to work that hard."  
"No I definitely don't."

We were quiet awhile. Finally Geena spoke again.  
"You could get pregnant and make the guy pay child support!" Maybe I was wrong about her dad, maybe he thought women had a fourth use – breeding kids. Honestly sometimes I wondered what Geena and I had in common. My dad's biggest fear was some guy would get to me and get me pregnant. Yet Geena had no fear of boys at all.

"I'm never having kids," I replied.  
"Why not?" Geena was appalled by my attitude. I guess coming from a family of eight, and with a mother who was always pregnant or raising a toddler she came by her attitude to babies naturally.  
"Are you kidding? Have you even smelt a dirty nappy?"  
"But babies are so cute!" Geena replied.  
"They are a lot of work though. If Maddie doesn't want to work hard she shouldn't have a baby."

We were flummoxed and sat quietly for a while. It was Lori who solved the problem for both of us in the end. Geena might be limited in her choice of desired occupations, but we did well at school.  
"I'm going to college," she told us both. "Mum wants me to be a doctor. She says with my brains I could really have a life. Doctors earn a lot!"

She was that clever. Lori was the smartest person I'd ever met.  
"I think I will too. I get good grades. There's no way I'll become a doctor though. They work too hard. I couldn't survive the lack of sleep!"  
"That's true!" It was. I could think and learn but could rarely be bothered trying hard. In fact I owed my grades to a photographic memory which made revision unnecessary.

"Well if you want to go to college, why not go to beauty school. Or you could become a chef!"  
"Geena I said college. I didn't mean TAFE!" TAFE is the Australian version of community college. "TAFE trains beauticians and hairdressers. It doesn't train you for a serious job that pays a lot. I want a job that minimum hours but maximum pay, and don't you dare suggest what you're thinking!"

I knew she was going to suggest only hookers had jobs like that. A lot she knew. I'd watched TV. I knew being a hooker was the opposite of easy. No one really wanted to be one. Only druggies were desperate enough to do it.

"There has to be something simple I could do. Surely there's one job out there that would support myself and my lazy beach lifestyle."  
"What about business?" Lori suggested.  
"Hours are too long."  
"Journalism?"  
"I'd have to stand around in the rain. You know I hate standing outside in the rain."  
"Well that eliminates engineering and surveying, even if they don't ruin your nails! In fact it eliminate anything outside a building."  
"She could do childcare or teach," suggested Geena.  
"But she hates kids!"  
"I know! What about being a lawyer? They wear such cool clothes and they get to argue a lot."  
"Are you serious?" Lori rebutted. "You know Maddie hates arguing!"

It was true. Besides the TV lawyers worked really hard, and acted like children in the courtroom. If they didn't their clients did. I was almost sure TV exaggerated things, but not sure enough to try out the job. I wasn't training four years for a job when I might not even like it!

That was when the argument went somewhere I didn't want to go.  
"She could write books!" suggested Geena.  
"Are you serious? Maddie can write, its true. Writers never make money for years. How's she gonna live?"  
"She could get a back-up job!" Geena argued. That came straight from another of her Dad's much repeated phrases. He never earned enough, so he was always looking for that magic back up job. The one that never appeared.  
"She doesn't want to work that hard. She wants to get the job right the first time!"  
"Well what about an artist. She can paint."  
"Honestly. Artists never make any money either. Their families get rich after they die. I'm sure she doesn't want to starve!"

I was so lucky Lori was in this conversation. I didn't even have to make my own arguments. All I had to do was point Lori and Geena at the conversation. Geena would think up the ones out of left field. Lori would suggest more sensible occupations. I'd picked my friends well. Still it was time I took control of where this was heading. I wanted to sleep on the beach sometime today. I couldn't do that till the argument was settled.

"There's always Science."  
"It doesn't pay well unless it's in health."  
"That's true."  
"Although nursing, lab tech and physio do pay well."  
"I don't know. Nursing pays well but aren't the hours horrible?"  
"Well yes its shift work, but it's only 8 hours of work. How bad can it be? That's only three hours longer than school! Doctors work 18 hour days! Nurses have it easy."  
"That's true," I said slowly. All the time I was thinking, three hours is a long time. I could use those three extra hours for sleep. Yet I didn't know of any job where you worked less than eight hours. Fortunately right then I have my inspirational moment. "Plus there's its other advantages."

"What's are its other advantages?"  
"It helps you meet people from all walks of life. It's all indoors. Then there's the fact it can be my stop gap occupation. Millionaires don't exercise. Why would they – they have cars and chauffeurs. They will need health care. I can do nursing till I marry my first young millionaire after nursing him better from some terrible non-fatal disease. Then I won't have to work again."  
"But won't they be fat and ugly!" Trust Geena to only look at superficialities. She was so shallow!  
"I'll make him healthy. He'll change because he wants to be with me." I had no illusions about that. Men and boys went to extremes to meet me all the time. I didn't see why my future prince would be any different... "It will be so awesome. I'll marry him and then I can spend the rest of my life on the beach. I won't even have to cook or clean. He'll have maids and cooks.  
"And nannies for your kids," contributed Lori. So there it was. I had decided.

In reality I stuffed up. I should have decided to work in a laboratory. I blame the laziness of my research. Twenty minutes having a discussion with my friends isn't proper research, but I have only myself to blame.

When I went home nothing I read on the internet turned me off the idea. I googled good pay and came up with shift work or mining. I knew enough to ignore mining because it's hard work. I looked up blogs on shift work for women. I hoped as I blogged that the internet was sexist and found it to be true. It came up with nursing and waitressing. I knew better than to pick waitressing, but nursing couldn't be that hard I reasoned to myself. Anyway I only had to do it till I had a close encounter of the right kind with my millionaire. I would work in the kind of hospital that had millionaires for patients. I had definitely chosen.

I started college in Brisbane the year I turned eighteen and quickly learnt to like the life. Lori had left and gone down to study at Monash University. Geena had gotten pregnant in year eleven and was married now. So I was on my own in Brisbane.

Study was annoying but student life was fun. There was always something on and someone to laugh at. It stayed that way all through my first year. Towards the end of my first year things got weird. That was when all my friends got serious about some boy, decided on them as future marriage partners and all of them decided pityingly I needed help to fix myself up with one. Like I couldn't get one on my own! There was only one thing to do and that was to find some new friends who were shallow like me. I did not want to date.

Boys could take you out and spend money on you, but in return they mussed your hair and clothes and wanted to kiss you. I knew. Kissing seemed to get you all sweaty, even if all the sweat was coming from the heavy breathing male on the other side of the encounter.

It didn't seem like a reasonable price to pay. Call me frigid, but I'd never kissed a boy I liked enough for that sacrifice. I suspected there was something wrong with me, but didn't care enough to worry about it.

Besides they weren't rich enough. A lot of them wanted to go 'Dutch' and I wasn't having anything to do with that sort of cheapskate. The university I'd gone to wasn't Ivy League by any means. I'd never met anyone really rich there. The boys at my college had their own idea of what constituted an ideal date. Their idea of a date was a burger at McDonalds, a movie at the Student Cinema and a quick car ride and make out session in some quiet, dark parking lot.

One date like that was enough to teach me to stay single. It was lucky I'd packed some spray on perfume, (it's as good as capsicum spray in an emergency). Fortunately Dad had lent me Mum's cell phone while I was at college. I could tell my also date I was calling the cops when really I was calling a cab. No I was never getting in that situation again.

I guess I was kind of desperate for some new friends by the time everything changed the next year. It was getting lonely sticking to my principles and staying away from losers. I wasn't prepared to get sweaty to have people in my life, but I needed some good friends again. Everyone else seemed to think I was the loser because I was always alone. They were wrong. I could run into a friend any time I wanted. In my second year I proved it.

# Chapter Two: Synthesis and Sudden Death

True friends stab you in the front –Oscar Wilde

## Maddie

For some reason I've never held on to friends easily, at least not female friends. Boys were easy to befriend and keep, because they're hard to avoid. Boys are shallow. They'll be friends with any girl who looks good enough to swell their heads. They're sneaky in the way that ants are sneaky. Like ants they can be distracted by food, yet they are persistent, but they also have a bite that's as seriously annoying as it unexpected. No boys might be easy to befriend but it was never worth it. In my second year all that changed. That was the year I met Fran.

We were a match made in heaven. Fran was the giggly loon who made everyone around her happy. Fran had enough energy for both of us, and so spared me much effort. Fran was so easy to please she didn't care that I was pathologically lazy and never returned her calls. She called enough for the both of us. Even today, I miss Fran.

It was the last day of O-week. Some people think that means orientation, but for me it's always meant outlandish or maybe odd. The freaks at college come out of the woodwork in O-week. I should have known, but I didn't.

Last year I hadn't attended O-week. You wouldn't catch me giving my beach up even one day earlier than I had to, so I'd arrived week two of my first term.

So I wasn't aware that you had to be careful in O-week or the freaks would get you. Of course looking back now one of those freaks was Fran. I wouldn't have missed her for the world.

I was walking along, not looking where I was going, as I left administration. I'd been trying to get a later tutorial time so I wouldn't have to get up insanely early in the morning. I liked the lazy lifestyle of college, and I could cope with the study and workload, but there were two things I couldn't stand.

One was the fact I had to live in central Brisbane, a smog-filled city with few good beaches. This robbed me of my mornings and evenings lazing on the beach, and my surfing habit which is the only exercise I'd ever continuously bothered with.

The second thing I hated was the lecture and tutorial times. I truly believe that if there was any way for students to get into a college using public transport by 4am, there would be a tutorial at that time. The collegiate of universities in Brisbane would expect some poor undergraduate to make the trip. As it was there were actually tutorials staged at 6 am.

What reasonable person gets up at 4 am just to make a tutorial by 6? Only early birds and worms were up that early. Since I can't fly and was not attracted to worms I saw no reason to be up with the dawn (or even before it in winter). In fact show me an early bird and hand me my baseball bat and I'll deal with it my way. They're like God's alarm clock, and I only ever found one use for an alarm clock. I'm sure the word association of baseball bats, birds and alarm clocks will tell you what that was. Humanity should not have to face the dawn, or at least not unarmed.

So as I was saying, I wasn't really looking where I was going because I'd been in a tutorial since 6 am, up since 4 am, and was half asleep now. The early morning and the intense argument with the unreasonable personnel in administration about changing my tutorial had tired me out. I was yawning and staggering when I ran into a pole.  
"Ouch!" I said.  
"Sorry!" said a voice. That made me wake up a little because poles didn't talk. The girl was giggling so I could tell she wasn't sorry at all, never mind what she said.

In one glance I realized I hadn't run into a pole. I'd run into a beanpole who was handcuffed to a pole. I blinked. While I coped with this polarity, she was talking. "Quick!" she said, speaking so fast I could hardly understand her. "Reach into my pocket and get the key... No not that one, the little tiny one... Be careful he'll be back." She was squealing in a kind of panic.  
"Who?" I said, looking around.

"No time," she said, jumping around frantically and giggling harder. It made getting the key in the slot harder and I dropped it. I bent down hurriedly to pick it up, fumbling a little. "Undo me, undo me... Oh no," she said, suddenly marginally more serious, "You're too late." Then she ruined it and giggled again. It was then I remembered it was O-week and it was Friday. The most insane day of O-week is always the last one. Or so I'd been told.

Two young men ran up right then. One was a brunette and rather skinny like her. In fact he looked like her evil male twin. I know it sounds strange but he was smirking. His smirk looked wicked. The other was more thick-set with sandy blonde hair. Neither was particularly good looking. Oddly enough, what looked ugly on the man, who was obviously her brother, looked cute on her.

Anyway she proved she knew them when she spoke to them.  
"You're such a liar!" she said to the one on the left, the evil twin. "You said you'd give me five minutes."  
"I did give you five minutes. See." He held out a stopwatch which had stopped at 5:36:89.

I blinked. "Now you and your friend have to pay up."  
"Huh," I said. "Wait a minute. I don't know her. She's not my friend... Anyway, what do you mean pay up?"

I was getting angry now. He was a boy with a smirk and therefore he was guilty. There should be a law against smirking young men who did things like this. "You can't just handcuff a girl to a pole and---"

The girl giggled again, interrupting me.  
"Oh no," she told me. "I handcuffed myself to the pole."  
"Huh?" I said again.

Unfortunately the boys felt they had to tell me what had happened. I would rather have run away than listen but I had the handcuff key in my hand. She was still attached to the pole. I figured until she took it back or I unlocked her I owed her some help, even if she was a ditz. I would have unlocked her and run away if she stopped wriggling so I could.

"It's an O-week game," said the tall skinny one on the left. He'd dropped the smirk now and was earnestly selling the game.  
"You work in groups of three and the game is to make a friend who'll rescue you within five minutes. If you do, you get away and you've found a friend for the next game. If you don't you and your new friend have to pay the penance to the other members of the group. Once you've paid penance you can come back for more games if you want." I arched one eyebrow. It sounded lame.

"What's the penance?" I asked. I shouldn't have asked. It was the guy on the right who answered me, and he gave me a wink as he did so.

I've never liked winkers. Give me 'smirkers' who are honest about their bad intentions. Winkers though... They rely on a combination of winks and charm. They're usually too lazy to make any real effort, and the one thing I require in a man is effort. Two lazy people in a relationship won't work. Smirkers oddly enough put effort into their bad intentions. I still didn't like them, but it was mainly because they were guys being guys. Most guys if given a chance with any girl behave badly. We have something they really want. So it was nothing personal.

By now I'd decided the best description of me was I was a parasite. It was not an unattractive thought. Parasites like me require a host. I'd learnt a lot about parasites in Biology 101 and realized that this was the real description of what I wanted to be in life. Forget becoming a nurse and staying in the occupation. Instead become a parasite and leave nursing for a richer environment. Mutualism required something from both partners in a relationship, but parasites now - parasites meant one partner could be totally lazy.

My plan was to be totally lazy in my eventual millionaire relationship. If he really pushed it, I'd have my millionaire husband's kids eventually, but he was hiring a nanny for their care until the kids could follow me to the beach. I wasn't letting any kid of mine stop me lazing on the beach, or shopping when I wanted. I was in it for the fun but lazy lifestyle.

Sure some women dreamed of love. Mostly what others called love looked like hormones to me. I had the same kind of hormones any other girl did. I just preferred to think at the same time as they were bubbling away inside me. I planned to decide my future with my brain, and I was sticking to my master plan. I would marry someone rich or not at all.

"You each owe us a drink at the student bar" he said now, interrupting my day-dream. "You can buy me a drink. Fran can buy her brother's." Oh joy, I thought, but I didn't say it. A lame dating game, I should've known by the handcuffs. No doubt the freaks dreamt it up because maybe they had difficulty getting dates, being freaks...

When I'd unlocked her cuffs I tried to gracefully extricate myself from the situation, but the boys weren't reasonable and after a while it wasn't even worth arguing about it. Arguing took such effort and they wore me down. It went like this.

"I don't have the money to buy you a drink," I said. "Besides I didn't consent to a bet. It's unfair."  
"You play, you pay," said Fran's brother with a smirk. I rolled my eyes.  
"Yeah, you pay or we'll handcuff you to the pole but take the key with us." This was his friend the winker. I decided his friend was a moron. If he really wanted me to buy him a drink then handcuffs would defeat the purpose. I thought of running off since I had the handcuffs by now and the key, but running takes energy. I was so tired. Besides running was not my forte. I could out surf them but we weren't at the beach.

"It's cool," replied Fran. I didn't interrupt her since it was really all her fault. Before I argued about how uncool it really was I needed to understand why she thought it was cool. She didn't leave me in suspense long. "I'll buy both drinks and you can have one too Maddie since you're such a Good Samaritan. I'll get rid of them by beating the pants off them in pool."

As you can see it was a very short argument. You should know up front I always failed debate in school. Possibly you can see why. I just couldn't get passionate about arguments when the outcome cost me nothing. Fran had removed all costs to me, and actually I'd get a free drink out of it. The only down side was I'd have to spend more time around the winker and the girl's evil twin. I weighed up my options for a moment, but really I needed a drink that would wake me up and replace some badly needed energy. It was a win-win for me. What could possibly go wrong? That right there should have been the thought that warned me, but Fran had sucked me in.

I went along with her pool competition since she seemed so sure she could win. She was so enthusiastic it was oddly endearing. Half an hour later Pete, her brother replaced the pool cue with a smirk.  
"Let's see, that 3 nil to the boys!"  
"I didn't bet," I refuted.  
"You play you pay." He said.

I was starting to see a trend here. Fran was a very dangerous ditz. Her heart was in the right place. She was really nice, but uncoordinated and too innocent to save herself. Fran's brother was nice too. He played pool with the skill of a toddler in the major leagues, so I could hardly blame him for our losses. Fran's brother's friend Mike turned out to be a pool shark. Who'd have thought? The guy looked harmless as far as sport went. Solid, but not overly muscled. He could really aim well though when he wanted. Still no matter what the boys said it was her bet and her forfeit, not mine, and at least paying it didn't require any effort on my part. Or so I thought...

By the end of the afternoon Fran and I were good friends. She had poor judgment but a contagious laugh. She'd lost about five times in a row by now, whatever game she picked. She'd lost pool early on, and moved on to losing darts and now pinball. It was hilarious to watch her bomb out at everything.

Still, she was fun to be around. She was generous. Best of all she did not wink at me and she was good at thinking out reprisals against those who did. She brought them drinks. She bought them lemonade! She also had the serious advantage that she was a heterosexual girl and so had no desire to date me. I couldn't be bothered fighting such easy fun. She was already a friend in my heart; I'd needed a good female friend for such a long time. Really what could it cost me?

The minute that thought crossed my mind I should have known better. I should've remembered the last two times that afternoon I was sucked in by a temptation for some easy fun, but I didn't. I've always been a slow learner when it comes to reality. I should have known there'd be a price to pay.

It was my second poor judgement that afternoon. Sure there'd been some great fun, but the wins were small and the losses huge. I would come to know this feeling so well. It would set the pattern for our relationship. Fran was enormously enthusiastic about everything and was always dreaming up another approach, or another thing to do. It made her more fun, but also more dangerous to my dreams of a lazy life. The fun was there, but there was always a price I paid, always.

At the time though I didn't yet know that and I couldn't help liking her, and felt sorry for her after her final loss when she said,  
"Come clean. What do I have to do to pay up Mike?" He smirked.  
"I need a date, honey. I don't care which one of you it is." She laughed.

"Liar," she said. "You'd rather date Maddie here."  
"Nah," he replied, but he slid me a wink as he said it. "All chicks look alike in the dark." Eeuuuww! I thought but I merely lifted one eyebrow at the jerk. (I'd learnt that skill from my Dad. Practicing it for use on the beach had been well worth the effort.) Fran, however, objected heatedly.  
"You are such a creep!"  
"You love me anyway." It was plainly untrue. She didn't love him, but she refused to welch on a bet. Instead she turned to me for help.

"Maddie, you have to rescue me. I swore I'd never go out with this creep alone again. He has octopus hands." She was giggling again, so I thought she probably wasn't completely serious, but he did seem the type to have octopus hands.  
"Okay," I said. Then I realized I shouldn't have said something that could be misconstrued. I'd rescue her, but not that way. I was too slow to stop her next words.  
"Then you'll date him?"  
"No!" I told her shuddering at the thought. I've never liked squid.

I couldn't go out with him, even if it looked immediately easier to comply with Fran's wishes than make a fuss. Fighting off octopus hands took energy and I wasn't up for the job. It had been a fun day, but I was still lacking sleep. Unfortunately giving in to octopus hands would make me all sweaty and that was equally undesirable, especially since I wasn't attracted to him. There wasn't enough money in the world to make him attractive to me. It seemed my head had standards for dates I'd not considered intellectually; they were subliminal.

"I'll date your brother so he comes along. If Mike here starts groping you, your brother can punch him out." It seemed the easiest solution. Men have their own theories about where a woman's place should be. I have a theory of my own about men. My theory about men's places is they exist solely to serve us women. It's true that behind every great man is a good women, but only because women are not stupid enough to be up front doing all the work. Since Fran's brother was available with a vested interest in helping Fran, why not take advantage?

Mike ruined my night when he asked in an interested voice,  
"Who'll punch Pete out when he gropes you?"  
"I will," I said, glaring at him for giving Pete ideas. "I'll bring my knuckledusters just in case." Or I'd spray him in the eyes with perfume I thought. It would be easier. Perfume weighed less than knuckledusters and looked and smelt better. Besides you couldn't get arrested for carrying perfume. Even better you could pass it off as a freak accident, saying, "No officer, I didn't mean to spray him in the face with my perfume. I must have slipped while I was wrestling with him, when he wouldn't take no for an answer. The perfume was just in the wrong place at the wrong time..."

"That's twisted," Pete laughed. "This is looking good. A date with a kinky red-head, and some time spent alone with her in the dark. You better pick out the right movie, Mike."  
"I was thinking we would see Sleeping with the Enemy or maybe Silence of the Lambs."  
"Huh?" I said. I hadn't heard of either.  
"Trust me," Mike said.

Trust me, I knew better. I'd met his type at the beach. They were probably slasher flicks, selected so Fran would scream and then he'd take advantage of the moments she leaned up close to him. Perhaps I should pass her the perfume and the tip about how to use it.

We ate at the bar in the lounge garden before we went out. Pete bought me a meal. It suited me. I wasn't dressing up or shelling out for a date I didn't really want. Pete seemed almost as nice as Fran, even if he did smirk, but I'd never really liked dating. To me there was no point. Dating took an effort for a start. Besides boys were creeps due to a genetic liability caused by testosterone poisoning. You already know what I thought about men groping me. Also, usually you had to dress up. Moreover, I had my checklist of essential male characteristics I wanted, and I refused to settle. Pete didn't qualify. Neither did Mike.

Settling on a different occupation to the one I'd originally planned had already screwed up my life. The more I heard about nursing the less I wanted to do it. I had no desire to screw my life up more by getting involved with someone and dating seriously. Well not unless they had the essential bits to their profile. I'd never met anyone who fit it.

Anyway I had full intentions of jumping on a bus home for the weekend as soon as it reached ten pm. A free meal with a movie was well and good but 10pm was the last bus home.

Pete wasn't a bad emergency date. He insisted on holding my hand in the bad bits. I let him because I couldn't be bothered arguing about it. I'm not the nervous type. Perhaps he was. The hand-holding was all he got out of it.

For all he'd said about wanting a date with a kinky red-head he didn't really try for more. Perhaps he was shy. Fran did enough screaming and squirming for both of us. I just enjoyed a really good movie. The only thing that didn't go down well was me looking at my watch frequently. Finally Fran who was sitting next to me, as close as possible to me, and as far as possible from Mike, called me on it.

"What're you doing?" she whispered.  
"I have to catch a bus," I hissed back.  
"Where to?"  
"I'm going home."  
"Pete can drive you."  
"To the coast?"  
"Huh?"  
"I live at the coast."  
"The Gold Coast?"  
"Yeah."  
"Cool," she said. "Pete can definitely drive you. We can sleep on your floor."

I rolled my eyes. That would go down well with my mother. I hated fighting with my mother close to midnight. It would be that time when we got there. Mum was always grumpy if we annoyed her. I would have to find energy enough to stick to what I wanted, when all I really wanted at midnight was to sleep. Mum always had enough energy to fight with me. It was why my Dad and I always lost all our fights with her. It was better not to start one in the first place.

"If you come, Mum will give you a bed, but you can't bring Mike or Pete."  
"Why not?"  
"No boys. It's a house rule." That really was the house rule. Yes my brother lived at home and he was a boy, but Mum didn't believe in equal opportunity rules. It was no boys in the house for me, and no girls in the house for my brother.  
"Oh," she said, giggling like a loon. "Okay, they can sleep on the beach." I rolled my eyes again. Clearly I wasn't winning this argument. Unfortunately no one saw that in the dark so it was a bit wasted.

"I'll be back," I said, getting up.  
"Where are you going?"  
"I need to call Dad."  
"Oh," she said. "I should probably call my folks too." So we went out to the phone together, and we missed the end of the movie. The movie was largely forgettable anyway.

So it began. For the rest of my life I'll remember those halcyon days with Fran driven by sun, sand and laughter. It set the pattern for the whole of my next two years at college. Every weekend Fran and I would head for my folk's place and spend the time at the beach.

Sometimes Pete came too but Mike only came twice. Mike quickly worked out that neither of us girls was shallow enough to do the things he wanted with him. He eventually found a girl friend who liked him groping her and he faded out of our lives.

Pete grew to like surfing though so he was always up for weekends at my place. Once Mike was out of the picture Dad let him stay and sleep on the sofa. Mum and Dad had a very short argument about it, which for once Dad won.

"I'm not making him sleep on the beach honey."  
"He's a boy!"  
"Not really. He's more like a slug. He moves too slowly to be a boy. He's hairy like a slug, and he's so slippery he slides right off his surf board." Mum rolled her eyes. Pete snickered.  
"James! Seriously! We talked about this."

"Yes we did, but you forgot the small print."  
"What small print?"  
"I let you win without an argument so long as once every few years I get the wins I insist on. This is one of those times. He's not sleeping on the beach. It's too dangerous. Some idiot in a 4-wheel drive will run over him. He can sleep downstairs and I'll lock Maddie and Fran in Maddie's room and sleep on the floor outside the door!"

"Dad!"  
"What?"  
"This is Pete!" I rolled my eyes. I'm convinced to this day it was the eye rolling that did it. Mum just needed reassurance I didn't see Pete as a potential boyfriend.  
"Okay," Mum said. "He can stay."

Fran was the big benefit in our arrangement. Sure I liked Pete well enough. He was a very nice boy who didn't interest me, except that he drove Fran and I back to my place every weekend. That saved me money because I didn't have to afford the bus. Petrol split three ways was cheaper than a bus anyday.

Fran liked me, liked the beach and so was happy whatever we did. I'd needed a new friend since Geena and Lori had moved on. Fran was better than both of them. She was honestly the best friend I'd ever had.

She wasn't very restful at the beach, but it didn't matter much. She filled that hole in my life every girl needs filled. We talked boys, clothes, life plans and shared every thought that crossed our minds. I'd never met anyone so nice in my whole life.

More than that she was so much fun. There was always something for her to do there from chatting up the life guards, to building sand castles with some random kids, to stealing my surf board and falling off it a lot. She did what she wanted, and let me sleep and sun bathe as much as I liked.

Occasionally she would do something annoying she called motivating me, and would involve me in some convoluted activity that would turn out to be more fun than I expected just because she was doing it with me. I gained more than I lost.

I never dated Pete seriously. Then again he never seriously asked. Pete had his eyes and his head firmly set on engineering overseas, and he wasn't interested in settling down till he'd achieved his dream, or so he said.

I knew he would date me if I wanted. He was lying about being uninterested, but I would've been stupid to discuss it. Ignoring it was smarter. I wasn't interested in stopping his dreams because he didn't fit into mine.

It made him an easy boy to hang around with when I needed one.Every girl needs that boy, the one who is the emergency date, but never tries anything because really they are afraid to break the friendship. I guess it was hard on him, but I didn't love him that way. I don't remember ever kissing him. If I did it wasn't memorable.

He came to the beach and surfed a lot. Occasionally he came back in and annoyed me by getting sand all over me, or chased me along the beach just to annoy me and hear me scream with frustration. Then he'd do something endearing like run and get me some ice-cream so I always forgave him by the end of the day.

The only down side to Pete was he was everyone's best buddy. Fran flirted with the life guards, but they were used to flirts. They would smile at her, but stay at their post. Pete made them his mates from the first time Fran brought them over. It made them hang around us. It wasn't the only reason. I guess it sounds conceited but I was one of the best looking women on the beach, and I could surf well. Life guards are not picky. Give them a good looking women in a bikini who doesn't mind lazing on the beach all day, add in the fact she can surf, and she's their dream girl.

They were always coming over after their shift and trying to chat me up. They'd do it right in front of Pete. He told them I was his girl. They told him since they'd never seen us kiss they'd keep trying. It became a beach joke among the group of them. It interrupted a lot of my sun bathing. They would stay longer and converse with Pete even when I ignored them.

I would have kept meandering through life with no change if it wasn't for Fran. Like everything else she ever did, Fran always changed my life. This time it wasn't for the better.

In my final weeks of college Fran encountered a bloke I never saw. I don't know what the bloke looked like. All I know is he couldn't have been that memorable. No one else noticed him the one time he was at our beach. Not even the life-guards noticed him. Yet they were trained to notice everyone.

Fran however did. In her role as everyone's best friend and the glue that kept the beach crowd together she was always noticing people no one else did. She liked to include them. It was part of her charm. I guess it was that charm that attracted him. He was hanging near the ice-cream shop on the beachfront. I've always wished to this day I'd looked up and checked him out or something. I didn't.

Instead I was half asleep in the early morning sun when Fran said,  
"Maddie?"  
"Mm."  
"Maddie, I'm just gonna get an ice-cream and check out this guy. He keeps winking at me. He's winking at us and waving us over. He wants me to wake you up." I should've known then. I should have cared enough to wake up. Men who wink are always suspect.  
"Mm."  
"Do you want an ice-cream?"  
"Uh uh."  
"Okay, see you in five."

I never saw her again. I fell asleep. She disappeared. Two hours later Pete shook me awake. He asked where she was. I didn't know. As the minutes passed and the two of us ran up and down the beach and round and round the ice cream shop screaming out again and again for Fran to answer us we only knew something was badly wrong. She was nowhere.

Pete called the cops after the first search. We kept searching till they came. The life guards had called in the entire surf and rescue team. The two of them were on duty, but the rest dropped everything and came. She wasn't anywhere. Word spread and there were suddenly forty people there searching. Then the police arrived. The first thing they did was close the beach to all but the people who'd been there when she went missing.

The police split into teams. Two went over my story again and again, while the others did whatever the police did when there was a potentially serious abduction of a young woman. They thought the worst from the start. Fran wasn't the sort of girl to go off with anyone. Sure she was friendly. She was also reliable.

Their questioning made me want to scream. Why were they wasting their time? I knew police dramas stated it was usually someone you knew when a woman went missing. But here's the thing. Everyone on the beach this morning was in groups. None of them could lure Fran off alone without someone noticing. Besides everyone noticed Fran. She was the life of the beach!

They asked anyhow. They'd been told my story by Pete anyway, but they wanted to hear it from me. "What were you doing?"  
"I fell asleep."  
"Then how do you know there was a man at the ice-cream shop."  
"Fran told me –"  
"But you just said you were asleep."  
"No I said I fell asleep! I was falling asleep on the beach when Fran tried to wake me up. She said there was a man at the shop winking at her. He wanted her to wake me up and bring me over. I fell asleep when she was talking."  
"So what did he look like?"  
"I told you I was half asleep! I didn't look to see what he looked like. I fell asleep. The life guards must have seen him. They were awake!"

"I want to know what you saw. Constable Johansson will ask the life guards what they saw. You must have seen something. You didn't fall asleep right away."  
"Yeah I saw a lot earlier before I started to fall asleep."  
"Who did you see?"

"Well there was no one at the ice cream shop for a start. There wasn't even a car or a bike nearby. The only people on the beach were the usual people I always see."  
"Who are the usual people?"  
"The two lifeguards on duty were there. Don and Morgan are their names. I don't know when they swapped duty with Rob and Steve. I'd fallen asleep by then. Pete wasn't here. He had a job interview or something. The jogging group were all running up the beach. All of them were there just like usual except Mary. Then there were the usual surfers. I don't know all their names but they are here every morning. There wasn't anyone different. There wasn't anyone new. Anyway it couldn't have been anyone we normally saw. Fran knew everyone. She would have called all the people we normally saw by their names. She called him a man, she didn't use a name."

Then the cop swapped places with his friend, Constable Johansson. The interrogation began again.

The problem was I already knew I had that photographic memory. I could describe everyone on the beach I'd seen until I'd fallen asleep. I could describe what they were wearing. I knew who was talking to who. I even knew that two of the joggers, Ben and Rose, had lagged at the back and smooched. I was the best witness they had. I noticed more than even the life guards who were Fran's friends and had been awake. None of it was the right information. I was Fran's only hope, but I'd been alseep.

As the hours passed they interviewed all of those who'd been told the news and had come back to the beach to help search. Everyone loved Fran so most had come. They eventually located every person I described, even the ones that hadn't come. They eliminated every one of them as suspects. The awful thing was none of those people had seen anything either. The guy was a ghost. He blended like the sand and the surf.

In the end we could do nothing else but go home and worry. I tried to sleep. I couldn't. Every time I shut my eyes I couldn't shut my conscience off. How could I sleep when sleep was the reason Fran was at the mercy of some creep? He could be doing anything to her. Fran was such a pretty girl. She had no training to deal with creeps.

I didn't think I could handle a real creep. Not without my baseball bat. A handy man or two nearby to save me when I hit a creep and ran was also essential. Creeps didn't stay down. Creeps didn't go away and give up. No Fran was too nice. She didn't deserve to be in the hands of a creep.

I wanted to pray, but I've never believed in prayer. All I could do was plead with the ceiling, or the universe, or something. All I could do was cry, and say--  
"Please, please, please, don't let him hurt her. I need her to be alright. Please, please..."

Her naked and beaten body washed ashore three days later. He'd cut her throat. She'd bled out long before he threw her into the water. The fish left her alone for the most part. It was the first time evil touched my life. I never got over it.

Before that I'd met men with a little bit of the devil in them. So had Fran. They didn't have our best interests at heart. Not one of them was evil. They were simply men, intent on getting their own way, regardless of what we needed. I was the same in a way. So was Fran. I wanted what I wanted. In other words I didn't want them.

This man though was evil. Worse he left a gaping hole in my life! Fran was gone. She will always be missed, a tragedy that I can't explain or forgive. How do you forgive a monster? How do you get over it? The reality is someone like Fran leaves a gap. The world is never better without them. Only a monster could take someone like that, and not see what a catastrophe it is for the world to lose them. Only a monster would abuse someone like Fran. It wasn't only Fran I lost.

Pete gave up engineering to become a cop. He just dropped out and disappeared into the police academy. He never went overseas. He stopped talking to me though after the one time, at the funeral he gave me a piece of his mind. I didn't blame him. In a way I could cope with his point of view. The hardest thing for me wasn't Pete blaming me. It was that no one else did.

Everyone else just hugged me and said it wasn't my fault. Most of them felt bad because they'd been awake and hadn't noticed. I knew the truth though. She'd told me about him. It was my fault.

What Pete and I both couldn't forgive was this. At the exact time when Fran desperately needed me I'd been sleeping. When she was screaming and dying I was still sleeping away on the beach. I'd slept two hours. By then it was too late. She died just as I woke up. At least that's what her time of death suggested, and the forensic evidence they eventually found in the crime scene vehicle. Although we'll never know for sure. Its hard to establish exact time of death after three days in the water.

# Pete

There are some women who are bad news when they enter a man's life. It's not that there's anything wrong with them. It's more they ruin you for everyone who comes after. Maddie was like that.

I met her in my second year of college. It was my sister's fault, but no one plans who they meet or when. Fran loved to amuse herself with anything interesting, and it was typical of my sister that she was into anything insane that was going on. So it was not implausible that she should meet someone in the insanity of O-week. I just didn't expect her to meet anyone that awesome.

Fran was lively and energetic, so frequently exhausted everyone around her. She and Maddie were without knowing it complete foils for one another. Everything Fran was Maddie wasn't, and vice versa.

By the time I sat down and had a drink with Maddie in the student refectory I knew I was totally off my head about her. Thing was I could never tell her. I was enormously attracted to her. She had the face of an angel, the peacefulness of the sea on a still spring day, and the body of a pint sized Madonna.

Believe me I didn't feel brotherly towards her. The problem was no other approach worked with Maddie. I tried. I watched Mike make his play and bomb out and I knew straight away Maddie was not aware of men in a sexual way. He'd made her aware he thought of her that way and it made her hate him. I'd never been stupid so I learnt from him and only held her hand at the movies. If all Maddie wanted for now was a brother that would be all she got. I'd bide my time.

All the same I did ask her out. I just pretended it would be as a friend. I was subtle I hope.  
"Wanna do this again?" I said.  
"What exactly are you asking Pete?"  
"We could do a movie next week – the four of us..."  
"You know, I really don't like movies much," she replied.

I read the subtext. Maddie wanted to distance herself from everyone but Fran. I could be a brother for a while. One half of a piece was better than nothing at all. At least she liked my sister so I was in with a chance!

Somehow because my sister was involved we ended up down the coast at midnight. It wasn't much fun sleeping on the beach for Mike and I. We had to sleep far enough back that four wheel drives wouldn't run us over, but that made us vulnerable to cops checking out homeless people on the beach. We had to shift twice. The second time the cops wanted to lock us up for the night. WE talked our way out of it.

By 6 am I'd had enough and even though it was far too early to call on Maddie and Fran at Maddie's place I couldn't stand waiting any longer. I was exhausted, but desperate for my next dose of Maddie. Her father was awake instead.

I'll try to describe her father, but it's hard to do him justice. I could describe him as Maddie in trousers, except it's misleading. He was extraordinarily good looking for his age, but he wasn't effeminate in any way. He was big. Not fat, but big. He had the shoulders of a line-backer, but moved like a dancer, or perhaps like a serious athlete. He was tall.

He was also the scariest person I'd ever met. He might have been older but that hadn't seemed to slow him down. You knew he could handle himself in a fight with one look at him, and it wouldn't matter what kind of fight it was. He would fight dirty and he would win. It was written all over him.

For all that he was a nice bloke. You'd forgive him beating you in a fight. I guess the best way to explain him was he had that indefinable thing some men have. You'd follow him into hell, and if you offended him you'd apologize and back off.

If there was ever a man who approved of me it was her father. It was early Saturday morning, but he was awake working on his fishing tackle. He had a day planned surfing and fishing. He took one look at me and Mike and only talked to me.

"Wanna learn to surf?" he asked.  
"Sure," said Mike enthusiastically, but he didn't acknowledge him at all. He just looked at me with one eyebrow quirked as if Mike had not spoken at all. It was rude, but he didn't apologise. So Mike lost his smile.  
"It would be great," I told him.

It was obvious from the way her Dad was ignoring Mike that he didn't think much of him or why he was there. It was like he sized him up, and wasn't wasting his time. I didn't bother trying to change Maddie's fathers mind. He was right about Mike, and he had the right to act that way because of his daughter. If I'd been Mike I would have caught a bus home right then. He put him in his place just like that.

I don't remember Mike saying anything much else that weekend at all. Mike didn't leave though. He had his eye on Maddie, and a one track mind.

Maddie didn't wake up; so her Dad fed us and took us back down to the beach. Maddie turned up at the beach with Fran in tow about 11 am. I'd already finished my first surfing lesson, which was surprisingly exhausting.

It was a hot day and I was glad of the heat because of the way it made Maddie dress. There is nothing that looks sweeter than Maddie in a bikini twisting on a wave. I made the mistake of watching her too closely and had to go and take a long cold swim.

When I came back I didn't look again; instead I walked up to her Dad and asked him to teach me to do surf-fishing. I'd wised up. If I was going to survive Maddie until she got to the place she was ready for serious, I was going have to not look for too long at her. Her Dad took one look at me and laughed. I think he saw more than he ever said. He taught me to fish though. We didn't catch anything.

The weeks bled into a year and another and then the beginning of another. By now I was part of the inner circle of serious surfers at the beach. They all knew I loved Maddie. Everyone knew but Maddie herself. The thing was they all loved her. There wasn't one guy on the beach who wouldn't have given his right arm or possibly a more vital body part to date Maddie.

I don't know what Maddie thinks of herself, but I know what I see. Yes, she's gorgeous. It's not that. Yes she's restful. Maddie never fights much with anyone, or even talks much at all. She never says anything unless it needs to be said. It's not that either. There's just something inside her, like an inner glow. She could be in a crowd of a thousand women and every man would know she was there. Every man would want her.

I don't think even Maddie knows herself well. At first glance she appears selfish and lazy because she hardly seems to do much. At second glance you realize it's not that she doesn't do things, it's just she doesn't waste her time doing them poorly. She lives like she surfs, with economical grace and beauty. Even the apparent selfishness is a front, because she has the softest heart when she hears a hard luck story. I don't think she could really hurt anyone's feelings and mean it.

I remember the day I put all that together. I'd been living with my unrequited love for more than two years now and I was getting pretty desperate. I'd had too many sleepless nights and cold showers. It had to end.

That morning I had run up the beach straight from a vigorous time of surfing. Maddie had given up much earlier and was now sleeping on the sand as if she was three and the sand was a very soft mattress. I remember I badly wanted her attention. There had been a guy hanging around earlier out on the waves and he'd been trying to impress Maddie with his form.

"Watch this, he'd said, and executed a near perfect move, standing on one leg as he surfed the wave in for two meters or so. He was a pretty awesome surfer and Maddie had laughed as he did insane stunts, but then when he tried to get close she paddled in and pretended to sleep. She wouldn't hurt his feelings, so she pretended instead. All the same she'd noticed him for a minute. It was only a minute, but that was enough for me.

I was still not over it. I ran in.  
"You're looking a bit green mate, " Don teased.  
"I have a gun and a shovel," Morgan offered. They both laughed.  
"I don't know what you are talking about," I replied, acting dignified.

Thing is they were right. Everyone on the beach who knew me teased me that I'd been bitten by the green-eyed monster. It was true. I was jealous she'd noticed him. It was something she rarely did. I was running out of patience and I just wanted to plant one on her and brand her as mine. I was sure if we ever kissed that would be it.

When I ran up the beach the bloke was sitting very close by, but Maddie wasn't just ignoring him now. She was properly asleep, not faking it anymore. That was something I knew she did often. She'd just never pretended with me. I was overcome with a mixture of agony, jealousy and lust but I wasn't stupid enough to show it. I'd suddenly realized that if I didn't make a move soon I was going to lose her. Some other guy like the one hovering now was going to wake up my sleeping friend, and I was going to lose her.

So I did it instead. I stood over her dripping and shook myself off like a shaggy dog. It woke her up. It was one of my tricks to keep her attention.

I think men have rewarded the girls they love with terrible behaviour ever since we moved out of the caves. We pull their hair. We offer them slugs, When we get older we might mature enough to merely tickle them. Anything for attention.

Today I was going to make her run but I was fantasizing about watching her run. I was dreaming of what I'd do when I caught her. When I caught her I had plans. I'd waited long enough.

"Pete... Ugh... Stop it you idiot." I only laughed.  
"How wet do you want to get?" I asked her. She yawned, but smiled.  
"Leave me alone Pete. I didn't get much sleep last night."

Now there was a joke. Maddie always got sleep. She thought she was dying if she didn't sleep ten hours.   
"Uh uh," I said. "You'll run if you know what's good for you."  
"Huh?"  
"Run!" I repeated and lunged at her.

I only caught her foot briefly. Maddie would say she never ran and she wasn't good at moving fast. She was too lazy. She was a liar. Maddie could run. She could move very fast when she wanted. Like now. Fortunately I was fast myself.

I chased her into the surf, caught her and grabbed her up. Then I took her out a fair way and dropped her in the water. I needed less of an audience for the kiss. She shrieked. Most of our friends on the beach were laughing and making cat-calls. My strategy for privacy wasn't working. She hit me, and then ran away, and when I chased her again she tripped me.

I hadn't been expecting her to be so agile and I came down on a rock. It was only small, but I fell on it awkwardly, cutting my cheek open.

"Ouch!" I said. Just like that Maddie who'd been running away screaming -  
"Just you wait! I'm getting my baseball bat!" spun on her heels and ran back.  
"Oh, Pete," she said. "I'm so sorry. That's got to hurt." See what I mean. She had the softest heart in the world.

"Yeah it hurts, but I'll get over it..."  
"Maddie?"  
"Yeah?"  
"You know I love you don't you?"  
"Yeah," she said, grinning in return, her face glowing. "You'll always be the best brother in the world to me."

So I tried to smile back and not act like she'd just torn my heart apart again. Maddie was still not ready. She was still asleep like a sleeping beach beauty. I didn't know how to wake her. I couldn't stand it if she ever hated me like she had Mike.

It was only two weeks later when I got to the beach late one morning. I'd been expecting to have lunch with Fran and Maddie after my job interview but I'd had this odd feeling all morning. It was like I was waiting for some terrible news. I was like something was wrong with Fran.

I don't know how I knew. I just knew. I just didn't know what was wrong. I somehow knew she was scared and in terrible pain. I can't explain how I knew that since I'm not usually given to weird feelings like the one I'd had all morning. I'm very much a feet on the ground kind of guy. I only believe in the evidence of my own eyes. It didn't matter though. I couldn't switch the feeling off. The feeling was half fear and half worry.

If I didn't know better I'd have said someone or something was preparing me for bad news. I didn't believe in stuff like that though. So for the longest time I'd been ignoring the feeling. In the end I couldn't ignore it any longer. It was no longer scary. It was urgent. I had to find Fran.

So I got there early for our lunch date – at 10 am. Maddie was asleep on the beach. There was nothing unusual in that. I couldn't see Fran anywhere. That by itself was strange. Fran was not the kind of girl who wasn't noticed. It made my heart thump faster. So after I'd walked along the beach a bit I went and woke Maddie up.

"Where's Fran. Maddie?" I asked shaking her awake.  
"Huh?"  
"Where's Fran?"

The feeling was getting worse not better. Wherever she was, this odd feeling couldn't be shaken. Every thought it provoked told me my sister was in agony. It made me want to pray, except I don't believe in God. The idea of God has never made any sense to me. If God is real then there should be some evidence. Why make the world and then hide!

"She's at the ice-cream shop..." Maddie interrupted my anguish. I looked up at it. Fran wasn't there.  
"Okay," I said. "I'll be right back." I ran up there; I even went round the back. Fran wasn't anywhere to be seen.

When I got back down to the beach I questioned her again.  
"She's not there Maddie."  
"She has to be there. She said she'd be back in five minutes. She's only just gone... Oh no, what time is it?"  
"It's 10:30."  
"Oh no! But that means she's been gone 2 hours at least! Maybe she went for a swim."  
"I've checked..." I couldn't stand it but neither could Maddie. She ran off to ask the life guards, but no one could remember seeing Fran. She came back looking very scared.

"But she has to be here. Fran wouldn't just go off with someone. If only I woke up Pete. She said this bloke was winking at her. She saw some bloke. She was going to see what he wanted." Maddie was crying now and she threw herself into my arms.

It was bittersweet because I really wanted her there,. The whole time though I knew Fran was in trouble. I had the feeling I had to get the police involved. I couldn't waste anymore time with Maddie. The worst thing was now I couldn't feel it anymore. The awful urgent feelings had just suddenly stopped. It was like it was too late now or something.

I still felt worried and afraid for Fran, but whatever had been prodding me all morning had switched off. I couldn't explain how I knew that either. That didn't matter. I needed to know where my sister was, even if a quiet thought kept telling me it was too late. I had no time for Maddie or hugging her now.

The next hours blurred. Torture does that, and fear. Time seemed to rush past frantically because nothing could be done fast enough to find her. At the same time dragged out in an odd contradiction because I knew that if Fran didn't turn up soon it was really bad. Every moment had an emphasis because every moment could be the moment when we got more bad news, heartbreaking news. I knew deep down the worst had happened, but I didn't know for sure.

We all spread out and searched. The whole beach became a search and rescue mission. People came from wherever they'd gone. They rang each other and networked. The life guards were all out, and the jogging club, and the surfers. She just wasn't anywhere.

I'd called the police in the first few minutes I'd known for sure she was missing, but they wanted us to search first. I called them again an hour later. We'd established by then she was definitely not on the beach.

They eventually came and questioned Maddie and everyone else. I watched Maddie amaze them. She could recall every person she'd seen, car number plates, the works... She knew nothing about the man Fran had told her about. Maddie was their best witness. She knew astonishing details. All the same it did no good. She didn't know the right piece of information. She'd been asleep.

In the end late in the day a surveillance camera in the back parking lot of the ice-cream shop told us what we wanted to know. The camera showed Fran fighting to get free, and someone hitting her on the head so she fell down. She never got up. The back parking lot had been deserted, for it was a late August day, and ice-cream wasn't popular in winter that early in the morning. So the man, who was dressed all in black with a hood, picked up Fran and threw her roughly into the back of the van. He never turned round and faced the cameras so they had no clear picture of him. Perhaps he knew they were there.

The police tried to get the plates from the van but they were obscured by mud and not clear. What was clear was that Fran had met with foul play. I remember a young officer called Levi Johanssen taking my statement. I remember him promising they were throwing every available officer into the search for Fran. He seemed very sincere.

I remember one last thing from that horrible day. It's something I regret to this day.  
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Maddie was sobbing, holding my hands and bawling her eyes out. "If only I wasn't so lazy. If only I'd woken up. Pete, say something. Pete, I'm so sorry."

I couldn't take it anymore. Somewhere Fran could be dying or unconscious. Certainly the guy who'd taken her wanted to hurt her badly. I couldn't think of anything apart from my pain. I couldn't think past the knowledge he was probably raping her right now. Or if he wasn't he probably had and he might again, unless of course it really was too late and she was dead.

I didn't want to forgive Maddie. The only way to stop it feeling so awful was to hurt someone else. So I pushed her out of my arms, and I let all my rage out. It was not the act of someone who loves someone else. I knew it as I did it, but I couldn't stop myself. I let her have it in the way only someone who really knows a person well can.

"I'm sorry too Maddie. I'm sorry we ever met you. I'm sorry I thought you were something special. I will never, ever forgive you."  
"Pete?" She was crying even more now.  
"Piss off Maddie! Get the hell away from me! I never want to see you again!" I left her there crying on the beach. I took off in my car and went home to wait for whatever news would come.

I wanted to talk to her nicely at the funeral, but I couldn't. Every time I looked at her all I felt was agony. I loved her but I hated her too. I knew deep down it wasn't her fault, but I couldn't get past it. My twin had died. Every time I looked at Maddie I was reminded. So when she came up to me I said even more to hurt her. I said unforgiveable things; but I didn't want her forgiveness.

"I hate you." That's what I said. "Fran could have made friends with anyone and she'd be alive. It's your fault. All of it. What kind of a friend sleeps when her friend goes to meet some creep? You should have woken up. You should have told her no. I trusted you with my sister. I never should have. You were never worth it. You are dead to me. Don't come near me ever again." Maddie didn't say anything in response. All she did was take it and bawl her eyes out. It made me feel worse, not better.

All the same I couldn't take the words back. You see every time I looked at Maddie now the image of her was overlaid by the image of Fran's broken body. I'd had to identify that broken body since my parents were prostrate with grief.

She hadn't looked like Fran anymore. Whatever animated Fran, her joy for life, her fun-filled spirit, her creative but ditzy ideas, it was all gone. Instead what was left was a broken shell; a cut up, bloody but broken shell.

I knew I still loved Maddie. Part of me always would. But I suddenly thought I could never love her as a man loves a woman. I couldn't get past Fran's face. Forever Maddie's memory would most likely wear Fran's poor tortured face.

None of that had changed after Fran's death and after the funeral. I still felt the same about Maddie. Something else had occurred to me though, in the past days, as I thought about the events of that terrible day. Something weird had happened.

Late on the day of the funeral, as the preacher talked about Fran's life, all my thoughts about the day Fran died crystallized into certainty and I changed my mind about my beliefs of heaven, hell and God. Either I was insane, or there was something else out there in the world I'd never encountered before.

I didn't know what it was; I just knew something outside me had been trying to get me to listen. Those feelings I'd had all that long terrible morning hadn't been mine. It was like they'd come from outside of me. Like someone or something was trying to push me to action, but I hadn't believed enough to act. At the time I'd thought it was just stress and ignored it. Like I said, I'm a feet on the ground kind of guy.

The thoughts I had, the urging to give up what I was doing that day, (being interviewed for a traineeship after college overseas), and run like hell for the beach and Fran – they weren't mine. The thought midway through the interview that I needed to go now because Fran needed me, wasn't mine either.

It had made me stuff up the interview badly, and then I'd been angry with myself, and that too had stopped me getting to the beach earlier. I'd gone for a long furious drive. It had been lucky no cops were around on the road I took. I had driven like a bat out of hell. I had been half convinced I was a lunatic having a psychotic break. So I'd wasted time I shouldn't have wasted. If it was anyone's fault Fran had died, other than the creep who murdered her, it was mine, not Maddie's. I hadn't listened. Maddie was asleep, but I'd been awake. I'd been told.

Now, as evening drew in on the day of the funeral, and the words of the preacher weighed me down, I knew whose fault it was Fran was dead. Something incredible had happened the day Fran died, along with her death. I, who had always laughed when told there was a God, and have never believed, now suddenly knew there was someone out there. After all it had whispered thoughts into my mind. It had a voice.

Whatever had tried to get me to listen had good motives, saw all things happening, both good and bad, and worked for good. It had been incredibly persistent, and utterly devoted to one thing – saving Fran. It would have been better if it worked on someone else not me. They might have done the right thing. The fact remained, whatever, or whoever, had tried to get me to listen closely, fit what a bible basher had once told me God was like.

I didn't understand only one thing. If there was a God, why hadn't whatever or whoever God was just acted directly? If this bible basher was correct about the power God had, then it'd had power to intervene directly, but hadn't. All the same I couldn't blame it. At least it had tried. It had made me act and go look for Fran.

Now I knew I was burning with the knowledge. So for the first time in my life I actually prayed. I did it out loud. I didn't know how to pray, so I just followed my instincts. It had put quiet thoughts into my mind, so maybe it also had ears to hear. I hoped it was listening.

"God," I said, starting haltingly, but then taking off incoherently, and almost babbling the words. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I should have listened. It's all my fault. Everything is all my fault. But now I know you are out there. I can't get the knowledge out of my head that I let you down. I let you down, and I let Fran down, and I let Maddie down. I'm sorry."

"Now I need your help and I've no right to ask. I've never believed in you until now. But I need your help so I'm asking anyway. Can you teach me how to listen to you? I don't want this to ever happen again. I want to work with you to stop creeps like this man hurting women. I don't want Fran to have died for nothing."

"I don't want to be like the person I was before this. The one who wouldn't listen... Will you help me? Can I make a deal with you? If you find me, and teach me to listen, will you teach me to catch men like this? Can you teach me to fight evil like is in this man? I swear to you, if you will, I'll believe in you all my life, and I'll follow your thoughts and obey them all as long as I have breath. Please God, please..." Then I cried for what felt like hours.

In the late hours of that evening I pulled myself together and three things had crystallized in my mind. The first was I needed to find a church where I could find this God. I had no illusion I'd gotten an answer. I had no peace. My mind was still in torment. It was like God, having talked to me that terrible day, had left my mind alone, and wasn't talking to me anymore. The second was I needed to face up properly to my own guilt. I'd lived my whole life selfishly, and I needed to change that. Even my blaming of Maddie when it wasn't her fault and was crying from the pain of what had happened to Fran had been selfish. I needed help to change that, and I would change that. The third was that I was going to join the police. Fran's death was going to be for something. I would put the whole power of my very good brain to work to stop evil. Some would laugh at me talking of evil, but it was evil that killed Fran. There was no other word that fit. I would fight evil till the day I took my last breath.

# Levi

The girl at the beach was so gorgeous. I'd never seen a more gorgeous woman, but for a while she only made me deeply suspicious. Her story was so pat. As a police officer I've learnt to mistrust the most helpful people. They generally have an angle or they are involved. The sickest crimes against women and girls often have a female accomplice. An accomplice who is enthralled by the evil of the men they help, and will do anything to keep them happy. They procure women for their men, and they help the men punish the women out of jealousy.

It wasn't just that she claimed to be sleeping. It was her astonishing grasp of facts about everyone on the beach. The girl knew them all down to the clothes they wore and the things they'd done. She knew them all up to and until she fell asleep, then she was useless.

I might have been deeply suspicious of her, but I couldn't fault her testimony. Everything checked out. Plus she had an alibi supported by the life guards. They hadn't noticed the missing girl, but they'd noticed her. It was a reaction I could understand. If this girl was on the beach, most men wouldn't notice anyone else.

So when the brother turned and yelled at her her I was kind of glad. He didn't need her around till her innocence had been fully established. Then as the days blurred into a week, and then two, and we excluded everyone we knew had been on the beach that day, including the brother and the girl, I was left with a terrible feeling of failure.

There are cases that get under your skin. This was one of them. What the perpetrator had done to that poor innocent college student was one of the sickest things I'd ever seen. By all accounts if there had ever been an angel born on earth it was this girl. The more I investigated this girl the more I realized she was one of those rare women who cared about everyone, and was everybody's friend and everyone's big sister. No woman deserved what she'd suffered, but if you understand what I'm saying she deserved it even less.

I am a Christian and I spent a fair time in prayer over the case. Sometimes when I'm working to combat crime and injustice I feel like God is looking over my shoulder pleased at what I'm doing. I didn't get that feeling about this case. It wasn't that God wasn't pleased with me. It was that he was angry, not at me, but at the crime.

The bible says blood calls out from the earth to God and he will make anyone who sheds blood answer to him for it. The thing was I also had the impression from prayer that more had to happen before the thing was finished. It was not because God wanted more to happen. For God does not do evil or tolerate evil. It was more that God was dealing with faulty human beings in the shape of the evil man who'd killed her, and clueless investigators like me.

This is only my opinion but this is how I believe God states his case in my bible. God gave the earth to us humans to manage and he expects us to deal with evil. He did that the very first day when he gave man the control of the earth. However, he also gave humans the choice to choose goodness or wickedness, and that's why evil survives, because some choose to be like that. Most don't deliberately choose evil of course, but the ones that do seem to have no stop button.

That reality didn't help me. I didn't know what to do next because after all I'm only human, and the trail to her killer was cold. He wasn't someone she'd known. Hers was the kind of random victim profile that makes it nearly impossible to catch the perpetrator.

Christians aren't psychic, they are just blessed with knowledge of God and if they listen hard He helps them. I wish I could hear Him directly, but I've never heard His voice. It's not one of my gifts. I'm no prophet. I was left with what I knew, good solid investigative principles which had told me exactly nothing to catch the offender.

We'd found the van. It was a dead end. It hadn't been registered for years. It was the kill site. It had rained by the time we found it, rained heavily in fact, and most of the evidence around it was not useable. We'd found the body. By the time she floated ashore any useful evidence was mostly gone from her body.

All we had was one piece of astonishing luck. Mot of the trace evidence in the van was still being analysed but looked pretty normal to this region of the coast. All the same we had DNA in the form of semen in the back of the van. He'd raped her at least once there. He hadn't used a condom and he was a secretor. That gave us DNA and also how fresh the DNA was gave us possible time of death. Or at least it gave us the time of her rape, because there was no real evidence of if she'd died in that rape. There was blood evidence in the van, hers, but not enough to support her death there.

We'd found the van quickly enough, within twelve hours, and the DNA was fresh and there was just enough of it to type. As a murder in a country where murders like this are rare, processing the DNA took priority. Processing DNA of course took a fair amount of time. This was a serious problem because the more time passed after the crime had been committed the less likely it became that someone would be caught. So the DNA was a godsend.

As the days passed and no other progress occurred I began to despair. We needed to catch this man. Everything inside me wanted to find him, lock him up, and if I could, throw away the key! Yet it was like banging my head up against a brick wall. Nothing changed. I only got a headache.

We'd tracked back evidence of where she landed to where she'd likely gone into the water. Even that was flawed because we still didn't really know when she'd gone into the water. So we had more than one possible lauch site for her corpse and no evidence to support any one of them.

We didn't even know where she'd died. There was no definitive evidence in any place we'd found with any blood to prove it was the scene one way or another. We only knew she hadn't drowned. She'd gone into the water naked and already dead.

As the days went by it became more and more unlkely we wouldn't find anything further. We didn't even have her clothes. They hadn't been at the scene of the van. We had no knife, though we knew he'd cut her throat. The knife that best fit the cuts on her throat was commonly bought in any good kitchen store. Most likely he had the weapon and her clothes stashed somewhere at his home. Since there was no suspect, there was no way to go into a house and actually look.

Yet even if he had the stuff stashed at his home that didn't mean he'd killed her there. The most likely place he'd killed her was next to the van. Right there on the ground beside it was the most likely place she died. The bad storm that occurred within six hours of her disappearance had washed away all the evidence we could find at the scene where we'd found the van. This had not done us any favors. Neither had the siting of the deserted layby on the side of a deserteed forestry road where he'd left the van. That only ensured there were no witnesses.

There were no nearby farms, as the layby was surrounded by national park. The layby itself was only used by forestry personnel who occasionally walked in to a tower that oversaw fire safety in the area. The station wasn't even manned unless there was a fire around.

In fact it was only because of the storm that we'd found the van at all. So the storm was both a blessing and a curse. If it hadn't been for the storm it might have been weeks before we found the van.

Local search and rescue personnel had been checking that none of the storm's lightning strikes had generated a forest fire, so they'd gone to the layby to access the tower. A fire wasn't likely given the amount of rain, but it was proptocol to check in case. Bushfires can get very bad in Australia. Eucalypt trees are a natural fire accelerant.

They'd found the van. Since it was alone without a driver, in an area where tourists shouldn't be, they checked whether someone had gotten trapped out in national forest during the storm. They called it in as a possible missing persons report. Two possible missing persons reports in the same area meant the same police district was dealing with both, so we linked the two reports up quickly.

Some seven days after she disappeared, we finally had a definitive answer. The DNA from the semen was mixed with her female DNA in the sample. The tech had typed both, and with a large number of markers. He'd been careful about the typing because we had to make sure we excluded the twin brother, although there wasn't any real reason to suspect him. There was no doubt about the DNA. It was definitely the killer's. Unfortunately he wasn't on our database. Or at least he hadn't been till now.

All the same you can't DNA test all the men living on the Gold Coast to link semen with a name. Even if it were possible, a lot of men on the coast on any given day are tourists or people just passing through.

So that left me praying unsuccessfully. I just didn't know how to pray better. I could only raise my hands helplessly to heaven and pray for the Lord Most High to cause the killer to make a mistake so we could catch him.

In the meantime until he did, I could and did ask God if He would put barriers around the bloke so he couldn't harm another woman. As the days ticked by that become more and more likely. Most men who rape get a taste for it.

I knew God could do both of these things. I determined to pray and not give up. I would not stop praying so he couldn't hurt another woman. I determined also never to forget this killer, and to keep working on the case till I caught him.

I knew one thing about rapists; they did not stop. They always wanted to hurt women; always. Whatever sick reason for their disgust of women, the truth was they hated them and wanted to punish them all for their perceived beliefs about one woman in their past. He would reoffend.

Of course the problem with that prayer was soon enough there were other cases. Soon enough time and other crime washed away my ability to keep my promise. I'm only human. I regret it to this day, but I forgot my promise to keep on praying. I forgot, so women died. I'll always know that deep in my gut.

Evil happens more often if the church stops praying. With the passage of time the case became colder, less urgent, and I stopped praying. I got on with the next case, and then the next, till it was no longer on my mind so often. Until one day he struck again.

That was yet another reason not to forgive myself. Sure I'm human, but these women had a right to live, and to love, and to be free from violence. God forgive me, because I cannot forgive myself. I'm not sure I ever will.

# Chapter Three: Suspicion and Saving Face.

If men are God's gift to women... God must really like gag gifts!!! – Anon

## Maddie

After Fran I was more serious for a while. I threw myself into my studies because it stopped me thinking. I needed not to think. I still passed my finals because of my memory. I just didn't do as well as normal. I studied hard but I couldn't concentrate properly. It showed. For a while I couldn't hang out at the beach at all either. Eventually though I found another beach and took up the threads of my life. I didn't forget her though, because her absence left a gap in my life that no one could fill.

After graduating I started at Gold Coast Hospital. My first encounter with 'God's Gift to Women' happened as a probationary nurse. It was my second encounter with a seriously nasty male brute. I'd met creeps before, but some men are more than creeps – they're predators.

I was walking indolently along the ward corridor, because the sister in charge was doing hand-over in the ward office, so no one was around to make me move faster. I was supposed to be answering buzzers, but most of the patients were only just waking up from surgery, or had been discharged.

"Nurse," he called out, giving me an assessing look. "Can you give me a hand with this?" 'This' was a pillow he was holding in front of the open supply cupboard. He obviously wanted me to put it away... Either he was very helpless, even more than usual for a young doctor, the pillow was soiled, or he was up to something. Fortunately for me I recognized something in his expression from the beach perverts, so I knew to be wary. Unfortunately for me I'd left my baseball bat in my car. It wasn't part of the standard issue nursing uniform.  
"I can in a bit," I told him being careful not to get near him. "For now, why don't you just put it on the trolley right there? I'll have a look at it after checking on discharges."

Then I turned left away from him and went and gave Mrs. Peabody a helping hand in calling her nephew to pick her up. I think she was surprised. The woman was very capable and certainly could dial out on her phone without any help.

Later on after finding the other student nurse in tears in the ward-room, and hearing she'd been cornered and felt up while changing beds I knew I'd been right. I tried to avoid him from then on. Of course sometimes your luck was out and you couldn't get away. The guy loved garlic I found.

He made me want to puke because he was sweatier than I remembered from my one foolish date with a groper years back. He liked to lick my neck and dribble saliva down it. He liked nothing better than hearing me go spare. It seemed to turn him on. Anything that offended me and made me feel sick turned him on.

Yet losing it verbally never helped in other ways either. He had a genius for picking time and place. He picked times for his attacks when here was rarely anyone else close enough to hear. Plus he was a doctor. There's a hierarchy to the wards, and student nurses are a long way down the power structure.

I'd never met a bloke before I couldn't put off with my hard learnt beach strategies. I had now. Honestly nothing helped.

I tried yawning in his face. He stuck his tongue in. I tried screaming. He used his mouth for that too and saw it as an opportunity. I tried pretending to ignore him groping my breast, but he twisted harder. I tried kneeing him in the groin but he'd obviously suffered that fate many a time and he avoided it well.

The only thing that did help was having other women around. There was safety in numbers. We women on that ward looked out for each other as much as we could.

There was safety in numbers and disgusting substances. It was after my second encounter with the groper that I devised a desperate strategy. The next time I found myself alone with his creepiness I was ready.

I'd been sent to make beds alone because Susan the other student nurse had not turned up for her shifts for a few days. (No doubt that was because of her terror filled encounters with Dr. Alec). They were short-handed, but the sister in charge had asked for a male nurse as Susan's replacement, and pleaded she needed someone stronger to lift patients in an emergency. Since no male nurses could be found we remained short staffed. In reality she didn't want another young female on the ward she'd only have to protect. So I was up one end of the ward all on my own when he came up behind me.

Before I knew it I was being held face down bent across the bed. He started hauling my skirt up around my waist. His whole body was over me, his weight holding me down. I wanted to yell but he had a hand over my mouth. This was the most invasive he'd ever been with me. I struggled, but I couldn't get free.

There was no one to help. This part of the ward was clear. We'd discharged all the patients since our ward mainly had day surgery patients. I was making the beds down here alone. We were too short staffed for there to be a choice.

Fortunately I'd been prepared by my past encounters and the stories of the other nurses. I had a plan. If only I could get one hand free and squeeze it into my side pocket.

Fortunately I managed, and struggled to pull out the fragile little baggie. Squirming under his groping hands, which were trying to pull down my pantyhose, I reached behind me and managed to slap it on his closest body part. It was the only place I could reach. I slapped it hard enough to rupture the seal on the bag all over his nice cream colored slacks. Some got on me, but it was worth it.

It took him a second to smell it but then he jumped off me.  
"What the hell?" he shouted. I stood up and pulled my dress down with my clean hand.  
"I'm sorry Dr. Alec," I said innocently, but I smirked. "I was going to flush that when I got time. I can't think how it got on your pants."

He went to grab me again in anger, but I said, "Uh uh. There's more where that came from", and I put my clean hand on my top pocket. It was enough to make him run off and leave me alone. When I saw him later, he'd changed his trousers. There's nothing like faeces to leave a smell.

My days blurred after that. Every day, I had to get to the ward early enough to collect ammunition in case he cornered me. We all had our own forms of ammunition we favored. We'd all talked after that first success of mine.

On the days I didn't get ammunition in time I paid. He never got so far again, but him even touching me at all was too much. He never raped anyone, but he was a seriously invasive groper and it was probably only a matter of time before he crossed that legal line. In Australia the legal line for rape is invasion of the body with a body part or object. He'd definitely gotten very close a couple of times. I didn't want to be his first.

I kept a running total with the younger nurses in the staff room. They all had their own problems with him, but since he was sleeping with the head of personnel, no one could touch him by making a complaint. He told us he could get us all fired. It was part of his power play as he was assaulting us.

We'd tried to speak to her, (the head of personnel), but she wouldn't believe the first person who tried. They'd been sacked. This is quite normal in Australia. While there are laws to stop this kind of thing, the reality is almost everyone who uses those kind of approaches is never employed again in the organisation. The reasons are never honestly given, in my opinion. Whistleblowers generally suffer. It's actually better to walk out on your job than be a whistleblower.

So we had two choices, defend ourselves or complain to someone who had authority over her. We took the first option. So we worked in unison. Together we shared strategies and laid traps. It was exhausting. I hated the effort it required. I hated being groped more.

There were some casualties in the war. Jessie was sacked when another senior consultant bumped into her in the darkened ward one night and she sprayed him in the eyes with detergent thinking it was Dr. Alec. A wardsman lost his job because Dr. Alec complained he wasn't doing his work properly, and had left the back entrance door to the ward locked too early. He said a patient had coded when he couldn't get in.

We knew we'd locked the door to stop him sneaking up behind us as he'd done for the last two days. WE weren't honest about it. We couldn't afford to care. The guy was a menace.

It was me who took the hat trick in the end. We'd been talking about setting him up, getting film, and going to the cops. None of us had decided for sure because we knew the risks. We'd lose our jobs and be unemployable, but everyday he was going further. Better to be unemployed than a victim any longer. We said that loudly to each other, psyching ourselves up. Yet no one was willing to be the one who made a stand. In the end it wasn't necessary. He shot himself in the foot so to speak!

I'd been running down the stairs on the way back to the ward after escorting a patient to theatre when he found me. He had me backed into a corner up against a wall in the stairwell. The jerk was groping me while I struggled to stop him when his lover turned the corner. I have no idea why she was walking up those stairs right then, but I made the most of the opportunity.

He was saying \--  
"Just relax and let me do it. You know you like it." I pushed his hand away from my breast as best I could.  
"But Alec, what about Meredith?"  
"Stuff Meredith. You're hotter than Meredith." He leant in for a kiss. I protested,--  
"But I like Meredith and I know she loves you." He snickered.  
"Meredith is a frigid bitch. Stop fighting me, you know you want it."

"Alec!" Meredith's voice came from behind him. "Let Nurse Parker go."  
"Uh, sweetheart," he said, poleaxed. "It's not what it looks like." I didn't wait for her reply but shoved myself free and ran for the door which opened onto the floor my ward was on. Needless to say he got his walking papers that day. I almost did too. Fortunately for me all of the female staff stuck together when she investigated. They threatened to go above her head if she kept saying she was going to sack me. Or maybe we got through to the woman and she was ashamed at what she found. Anyway Jessie and the wardsman got reinstated. She got disciplined for not listening to the first complaint by Matron. Susan, however, never came back. I didn't know what had happened to Susan, but no one could locate her. It was like she died or moved away or something.

For me it crystallized things a little. The thought of a physical relationship with any man now made me feel sick. It had always made me wary, but now I had a true aversion to the thought. If I'd been searching for a millionaire before, now I was even more determined not to settle for less. I just added to the list. My millionaire was not going to touch the goodies until he paid the price and married me. Of course first I had to find said millionaire, and want him to touch the goodies, which since Dr. Alec was now questionable, and then I had to attract him without giving anything away I didn't want to.

It didn't matter though. If the guy couldn't be found I'd just stay single and a virgin. All I needed to do was find a better job. Men were over-rated. I'd changed my life plans before. If I had to I could again. There had to be better ways to get that lazy lifestyle I loved. They didn't all require a husband to support you, surely.

# Alistair

It was getting harder every year.  
"Where is she, God?" I prayed. For a single Christian man living and working outdoors at the Gold Coast things were tough. The worst jobs for a builder were close to the beach. You try to concentrate on your job, which at the moment was using a nail gun, when you're hanging high up on a scaffold looking over a beach where half the women present were sun-bathing topless. It's hopeless in my opinion. There should be laws against it, or hazard pay. I was going to go blind.

I needed a wife. I been looking hard at church, but the girls were all too old, too young or I simply couldn't contemplate marriage to them because of that indefinable 'ick' factor. I didn't know what it was. I could respect all the women at church while not wanting to be in a serious relationship with a single one of them. Physically something didn't gel.

If only one of them looked like that red-head out there. Now there was a woman! I reined my thoughts in, but it was true. She was the only attractive woman on the beach who hadn't shed her top, and she was the only woman on the beach who appealed. Her hair was like fire, and her face was that of an angel. I could see that from the reactions of the other men on the beach. More than that she wasn't talking incessantly to a friend, or flirting or checking out the guys on the beach. She seemed indifferent to them and more interested in soaking up rays and sleeping. I could never stand being ear-bashed, and I liked to do the chasing. Women who came up to me always made me want to run.

"What are you thinking about?" asked my boss. I sighed.  
"Who's thinking?" I told him. "I'm drooling."  
"Hah!" he replied. "Get your mind out of the gutter and watch what you do with that gun. I can't write on a workers compensation form that you were perving so you shot yourself in the foot." I laughed.

"I can't stand it," I told him. "Why can't all women be like that one?" I pointed to the red-head. "Quiet, sexy but leaving something to the imagination..."  
"Dunno," he said, "but get on with it. We need to get most of the top floor sills and joists on today."  
"K," I said as the woman on the beach turned over.

I got on with it. What else could I do? Even if she was attractive and endearing, I'd bet a close encounter wouldn't live up to the first impression. She probably didn't even go to church.

For a Christian man like me that was the bottom line. I decided to pray every day from now on. I really, really needed a wife now I'd got this new job. I'd prayed sporadically over the years, but now it was more urgent. I had to do something or temptation would eat me alive.

Later on the boss sent me to the beachside cafe to buy some lunch for those on the crew who hadn't bought stuff from home. I ran into her inside. She was coming towards the door with a cover up over her bikini now, juggling towels, a beach bag, food and a drink. She looked even better close up.

Before I could stop myself I held open the door. My Mum had taught me manners. You always opened doors for a lady.  
"Here you go," I said.  
"Grrr," she said.

See I'd been right. Up close a fault always became apparent. She was obviously either a feminist or she hated men.

I couldn't fight temptation well so I caved.  
"Thank-you Alistair," I said mockingly. "I love it when men open doors for me like I'm a princess." She raised one eyebrow, but otherwise said nothing.

That would have been the end of our encounter, but she dropped her bag. I picked it up for her and a nursing badge dropped out with the emblem of the Gold Coast Hospital on it. I stuffed it back in and held out the bag.

"I could have picked it up myself," she argued. I grinned.  
"Why should you Princess Madison? It is the least I could do." I bowed to tease her more.  
"Grrr," she said again and stomped out.

I sighed. Well what had I expected? Women were always too good to be true. None of them were perfect. I went into the shop and ordered lunch and forgot about her.

# Chapter Four: Adventures and Adversity.

There's no evidence whatsoever that men are more rational than women. Both sexes seem to be equally irrational. – Albert Ellis

## Maddie

Pete came back into my life in my fourth year on the wards. I was doing midwifery because I hated lifting heavy patients. It was too much like hard work. I figured at least in maternity the patients could walk most of the time, and the babies didn't weigh much. I know most people would hate the hours, but I was already a nurse. The shift work was always going to be bad.

I couldn't get out of it though since I never ran into any millionaires in the hospital I worked in. I hadn't thought up a better plan to get the lifestyle I wanted so was still marking time till I met the millionaire I was determined to marry. I realized the chances of meeting a single male millionaire in a maternity ward were close to zero. I couldn't think of another way to meet one. None of them frequented the beaches I used. Perhaps they were all at the marina or somewhere like Sanctuary Cove. I hadn't met one here.

All the same I had to get out of the hospital somehow. My current plan to do so was as a private midwife. After all a millionaire could have sisters. Millionaires were more likely to want private midwives to look after their sisters weren't they? It was possible, wasn't it? It was better than any other plan I'd had to date anyway. At least as a midwife, even if I never met a millionaire, some midwives did home visits and those lucky nurses had permanent day shift. One way or another shift work and I were going to part our ways.

It was the end of a terrible shift. I'd spent all morning with a screamer. I could sympathize. Giving birth is a bit like squeezing a bowling ball out of a hole many times smaller than the ball. It made me glad I was a virgin and had never even been tempted enough to end up pregnant. I don't really believe in the Immaculate Conception, and I just knew prevention of sex is the cure of choice for pregnancy. Besides I still didn't want to get that close to any man, despite all my plans. God's gift to women had scared me that badly!

The woman had done nothing but scream, pant and push, and all at the wrong moments so it hadn't gone well. However, there's a lot of work at a birth not done by the mother. I was the one who'd been forced into prying her grasping hands off me when her husband wasn't there to swear at. I was the one who wished I could wear ear-plugs to work. I was the one who'd barely caught the slippery baby when it shot out of the birth canal like a bat out of hell during a final horrendous contraction. The doctor hadn't turned up either, the jerk. I'd known he wouldn't. This one rarely did. You had to tell him you'd just delivered and his patient needed suturing for him to even make it in. I should charge him consultant fees.

Despite all these problems I'd done my job. I'd been half-way through suturing the bad tear she'd caused by ignoring my advice when the doctor had finally showed. He hadn't taken over, the lazy jerk, but he'd watched me finish up. Then he'd taken over the emotional end of the birth. He congratulated her, asked how she was feeling, apologized for not making it and lied when he blamed me for not calling early enough. He went on to tell her the child was adorable and a pediatrician would be looking at her baby in just a moment. What a prince!

I used his presence as an excuse to exit the room with the baby. On the way up the corridor the father turned up looking very scared. I told him he was too late, all the time thinking he was a lucky man because he'd missed the nasty birth stuff. All the same I let him look over his new kid.

By the time the pediatrician had worked the kid up with all the medical tests, and I'd bathed and calmed down the little cherub, I was a wreck. I handed the baby over to his dewy-eyed parents, watching them cuddling as usual in a three way group hug.

I never could understand it. Before the birth the women would be swearing undying hatred and telling the husband he was a jerk to get her pregnant. She was never having sex with him again. He was sleeping on the sofa for the rest of their life! If he touched her again she'd get a divorce. After the birth it was like she'd never spoken.

They'd talk about how adorable the baby was. The wife would say it was worth it and she couldn't wait to have more kids, because look at their baby, it was so adorable. The husband would vary between looking like he was glad world war III had ended, and looking proud like he'd singlehandedly caused the birth of someone like Gandhi. If I had the energy to care I would've bothered to try to reason it out. It was all too much like hard-work in my opinion. In some things people were predictable but incomprehensible.

By 3pm hand-over was finished and I was walking tiredly out of the ward room when I noticed the two men. It's not unusual for men to be on the maternity wards since babies had fathers, but these men were unusually well-dressed for a public hospital ward. Then I noticed one was Pete.

"Maddie," he said.  
"Hello Pete." I waited because I had no idea what he wanted with me. He'd said enough the last time when he'd been furious and grief-stricken. He'd wanted me to identify the killer. I couldn't. I'd been sleeping when Fran was being kidnapped, and worrying myself to death when Fran was a floater in the ocean. None of my actions had changed anything. Fran was just as dead.

"There's been another girl taken Maddie. She's the third. They've linked them up. They're reopening the case." I still said nothing. None of it had anything to do with me. What could I tell them? I'd seen nothing.

His partner spoke up then.  
"Miss Parker?"  
"Yes?"  
"Is there somewhere else we could talk? Somewhere more... private?"  
"Oh... Sure... There's an office up here near the labor suites." I walked round them and led the way.  
"Do you have to tell someone you're with us?"  
"Oh... No I just finished my shift."

We all filed into the room, and I closed the door and flicked the switch that said the room was occupied. The room was the one reserved for difficult interviews and counseling sessions. We used it when we suspected a woman had post-natal depression and we needed to inform her husband, or when a couple had miscarried and we were giving them the results of lab tests before the wife was admitted for a D & C (Dilation and Curette). We wouldn't be disturbed in here, even if there was a crisis with another patient.

"Miss Parker?" I wished he'd stopped saying my name and just get on with it.  
"Yes?"  
"As we said this one is the third girl. At the moment she's missing. We haven't found her or her body yet."  
"I can't help you," I said. "I didn't see the guy who took Fran."  
"Let's start again," the older cop responded. "My name's Levi, Detective Levi Johanssen. We're here because we've thought of something. We know you were asleep when Fran was taken. We also know you hadn't been at the beach long. We think you may have seen something without knowing it when you arrived at the beach. We'd like your permission to hypnotize you."  
"Oh," I replied. Then I thought about it.

"I'm not comfortable with that. That means I'd have to let someone tamper with my brain."  
"We just want to see if you'd recall details about any men in the area."  
"Look mate. I have a photographic memory. Believe me if there was anything to recall I'd already remember it."  
"Really? You have a photographic memory?"  
"Yeah. There's no point in this."

It was no more the truth. "I've gone over and over that day and played back my memories. There wasn't anyone near the ice-cream shop when we walked up and laid our towels out. The van I read about in the newspaper wasn't even there. We got there early that day, about 7am. The parking lot was empty.

The only people on the beach at 7am were surf life savers, surfers and joggers. The joggers were further away, but I knew them all. Fran wouldn't have gone off with any of the men on the beach, and even if she'd been tempted she knows all their names. We regulars all know each other.

She called him a man. She didn't know his name. The man wasn't there when I came in from my surf. No one was near the ice cream shop. Then I fell asleep. I don't know anything."

I watched Johanssen look at Pete, and Pete look back. Johanssen shrugged, but then he turned to me.  
"Thank-you for your time," he said. "Sorry to disturb you."

I wasn't finished with the subject. I turned to Pete.  
"I never said this to you years ago, but I'm saying it now. I loved Fran. No one wishes more than me I'd woken up when she went off to talk to the guy who was winking at her. I'd help if I could Pete. I can't. I'm sorry I fell asleep on the beach and let her down." I saw him accept that, and hate the thought, but after a minute he looked down, and he nodded. It was a start.

It was Constable Johanssen who said the last words about the case.  
"I'm giving you my card," he told me. "No, don't argue. You probably can't help our investigation, but just in case something happens and you think it's related, or you remember anything later, take it..." When I started to protest, he went on. "No, just take it. You never know. You might need it."  
"Okay," I agreed. I knew he was wrong. My memory is always reliable. My motivation is not. I took his card anyway. He shook my hand.

Pete didn't. In fact he didn't even really smile at me as he turned to go. I realized I missed Pete's smile as much as I missed Fran. He was the brother I'd always wanted instead of the one I had. It wasn't that I hated my brother. We just weren't close. Pete on the other hand was closer to my age and we got on. I hoped that one day we weren't enemies any more. There was nothing I could do about that either. Our easy camaraderie had died the day Fran did.

It was then he stopped. He turned round.  
"I'm sorry I blamed you Maddie," he said. I was a bit stunned at his apology, because of the apt timing and because it was my fault there was no witness for Fran, but I said nothing. He went on after a bit, awkwardly, like he had to get his apology off his chest and so was rushing through it in an effort to get it done. "It wasn't your fault... It was the killer's fault... All of it was... Anyway I've been feeling guilty for blaming you. God won't let me do it anymore."

"Huh?" I said. "God?" I was stunned. Pete had never been religious.  
"Yeah, I believe in God now Maddie." I could sense a bible-bashing coming so I changed the subject quickly.  
"Okay, I accept your apology. Look I've got to go. I have an appointment." I did. I had an appointment with an ice-cream shop, some surf and a beach. In the end I'd gone back to the same beach and the same ice-cream shop, and now I couldn't wait to get there.

I got out of there as fast as I could. At the beach I changed into my bikini, but left the cover up in my bag. The beach was mostly deserted at this hour. There was one guy on the beach in shorts when I ran into the surf to cool off, but no one else, not even life guards. The flags were not up. I had my surf board in my hands and I ran out and dunked myself under before climbing on it. I noticed the guy had a fishing rod in his hands. It was seriously attractive because it was like my Dad. I've never bothered with guys though, not even fishermen, so I ignored him and got on with a quick invigorating surf. It was about 5:30 in the evening when I walked back out of the surf. There were a lot more people now, and the life guards were there, but he was still fishing off to one side. It was then I realized who it was.

"You!' I said. He laughed.  
"Hello Princess Madison."  
"Shut up!" I said. I wasn't staying to hear more. I dislike men like him; I dislike any man who flirts with me. That was what I remembered from our last encounter. He'd tried to flirt with me. So I walked on up the beach and ignored him.

Later on when I was half asleep in the late summer sun someone came over and stood blocking the rays. It woke me up.  
"Hey!" I objected. Then I opened my eyes and saw who it was.

I didn't say anything else to the irritating man. Part of it was not just that I didn't like him, but because I was wary of anyone who approached me near this beach. I loved this beach, but I was wary of men on it since Fran had gone missing off it.

This guy, the ice cream shop flirt, had never really approached me properly before though. He'd only seized an opportunity once when we'd run into one another. He hadn't winked at me either. My last memory of Fran was when she told me the man at the shop was a winker. This man neither smirked or winked, he merely flirted. I might not like him, but flirting is not a crime.

"I've wanted to talk to you," he said. I just quirked one brow in response, but I said nothing. I have rules for guys I dislike, and one of them is to let them do all the talking. "We keep running into each other and I'm wondering if it's less than a coincidence."  
"Huh?" I said.

That was a novel approach. I've never believed in fate or kismet or love at first sight or whatever the hell else people call it. Neither I've found do most guys. Or at least if they do, they don't seem to want love at first sight to happen. They'd rather play the field for the instant thrill.

Unfortunately he chose to explain.   
"I'm a Christian, so I'm wondering if God has something to do with it." God, huh? Another novel approach but one that did require a response, if only to avoid my second potential bible-bashing of the day.  
"God's a myth and you are deeply nuts."

As you can imagine that went over like a house on fire. I held back a smile.  
"God's not a myth," he declared emphatically.  
"Oh yeah," I said lazily and lay back down again, closing my eyes. "Prove there's a God then." I expected a response but unexpectedly didn't get one. I opened one eye. He was just looking a little disappointed or something.

My mistake," he responded. "I was hoping you were some sort of answer to prayer."  
"What kind of answer to prayer?" I should have known better than to ask a leading question like that. At least I should have if I wanted him to leave me alone.  
"The usual kind. I've been praying for a wife, and I keep running into you. I was wondering if it meant something since you're always turning up. Obviously I was wrong."  
"You," I said, "are deeply nuts. In what alternative universe would you even think I'd be interested in you?"

Most guys would storm off about now, but he merely laughed. At least it showed he wasn't conceited.  
"Yeah," he said, unexpectedly acknowledging his insanity. "I obviously misread a few cues. It's just you are so restful to be around. It's very attractive."

I closed the eye and yawned.  
"Most guys have a few more qualifications for a wife other than deeply lazy and addicted to the beach." He laughed for some time.  
"Maybe," he replied when he'd exhausted his amusement. "Or maybe you are a very restful person and I value that. I'm sorry you're not a Christian and don't believe in God."

'Uh oh', I thought. I braced myself for the next bit where the sermon usually comes. It didn't.  
"Oh well. I've got to go. It's getting late. You take care of yourself Princess Madison."  
"Sure," I replied and yawned again.

I expected to hear him leaving but he didn't move.  
"Don't take this the wrong way honey," he said after a moment. I thought, 'uh oh' again, but he merely said. "Let me see you to your car. I have this really weird feeling I shouldn't leave you here on the beach alone today. It's getting late. Please let me see you to your car."

I thought about fighting him on it but I was really afraid if I didn't wake up, get into the car and drive home, he'd stay there and sooner or later the bible-bashing would start. He seemed very motivated and enthusiastic. I'd learnt to my cost that motivated enthusiastic people also possessed annoying amounts of determination.

I sighed.  
"You," I said, "are one hell of a nuisance."  
"I know," he said. "But you are so beautiful and there are so many guys around who are only interested in one thing."

"Yourself excluded?"  
"I don't think I have only one thing on my mind. I can think of three, but all the same let's humor me and get you out of here."

I sighed again, but I didn't ask what the three things on his mind were, since it was obvious he wanted a date, a wife and to bible-bash me. Instead I packed up my stuff. He saw me to the car and infuriatingly got the last word, when he opened my car door for me, stuffed my bags in the back seat, and said, "I'll pray for you Princess Madison. I've never believed in coincidences, only a God who manages lives."

Huh, I thought, that jerk! Just when I thought to myself I had gotten away unscathed, he bible-bashes me. This time though I knew better than to continue the conversation, so I merely let out a derisive snort and got in and drove off. I went home and stewed about my day for several hours. It was one of the rare occasions when I found it hard to sleep.

# Chapter Five: Dissonance and Discovery

Men and women belong to different species and communication between them is still in its infancy. – Bill Crosby

## Maddie

Things were hotting up in my universe. I hated times like this. I'd mostly managed to keep away from the jerk of a building contractor apart from sporadic encounters at the beach, and Pete and his mate had not been near me again. Today had changed all that. The murder, or what I thought was probably a murder, had changed all that.

Right when I had needed to fix some things in my life an opening had come up for a midwife who could do home visits to women just home from hospital. They'd come up tragically, but they'd come up.

The midwife who'd left the position vacant had been another victim of the creep who was stalking gold coast women. I hadn't liked her, but I knew her. It was scary because she was the second woman I knew who he'd taken.

According to the papers this brought the count to four. Journalists were screaming for action, and politicians were promising to hire more police to patrol since it was an election year. She'd gone missing, just like Fran, although not from a beach, and her body had washed up five days later. Whoever this creep was he clearly dumped his bodies well.

It made me feel a little strange to gain a job I'd salivated over from such a bad set of circumstances. However, I reasoned to myself that someone had to take the position and it may as well be me.

The job was a dream come true. All you had to do was visit five women a day minimum, and not turn up at their houses before ten in the morning or after four in the afternoon. It meant I could sleep in! How many nurses get that opportunity?

It also meant that I could complete my charts at my leisure and had up to two days to do this. I would collect the charts and referral slips for the next day from the outpatient's department office, read them, put the charts back, and make a few quick phone calls and then the next day turn up when I wanted.

The job itself wasn't onerous. It was simply asking questions and changing a dressing on a C-section scar if needed. I could if the women wanted give lessons on bathing the baby, or give advice about breast feeding. The most dangerous part of the job happened during the naked weigh-in of the infant when some baby incontinence issues could end in a nasty accident.

However, even that was a plus since it was an excuse to go and shower. Where better to do that than at the beach where you could have an early break and catch some rays? Perhaps that may seem a little strange to some, but I lived for the beach. It made sense to me.

The only down side of the job was that it wasn't shift work. Consequently my pay rate had dropped massively. Still I was being paid for doing less than I'd do on the wards. It was the best, most restful job I'd ever had. Until today...

Now lunch-time had long passed, and I was being bailed up by two cops. Sure I knew them, since it was Pete and his partner Levi, but I wasn't enjoying the experience.

My decision to come to work dressed in little more than a bikini and a cover-up was not a good one when you considered all the crime scene personnel, paramedics and other police who were at the scene. The whole time I was at the scene my skin crawled, as if I was being watched. I knew I was. They were men.

Detective Johanssen's eyes had nearly popped out of their sockets when he saw how I was dressed for work, and every now and again I saw his eyes do an involuntary slide downwards. Then he'd drag them back to my face and make us both embarrassed by blushing. A guy blushing! How cute.

Even worse, I had to go talk to the annoying contractor and reclaim the kid, and I had to do it very soon, like about now. I heaved a sigh of exasperation, knowing I couldn't put it off any longer.  
"Look, give me a second. I'll be right back." I didn't wait for permission but ran out of the room where they were trying to interview me.

Out front I found the contractor still holding the baby. His workmate had gone. He was sitting in the truck cooing at the kid and it made my heart give an odd little skip. It was unexpectedly sweet, dammit. Two sweet men in the same place. It put me off balance, but life had taught me to act tough, or at least professional...

"Okay, you can hand it over now."  
"It?" he asked. "Don't you know the sex of this little munchkin?" I rolled my eyes.  
"When have I had time to change the kid's nappy and find out?"  
"Yeah I forgot about that." I gave him a superior look and reached out my hands for the baby.

"No, wait a sec, what're you going to do with him?" Him huh? Maybe he'd looked... What a weirdo.  
"I thought I'd be really annoying and change his nappy unless you'd like to volunteer for the job?" He laughed.  
"I've changed a few nappies in my time, I've got a couple of nephews, but I think I'll pass on this one."

Who wouldn't? The kid was seriously smelly and getting worse by the minute. I wouldn't put it past a newborn to go more than once every feed.

He handed the kid over, but he wasn't finished with the conversation.  
"You didn't answer my question."  
"Huh."  
"You didn't tell me what you are going to do with the munchkin after you change his nappy."  
"Well let's see. The baby is at one hour past his last feed and his mother was breast feeding. I've sent out an emergency call for help on next of kin but no one has gotten back to me. I've called child services but no one has returned my call. Got any ideas?"

I was clearly being sarcastic but he didn't respond as I expected. Most people would back off after that kind of a speech. After all I knew what I was doing, and he was only a passerby after all.  
"Yeah I figured the little tyke was in trouble even if the Mum was not dead... Anyway I might have a solution."  
"Huh? ... Listen if you can breast-feed a kid I'll eat my bikini top."

He laughed.  
"It might be worth betting on that to see you try to get out of it."  
"Huh?"  
"Look, my sister is breastfeeding her second child. She's gonna come over and be a wet nurse for the next feed while you get some stuff organized."  
"Oh," I responded. "That's nice of you and your sister."  
"I couldn't do anything else. The poor kid's going to have a hard enough few days now while everyone sorts this out."

I was shocked by his attitude because I didn't understand it. In my experience ninety per cent of people would commiserate with me about the baby but offer nothing constructive. The other ten percent would call emergency services, which was pointless since the police and ambulance were already here.

They would expect child services and the rest of us to solve the problem. They wouldn't care what time any of us got finished sorting it all. They certainly wouldn't make phone calls organizing a sister to be a wet nurse, and talk her into leaving her own children to come and feed an unknown and unrelated new-born. In fact if I wasn't stuck with the situation I would do nothing myself.

"The kid can't stay out here in the sun," I said. "It'll get sunburnt." Sure They were in a truck, but the sun was pouring in the window onto the kid as the time eked on far past noon. The window couldn't be closed as it was summer, and they'd bake alive in the truck.  
"Yeah, I've been worried about it."  
"You'd better come inside."  
"Okay," he agreed. "Let me phone my sister, and then I'll come in." He handed me the sopping wet baby complete with the now dripping blanket. Fortunately I'd come out armed with some more towels.

The kid needed a bath I decided, after I got back inside. So I went to do something about it.  
"You can't use that," a crime scene technician told me when I went into the kitchen armed with a baby bath.

"Stop me," I said, and handed him the smelly baby who now it'd been disturbed was getting very vocal. He took the kid because who wouldn't catch a baby? I congratulated myself on my actions, because it stopped the technician stopping me. He was giving me looks that said he didn't want to hold the kid. I ignored them while I continued the argument. "The kid has rights, and one of them is the right to be looked after. It needs a bath. There's nowhere else suitable." The guy sighed but he'd already given up.

"Just relax," another technician told him. "It looks like the offender washed up in the bathroom. Let her bath the kid here." Then he winked at me... I wanted to hit him, (my usual instinctive reaction to winkers which I'd never acted on but still wanted to), but I controlled myself since it would get me arrested.

I left the technician holding the baby so to speak. When I came back into the kitchen armed with all the baby stuff to bath the little tyke I noticed the technician had offloaded the kid onto the contractor, who had made it inside. He was jogging the baby up and down in his arms like a pro, although on second thoughts doing that was very unwise given the state of its nappy and blankets.

I filled the bath, grabbed the baby, stuck the kid down on the nearby table and undressed it, throwing the pungent bedding, towels and clothes in a large heap on the floor. Crime scene could deal with it. It was the only thing to do. They were disgusting.

I found the kid was a boy. As quick as I could I put the little tyke in the bath, wishing all the time I had a plastic apron. I knew what boy babies were like.

The contractor didn't retreat which surprised me.  
"Seeing as how we temporarily share a son I'd better give you my name." I didn't answer because I couldn't be less interested in his name.

He went on anyway. "I'm Alistair Jansen," he told me. I decided instinctively it was in the nature of yet another of his lame pick- up lines. He might think he acted cool and uninterested, but I had never met an uninterested man. They were all ruled by their testosterone. I know that sounds conceited, but that's my experience.  
"Yeah," I replied disinterestedly. "What's that Belgian or something?"  
"Nah, my grand-parents were Dutch."

It figured. He was blonde and obnoxious. Everything I've heard about the Dutch was that they were serious, determined people, and blunt enough to be considered rude by others. Apparently, like the Scots, they were rumored to be tight with their money. I wasn't looking for a religious millionaire who was so tight-fisted he wouldn't let me spend his money. It was yet another strike out for him. Besides what were the chances the guy was wealthy? He was just a contractor, and one I disliked at that.

Being me I let him know right up I still wasn't really interested.  
"Yeah well don't get your hopes up."  
"About what Princess?"

Hmmm, maybe he wasn't hitting on me after all. A flirt would flirt more about now.   
"About anything. You don't want to hang around me. I'm a spendthrift and the kid will go into care unless we can find his real Father."

Apparently I was wrong about the Dutch being overly serious and tightwads because he guffawed, and then set me straight.  
"Do your worst Princess. I'm sticking around you like glue till I know the boy is being looked after properly. I think my credit card can handle it." Then he ruined it all when he added, "Besides until I see an EFTPOS machine stuck under that miniscule cover-up you aren't wearing I think my money is safe."

Until then I'd been revising my opinion of him from 'never worth dating even on a cold day in hell' to 'maybe worth at least one date if I can keep his mind off religion because he might have more money than you think.' It had only been his weird non-selfish attitude that had made me revise my opinion of him at all. That, and the fact that he was religious so I figured I was safe from a groping, and I was too tired to want to cook dinner tonight so would welcome being taken to dinner. Now I retraced my steps and decided I still disliked him. Dinner would be too annoying. He'd better not ask me out!

Fortunately his sister turned up right then before the conversation could get any more meaningful or hint at anything that implied a future relationship of any sort. It was good timing because the little tyke, who I knew only as baby Smith decided he'd been awake long enough and it was time for a feed. I let Jansen take the baby and his sister out to the bedroom where I presumed he would let her feed him in peace. I knew he wouldn't stay with her while she fed the kid. What man would want to see his sister's boobs?

Meanwhile I was baled up again by Pete and his partner. His partner started it.  
"I think it's time we talked further Miss Parker." I sighed, but sat down at the kitchen table as he pulled out his notebook.  
"Sure Detective Johanssen," I said, "but can we make it fast. It's getting late and I need to organize a carer for the night for the baby."  
"It's Levi." I just looked at him. Like I cared what his first name was. Pete who knew me too well started in on me then.

"Maddie, what do you know about the baby's father?"  
"Nothing... There's no one listed on the form and as far as I know no one turned up at the hospital. She's listed as needing a visit from a social worker. I don't know what that means in this case. Usually though it means she has no near relatives which makes things... I mean it would have made things hard on her after the hard time she had in labor."

"Did you see or hear anything unusual when you entered the house?"  
"Not really. The kid was screaming and no one was responding... Oh hang on, something did fall over in the house when I was at the front door. At least that's what it sounded like."  
"Could it have been the back door?"  
"I guess so, but it didn't really sound like it... Could I ask you a question?"  
"Sure. You can ask... We may not be able to tell you what you want to know?"

"She looked like... she looked like... it was like someone raped her."  
"I can't tell you honey," said Pete. It was the way he said it though. I knew she probably had been. It made me furious. After going through a bad labor and the hell of a week she'd had, what kind of animal raped the mother of a newborn?

I swallowed hard. For only the third time in my life I hurt for someone else. Usually most people got what they deserved. Fran hadn't. Susan hadn't from that jerk Dr. Alec. Now this woman hadn't either. It made me wonder what kind of sick world I inhabited. I couldn't do anything about it though. All I could do was to try to locate a relative to raise her kid, or a decent adoptive parent, or at least get social services involved.

I decided for once I'd do what I could to help the kid. There were times to let things slide, and do the minimum, because I wasn't the best person to help most people seeing as how I was pathologically lazy. This was not one of those times. It's amazing how motivating fury can be, and how much caring provides a drive that motivates you. I didn't want to care, but this time I did.

Things went pear-shaped from there. The department of child services did not return my emergency call that afternoon. Since I was still stuck at my first home visit late in the afternoon, I cancelled all the rest of them.

There were no details I knew from the patient's chart for next of kin. She'd listed her baby as her next of kin I remembered now. It was heart-rending.

The director of nursing when contacted about the situation after hours late on a Friday afternoon told me to cope over the weekend as best I could. I was a midwife she said. She told me to take the baby home and she would get someone to pick him up as soon as she could. She didn't want to admit him. The ward was full. He wasn't sick. If he hadn't been collected by Monday I was to bring him into hospital to be readmitted, or transferred elsewhere.

I guess I was going to need the contractor after all. Money didn't grow on trees and I needed to do some serious baby shopping. The rest of the kid's stuff now constituted a crime scene, and while I could take his clothes and bassinette, he couldn't eat them.

Pete made it worse. He and 'Levi' told me they knew where I lived. He also told me to take the kid home, since the director of nursing was already trying to organize a carer by contacting the hospital social worker. They had better emergency numbers, but they said since I was a trained midwife and lactation specialist I was probably better than anyone else they could arrange this weekend. They told me to live with it and go home.

# Chapter Six: Catastrophe and Coincidences

Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him. – Groucho Marx

## Maddie

Shopping was one thing I was good at. Of course I'd never been shopping for baby stuff before. Early on a Friday night is not a good time to start experimenting. Shopping with a man is something I wasn't in the habit of doing either. I had no experience at all with that. However I was willing to learn to spend someone else's money; it was an important part of my life plan. I was even more willing because the contractor who was shopping with me annoyed me. That only increased as the evening wore on.

Alistair had kept his word, stuck around, and brought his credit card, but he also brought his opinions. I discovered he was a tightwad! What they said about Dutch people was clearly true.  
"Why do we need a big sterilizer?"  
"What are you stupid or something? The kid is used to sterile breast milk. You'll kill him if you don't sterilize the bottles."  
"Fine!" he sighed heavily. "I'll get the sterilizer but why do we need eight bottles. That would mean the kid is feeding every," (he stopped to think it out)..., "three hours!"  
"And your point is?"  
"This sterilizer here is cheaper and it only holds four bottles. Why don't we just manage with it and with fewer bottles? The kid won't be around long so we don't need the big one or the extra bottles."

"So you'll be at my place to make up bottles at 2 am tonight?"  
"Well no... Wait is that an invitation? I'm shocked Princess Madison!" He grinned at me, but his smile said he wasn't coming on to me as much as trying to stir me up.  
"Dream on mate," I told him. I wanted to call him a jerk because all this arguing was taking up valuable time, forcing me to talk more than I liked, and the kid would want a feed soon, but I was afraid he'd run out ditching me with the bills he'd volunteered to pay.

"Listen Princess Madison I'm just trying to save a little money here. You'll only have the kid forty-eight hour's tops... That's another thing, why do you need so many different teats? There are sixteen of them, that's two for each bottle!" I sighed.  
"Look do we agree I know more about new-born babies than you?"  
"Yeah, we do. But we don't both know the size of my credit card balance." I rolled my eyes.

"Listen Mr. Sarcasm. I'll save you a little money now as long as you realise that you'll need to leave me your phone number, and after the next feed you might have to make an emergency run to the 24 hour chemist. Baby stuff is so much more expensive from a chemist shop." I watched him process that, and then he sighed, squaring his shoulders like someone getting ready for a serious blow.  
"Fine," he said. "Let's get on with it then."

We did. The next thing the kid needed was a whole heap of disposable nappies... That required another conversation that disillusioned him. The whole time I was wearing my poker face and spending his money recklessly I was grinning inside.

I'd picked up one feed of pre-made baby food, as well as a can of formula, but I still had to get home and sterilize the bottles before I could give it to the little boy. We didn't make it. The kid was squalling and wriggling, and I still needed to get the door open. Alistair had carried the bags of stuff up onto the verandah while I lugged the tyke. I figured if he was already there and feeling generous I could take advantage of his better nature, and I tried to hand him the squalling baby as well. He kept his hands firmly by his side.

"Take him," I demanded. He looked amused.  
"Now princess, this is beyond what I promised."  
"You jerk, the kid needs you."  
"Yeah I agree little Moses needs me, but I have a favor to ask. No favor, no more help."

"What did you call him?"  
"Moses."  
"Why?!"  
"Well you did kind of throw him at me today, and it reminds of a bible story about a kid that was thrown away. That kid was floating on a river of liquid too."  
"Huh? You can't name the kid. You don't have the right."

"Princess you're wasting time, Moses wants a feed."  
"Then take him for a second."  
"Uh uh."  
"Alright, alright! What will it take for you to hold the baby?"

"I've changed my mind."  
"Huh? Don't you dare abandon me you jerk."  
"I've two conditions now."  
"Just tell me what they are?" I wailed. The kid had a roar on him now that sounded like military sirens when alert levels were at Defcon One.  
"I've changed my mind. I need to stay at your place tonight just in case you need me. You seem kind of helpless." Helpless? Who was the nurse?  
"No way!" I told him, "What's the other request?"  
"You come to church with me Sunday."  
"No way! Take the baby. Don't be a jerk!"  
"Princess you know you need me."  
"Not that much!" I screeched.  
"Too bad, because that's my final offer."

He turned to walk down my front stairs, so what else could I do? I caved. I swear screaming babies were the devil. I would let him stay and I'd go to church with him on Sunday. He was going to suffer though. I'd never seriously tried to make anyone suffer before, but I figured it couldn't be a hard skill to acquire. Other girls made being infuriating look so easy. I'd always been a fast learner.

"Fine!" I said, angrily. "Get your ass back up those steps and take the kid."  
"Please," he said.  
"What?"  
"Say please," he said. "You've got a baby there. It's important how you speak around him."  
"Please," I said. "Get your ass back up these stairs and take the kid before I throw him at you again."  
"Anything you say princess," he replied, trying to look virtuous and failing.

The only response he got was the sound of grinding teeth, the delivery of the baby into his arms and the scratching of a key hastily thrown in the lock. On second thoughts maybe being infuriating was a male skill set. At any rate it was harder than it first looked.

That led onto several hours of very hard work. Someone had to feed the baby while the other got the sterilizing equipment set up and feeds made. Then Moses dirtied himself and it was easier to bath him than just change him. Then he wouldn't settle and one of us was organizing his basinet, while the other was walking the floor. He finally dropped at about eight thirty, and the house was suddenly very quiet.

That was when the reality of my earlier decision set in. Two and a half hours on the night didn't look quite so bad. The worst was over. I regretted giving in now things were more under control. Of course when I remembered the night feeds I regretted it less. I figured Al could do the night ones and in return I might give him a pillow for the sofa.

By about nine in the evening, little Moses was asleep. He hadn't woken for his nine o'clock feed. He was probably exhausted from screaming so much earlier. I figured we had an hour till it all started again.

The name Moses had stuck since I had to call the kid something, and Al had been annoying enough to relate the story so I could see it was apt in some ways. The kid had not been thrown into the Nile, but he certainly was carried on a flood of excrement that resembled a horrible yellow river. He'd not been thrown in a basket so risking drowning, but rather a car which was rather basket shaped had been used to shelter him. Most of all he was now motherless and since Al kept calling me princess it kind of fitted the story where he'd ended up fostered by a princess of Egypt. Finally, and most aptly I had a servant to take care of him (the contractor) and like any princess anywhere I was making the most of it.

Of course the servant I had was extremely annoying and I realized I completely failed at being infuriating in return. I guess he really was like a typical modern day servant. There was only so far you could push him, and then he'd get his revenge in subtle ways.

Besides the truth was thinking up annoying things to do to him took too much energy, and I was exhausted after a traumatic day. I'd thought of starving him, but he'd cooked dinner. Somehow he'd fit that in while I was bathing Moses. Sure he hadn't cooked what I wanted, but he did cook it. I'd wanted him to feed the baby all through the night as a punishment for being annoying, but before I could insist on it he'd volunteered. Every time the kid squawked unless he was busy he'd picked him up. Really beyond chucking him out and reneging on my promises what else could I do? The man wouldn't even fight with me. The fight on the steps was as bad as it got. If the man had been rich, less exhausting and not a bible basher I'd have eloped with him.

"Princess?" he said now.  
"What?" I replied sleepily from my seat on the sofa. I'd sat there waiting for Moses to wake up and couldn't find the energy to get off it now.  
"We need to talk."  
"Mm." I just wanted to curl up on the sofa and close my eyes for a second. I could feel myself drifting sideways as he spoke. I didn't know why but suddenly his shoulder looked awfully comfortable...

He twisted, put his hand on my shoulder and shook it. I woke up face forward with my open mouth drooling on his shirt.  
"Huh? What?" I said, provoked. I'd been enjoying the mini nap. I know what you're thinking, but if he didn't like me drooling on him he shouldn't have been sitting on my sofa at this time of night.  
"I'll take the next feed as well as the night ones. You look wiped out... Princess I need that pillow and a towel before you say goodnight."  
"Oh."

I yawned, stretched, and then realized he was watching me with his eyes gleaming oddly. I froze. I'd forgotten I hadn't had time to change out of my bikini and cover-up. "What are you doing?" I asked, suddenly wide awake.  
"What does it look like princess? I'm checking you out. Do you know you get more gorgeous every moment I'm with you? Surely you've had men check you out before?"  
"Men!" I said. "What jerks!" He only laughed.

It was another attractive quality. He seemed to find almost everything I said hilariously funny, but his laugh was contagious. It made me even madder. I was not laughing with him no matter what else I did.

"I can see at some point I'll have to get to that mouth of yours and clean it up," he said now in an inane attempt to explain his laugh.  
"Yeah? I'd like to see you try." But I wondered how he'd get me to stop calling him names. Surely Christian men didn't use violence. I didn't see how he could make me do anything I didn't want to.

"Uh uh, princess. No tempting me now. I'm already fighting too much temptation tonight as it is."  
"Huh?"  
"You heard me. Now get off the sofa and get me that pillow and towel before I give in to it."

I eyed him, decided he was serious, and got up to do as he said. Then feeling a little strange because there was both an unknown male and a baby in my little flat, and for some odd reason I was weirdly attracted to both, I went to bed. I debated locking the door but decided it wasn't wise in case little Moses had some crisis in the night. As inexperienced as he was at being a foster father, there was at least a possibility Alistair would need me.

I slept well but my doorbell rang at 6am. I didn't get up in time. Super dad Al got there first. As soon as he opened it, and the other person talked, I regretted being lazy enough to stay in bed when the bell went.

"Al?" It was Pete. He sounded shocked.  
"Yeah, sorry. I stayed and slept on the sofa in case there was a baby crisis. I wasn't sure how she'd go without some back-up."  
"Maddie would have done fine."  
"Maybe... The girl can sleep through an earthquake." Pete laughed, and I heard a deeper laugh from another male who I assumed was Levi. "Anyway, come on in and have a coffee. You look like you got less sleep than me."  
"Yeah we only just finished up."

I heard them go into the kitchen, but being men none of them were especially quiet. It wasn't worth going back to sleep. Besides since Al didn't live here, they had to be here to see me.  
"Hang on," Al said. "I'll wash up a mug. She only has three. I don't think she ever entertains properly. She only has two small saucepans, and two dinner plates."  
"Sounds like her," Pete told him. "Maddie always got her Mum to do the entertaining when she wanted us over for dinner."  
"You know Maddie from before all this? Who's us?"  
"Oh sorry. I've known Maddie for years and you don't know about Fran. Maddie used to be best friends with my sister before she was murdered."

"Really?" Al replied. "That explains why she's so wary of men."  
"Yeah it seems to, doesn't it? Except I've never known Maddie when she wasn't distant with all the boys; I think her father was probably a jerk to her mother at some point when Maddie was younger. Or there's something in her past..."

I had been yawning as I walked towards the kitchen, but now I turned the corner and spoke up.  
"My father," I told Pete angrily, "as you should know because you've met him, is a wonderful man! It's all the other men who don't measure up."

I watched Al turn round and then his eyes heated a little. Then I realized all of them were gaping at me. I'd forgotten I was wearing my summer nightgown, the short and slinky one.  
"Madison where is your robe?"

I figured he was annoyed at me. He'd never used my name with that tone before, and he'd dropped the princess.  
"Oops," I said, and ran out the room to get dressed. I didn't own a robe and I wondered as I ran why when I wandered around all yesterday in a bikini he was so furious at me now. Technically I'd been wearing less then.

Later Pete 'questioned' me in the kitchen. He had a novel way of doing it.  
"It's him again," he informed me.  
"Who?"  
"The guy who took Fran?"  
"What do you mean?"  
"I mean, the guy who killed the woman yesterday is the same guy who kidnapped Fran."

"You're not serious? He's killed his fifth victim?"  
"I am serious. We found some signs of him at the scene. It's not completely proven yet, but we're pretty sure Maddie. There's something else."  
"What?"  
"The only thing all the girls have in common is you."  
"Huh?"

"You heard me. Fran was with you at the beach. Susan worked with you as a student nurse--"  
"What? Susan? Why didn't I know he killed Susan?"  
"I don't know. Why didn't you? Her name was in all the papers and in the news for weeks." I thought about that for a while, but then I realized I didn't always care enough to read a paper or watch the news. I'd been especially bad around the time Susan left the job because I was spending all my energy on fending off Dr. Alec. I sighed.  
"I guess that's my fault. I was busy dealing with some stuff at the hospital at the time."

"That's not all. The midwife before you got this job was one of his, and now the woman you visited makes four. That's four of the five victims, Maddie, and you knew them all. I bet if we look into it you'll know his other victim too."  
"Who was she?"  
"Some woman called Meredith. She used to be Head of Personnel at the Hospital."  
"Oh no..."  
"So you did know her." This was Levi. Suddenly he was all fired up and he started suggesting things to me too.  
"Yeah, but I didn't know this last one!"  
"He may have known you were going to visit her."  
"I still didn't know her. Anyway how would he know I was going to visit her? I decide my own schedule. I didn't even know till the night before when I called her. There's a whole heap of discharges and we divide them up between us. There are always too many to visit them all."

"Who's us Maddie?" Pete asked.  
"All the midwives who visit patients."  
"Who gets access to that information?" Levi inquired.  
"I don't know!"  
"You must know." Why was Levi being so insistent?  
"Why must I? I don't even know who's had a visit arranged until we get the visitation slips and they're added to the folder. We don't talk about who we are visiting to each other. We don't look at all the slips. We just grab six slips a day without looking at names, and that's how we pick the ones we want to visit and then we call them to see who agrees. I kept her slip so no one could get access to it. I don't see how--"

"What happens to the ones you don't decide to visit?  
"I guess we just put them back in the pile... But still how would anyone know which ones I called and which ones the other midwives called. We keep the slips on us and I did that, and there's no central record of who is on the list to visit."

"Don't you have to record your home visits somewhere?" Levi asked, astonished.  
"Not really. Not until after when we've seen them."  
But you do don't you Maddie?" Pete said. It wasn't a question.  
"Well yeah, I do. But no one can work out who I'm visiting but me. I keep it on the PC with the rest of... with the rest of... oh shit... everything's on my computer." I was stunned by the realization that the only way anyone could know who I was visiting was to break into my flat to get the slips or hack my CPU at work.

"You know what I think Maddie?" I was silent a moment.  
"No," I said, in the end. "Pete, how could I know what you think? Tell me!"

I was crying out in a kind of agony now, because it was really hitting home now. All those women they'd all been women I knew. Some of them I'd really liked. At least three of them were not the kind of women to try to attract a male. Fran had been too innocent and a good girl who'd simply wanted to be everyone's friend. Susan had been scared of men after Alec the creep. The girl yesterday was another exception. She'd been through hell in her labor and would have been in terrible pain. Who thinks of sexual liaisons with a problem like that? How had I not known that I knew all the women? Had I slept through all their murders? Had I learnt nothing from Fran?

"I think the bloke took Fran Maddie, but really he wanted you too. I think he's following you around Maddie and he wants you to notice him, but you never do. Fran noticed him and she's dead. I'd bet Susan noticed him too, even if she noticed him because she was nervous of him. I bet you when we catch him it will be the same for all the other women. All but you, and you know why?"  
"Why?" I said in anguish.  
"Because, you never notice men, Maddie... They all look at you, but you never ever look back."

Al broke in on our conversation then.  
"Even if that's true," he said to Pete, "do you really think she needs to hear it? Do you really think warning her about it will keep her safe? Now you've alerted her, she's bound to be hyper vigilant, and now she'll notice every man who crosses her path. What the hell were you thinking?" I watched Pete bow his head in acknowledgement of the blow.

"It's just a theory Maddie," he told me. "I could be wrong." But I knew he wasn't wrong because I remembered. Fran had said he'd been winking at her; he'd been winking at us. I remembered it like it was yesterday, and I knew if it had been me who walked over to the jerk at the ice-cream shop Fran would be alive today and I'd be dead. Fran though would have been able to describe him because she'd cared enough to pay attention to others.

"You're not wrong," I said sobbing brokenly. "Remember, Fran said he's winking at me. He's winking at us. I just thought it was her way of getting me interested in someone. I didn't want to so I just went to sleep. If only I hadn't."  
"Well I'm glad you slept," Levi answered me. "It's the reason you're still alive, and I for one am glad you're still alive."  
"Me too," Al told me. Only Pete didn't say it, because there was no way he was glad his twin was dead. He probably still wished I was dead and not his sister, no matter what he'd said the other day at the hospital. The conversation ended then and they left because Moses woke up.

Al only got more annoying as the weekend went on. It wasn't what he said. It was what he did. He reminded me of someone, only I couldn't remember who. He had endless energy, was always smiling, and quite simply he never gave in. I always got tired of trying to get him to see reason. In an odd way every time he won it worked out better than if he'd lost.

The thing he did that annoyed me the most was attract the baby. I had taken Moses in, and in my quiet moments I was enjoying feeding him bottles and hugging him. I suddenly realized I wanted one of my own. I wanted the baby but not the effort of childbirth or the relationship that had to precede it. If Al hadn't annoyed me by stealing the baby's affection I wouldn't have realized I was seriously clucky. I wanted to enjoy the whole baby experience but every time I turned round there was Al. After a while I realized the baby liked him better, a serious blow to my pride.

In another ego smashing epiphany I realized Al had won every argument we'd had. That became obvious after a small incident on Saturday afternoon. It made me more determined to beat him, and prove I was right. It stirred me out of my lazy, don't care attitude. It made me furious. It made him amused.

The baby had started crying so I went to pick Moses up. So did Al.  
"Here," he said reaching out for the baby I held, "give him to me and go heat the bottle."  
"Sure Hitler," I said, squeezing past him with Moses since possession was nine-tenths of the law.

I went into the kitchen and realized the kettle was empty. I had no microwave since cooking was the last thing I wanted to do after a shift. "Okay," I said, "can you fill the jug?"

"No."  
"What do you mean no?"  
"It's a very simple small word that should tell you I'm not going to cooperate. It's my turn to feed Moses."  
"You had him all last night!"  
"I can't help it if you didn't wake up and take your turn."

Moses started screaming then, and nothing I did stopped him. "Okay, okay," said Al when Moses started crying, "I'll put on the jug for you princess, but I'm still feeding Moses."  
"I've got him and I'm not giving him up."  
"Okay," he said, "but I've got the bottle so what are you gonna feed him with. Last time I looked you didn't have the proper equipment."  
"Huh?"  
"You heard me princess, unless you develop breast milk I'm the only one in the house holding his food."

"You are such a jerk!" It was becoming the most frequently said set of words in the house. I handed over Moses, and was humiliated when Moses stopped crying instantly, even though he wasn't being fed.

So far today we'd fought over who would bath the baby (he won), who would feed the baby (he won except when he chose to let me because it was my turn) and who would cook dinner (I volunteered his services but he told me it was my kitchen and my turn). I knew he'd regret winning the last round because he hadn't tasted my cooking yet, but I would have to eat it too, so I wasn't sure that could be considered a win.

The climax came when night fell, Moses was finally out for the count and Al told me I had to be up and fully dressed at 9am.  
"But it's Sunday. I always sleep in."  
"Now princess you forgot we're going to church."  
"I never forget anything."  
"Then you're telling me you lied."  
"Huh?"  
"You agreed to go to church."  
"Yeah but I didn't mean it." He pretended to look shocked.

"Princess I'm holding you to your promise if I have to dress you myself and carry you out to the car."  
"I'd like to see you try."  
"Don't push it honey. I can stuff you in jeans and a top. I don't even have to undress you to do it. You'll have only yourself to blame if it doesn't look good."  
"I'm not going," I said. He just laughed.

I didn't take him seriously, but he had his revenge. He deliberately kept me awake after that by asking me annoying questions every time I started to yawn. I finally fell asleep on the sofa about midnight. I half woke up about an hour later to find he was carrying me to bed. I yawned and accepted it. I was too tired and sleepy to bother fighting now.

I realized my mistake two minutes later when he started stuffing me into jeans and a top as I lay on my bed.  
"Huh? ... (Yawn)... Wha'r'y'doin..."  
"Just go to sleep. I'll be finished in a minute." It didn't seem worth waking up to have the argument. I heard him laugh when he exited the room, but I was too tired to undress now.

I realized my mistake when he stuffed my half-awake self in his car sometime the next morning. I was still in the clothes he'd stuffed me in. They were all lumpy from badly arranged layers. I woke as he reversed down the drive, Moses propped in a baby seat beside him.  
"Wha--?" I yawned.

"There's a brush in the glove box. You should use it."  
"Huh?" I was suddenly wide awake and it wasn't due to coffee.  
"I thought you'd like to brush your hair before I carry you into church."  
"You jerk!" I said.  
"Princess you need to know I always mean what I say."  
"So do I," I said defensively.  
"Good then I won't have to carry you into church after all." I knew he was referring to my promise to go to church with him, but I refused to admit it.  
"You are such an asshole!" He only laughed, and continued.  
"Also, I wouldn't swear again if I were you unless you like soap. You can consider that another promise." I wished I had my baseball bat. Unfortunately we were in his truck.

# Inside a killer's sick mind

The first time I'd seen her I thought she was like all the other whores on the beach. The beast liked her. He couldn't wait to teach her a lesson. She dressed like a whore, most of her body fully exposed to anyone who looked.

Then I realized she was like a little girl playing dress up in her mother's clothes. She never looked at men. They all looked at her. She surfed and played like a child. She wasn't a whore. Her mother should have taught her better, to dress more modestly, but it wasn't her fault. It was her mother's.

I knew all about evil mothers. I'd had one of my own. Mothers were supposed to watch over their children, to keep them safe. Some, like mine, were only interested in their next fix. They didn't care how they got it. They sold themselves. They sold their daughters and made them whores too. They even sold their sons.

Still God had used it to train me. The pain was necessary to birth the beast. I couldn't regret the beast. He served a holy purpose. He was a finely honed weapon built with one job. He killed whores. He was birthed in the pit of hell; expelled like afterbirth when I'd dealt with my mother. He ate up whores and cleansed the earth of their evil. Along the way he taught them why they shouldn't be whores. They shouldn't be whores because little boys deserved to be safe. No whore should ever be a mother. It was a lesson they never forgot, their final lesson before they paid for their crimes in deepest darkest hell.

I watched her for a while, on that beach, inappropriately dressed, but still so innocent. Her mother was obviously a bad one, but the girl was pure. I should keep her that way. I should help her.

I decided I wanted her badly. Long ago when I'd started on my calling God had promised me a wife. She had to be the one I'd been promised by God. Why else would I have come to this beach today? I had a mission to rid the earth of whores to protect it from them. She needed protection from them too. I could protect a wife; she'd be in my house. I sent a prayer up, asking for her, asking if she was the one, while I waited and watched. She would need to learn to behave as a wife should. I would try to teach her how to behave. If she could behave she was mine; maybe I'd found my bride.

I tried to get her to notice me. I even tried to get a go-between to match us up, to introduce us. At first I'd thought the go-between was pure too. Then, like all whores, she gave herself away. The go-between was not worthy, and worse she flirted with me. Enraged I had dealt with her treacherous flirty friend and fed her to the beast. I'd had no choice. I had to get the go-between away from her. Afterwards I screamed with rage, even as I rejoiced in fulfilling my mission. I'd kept her safe, but I'd lost track of her too, and worse I hadn't protected her from her evil mother.

It took me a long time to find her again. She didn't come back to the beach. She didn't go to the places I went. Eventually though, God led me to her again on a different beach. I couldn't get near her, and she no longer lived with her mother, so I couldn't save her from the evil bitch, but I watched over her. I waited for her to notice me. She never did.

I protected her all the same. I'd removed every other woman around her who was unworthy ever since. It made the beast happy though, every time I dealt with the whores around her, and that could only keep her safe from him. I couldn't feed my bride to the beast. She wouldn't survive. No one survived the beast. I was glad the beast was only interested in whores. I was glad too there were so many whores to keep him fed.

Every time I dealt with another whore it was like God was sitting on my shoulder, whispering in my ear. "See how I reward you, my son," he'd say. "I led you to your bride. I reward you with food for the beast, providing whores to punish all around her, and keeping her pure for the day she finally opens her eyes and notices you. I make you work hard for me, ridding the earth of whores, but I reward you with pleasure in the process."

It was true. Dealing with whores was filthy work that made me feel angry and impure, but it gave me pleasure too. There was the obvious pleasure to be had in the body of a whore, but there was the pleasure of removing them from the earth too.

In time, I dealt with the whore of a nurse who let the disgusting doctor paw my bride when she refused to submit to him. She had no right to say no to him, she was a whore and my bride was not. If she'd submitted in the ward, and taken her punishment like the whore she was, my bride wouldn't have had to suffer and fight off his touch. I was amused with how my bride got him to leave her alone, but furious at the whore. I inspired the beast so he taught the whore a lesson. She learnt not to displease me, and to submit to the beast as she should. The beast sent her straight to hell.

It wasn't enough. The doctor had laid hands on her. He'd touched my bride. The beast wasn't interested in him at all because he wasn't a woman. So I had to kill the doctor myself. I caught him outside a strip club at dawn one morning. It took one blow with a brick I'd found conveniently loose nearby. I didn't bother to clean him up or arrange him. He didn't matter, except he had to be removed. I was expecting uproar because a man had died. I was worried God would be angry that I'd killed a man, when my mission was to rid the world of whores. Nothing happened though. It remained an unsolved murder and wasn't linked to the beast. Best of all God said nothing to me about him.

In time the beast dealt with the hospital worker who had spoken cruelly to her when she was a trainee on the ward. The beast did his best work on that whore. He carved out her eyes so she could not pretend anymore that she saw the truth, when she didn't. Then he taught her how to submit to him, to plead for mercy. In the end the beast showed her mercy was only for the pure. You could plead for mercy, but whores did not deserve it. Evil is as evil does. It belongs in hell, as did she.

I vacillated about the midwife. She hadn't really done anything wrong, but she was in the way. In the end I realized the midwife job itself was a gift to my bride. There was no way to give her such a gift unless the midwife died. While I was battling with my conscience the beast kept invading my thoughts. He wanted my bride. In the end I knew the beast needed to be kept quiet, and it was right for a man to woo his bride and provide for her. The mid-wife wasn't exactly a whore, but she wasn't pure after all, and only my bride was important. It wasn't a good kill. It didn't satisfy the beast at all, and he killed her quickly, not taking time to enjoy it. For weeks after the kill the beast was grumpy and unusually vocal about the women he saw all around him.

Fortunately, younger more evil flesh was soon to be available. I realized my bride was working with women who'd had babies. None of them were pure. At least a third were promiscuous whores. I needed to keep them away from my darling. So yesterday the beast dealt with the patient who my beautiful bride was going to see, because I knew my bride shouldn't be anywhere near some slut who had a baby but no husband. All of them were whores, or they weren't worthy to be near my bride. It didn't matter. I had to protect my bride and keep her pure.

Despite everything I'd done for her she never noticed me, or the beast. It made me mad, even when it reassured me she was the one. I was a man, and being pure she didn't notice men. She didn't notice the beast because being pure, she did not see evil. It only proved she was worthy. Here was my virgin bride. I only had to take her. The problem was she was noticed wherever she went. She was a fitting bride, the kind all other men would envy me for possessing. It would not be easy to snatch her and show her who I was, and who she would become.

There was so much else I had to do. It all had to be perfect when I took her, because I would have to begin training her as a wife the minute I had her. The first thing that would have to go was all her revealing clothes. I'd already started stocking her wardrobe. The second would be her independence. A man should rule his house and a wife should be where he needed her.

Even after I took her she would have to accept the mission the beast had given me. If she was really the one she would agree, and let me continue to rid the world of whores. It was my destiny and she was my reward.

Then it was Friday night and I was worried I might have been mistaken. I was furious. I'd thought so much of this girl, but perhaps I'd been wrong. Perhaps she was another test from God, who regularly tested my enthusiasm for my mission.

She took him home, the worker with the utility truck from the crime scene. It was the act of a whore. It wasn't the act of my perfect bride. It was an awful weekend. I was in a rage but I had no outlet for my anger. I couldn't get to her because he was always there nearby.

I wanted to kill her, and him, and I couldn't quiet the beast despite having only just fed the slut with the baby to him. I couldn't get close to do it.

The police were over there too, every other minute. One of the policemen was the brother of the go-between, so I had to be wary. I knew he hunted the beast. He was dangerous. I must not be caught. He wouldn't understand about the beast. After all I had killed his sister. A brother should protect his sister. It was only right. I'd wanted to protect my sister too. In the end I'd had to realise it didn't matter how a woman became a whore. Sister or mother, sold to a man, or a whore by choice, once a whore, always a whore. Whores had to die. He hadn't learnt that lesson though so I had to stay away from him. The job I had was important. The beast who lived inside me, who I protected, expected I complete my mission. God expected I complete my mission too.

On Sunday he brought her to the church I attended and I was pleased. Surely in the busyness of church I could find a time to grab her and then she'd know. She'd learn what happened to whores. I could deal with her and then ask God why I'd been mistaken; where was my reward, my bride?

Then she did the unexpected. She walked away from him. She sat down next to me. She didn't notice me, but it wasn't time. Most women didn't notice me till it was time. They noticed me when I brought out the beast to play. I was confused that she came close, but still determined to kill her.  
"Where are you going Princess?" the man I knew was called Al asked, pausing at the end of the pew.  
"Away from you," she said.

He laughed.  
"Are you sick of me already?" he asked. He looked at me, and gestured at me to move over. I did.  
"Yeah," she said. "I've had enough. I only put up with you for the sake of the baby, because you offered to buy him stuff. He needed stuff and I couldn't afford it. I've had enough. Moses and I don't need you. I've put up with you in my flat, sleeping on my sofa, annoying me." I was overjoyed. She hadn't slept with him. Maybe she wasn't a whore after all. Maybe this was another test, to see if I was worthy of my bride? I thanked God I hadn't been able to get close enough to feed her to the beast. If she was my bride, I would have killed my own bride... But I had lost track of their conversation. I needed to listen.

Al laughed again.  
"So asking for a date is out of the question?"  
"I wouldn't date you if you were the last man on earth." He laughed again.  
"So you'd date Pete before me, or Levi, or even the poor sod beside me."  
"Look it's no business of yours who I'd date, in fact I don't date. But if I were to ever date, it wouldn't be you."  
"I've got news for you, Princess Madison, you are dating me. This is our first date."

She made an angry sound under her breath, and I was overjoyed. She wasn't a whore after all it seemed. She didn't like men, or even want them. The beast was disappointed because he only killed whores, and she wasn't one, but I was overjoyed. She wouldn't die.

She still hadn't noticed me. It didn't matter though. I was not quite ready to wake her up yet, and I was overjoyed and relieved she was still my bride. I needed to be more careful because once I fed a woman to the beast they never came back; they went straight to hell. I didn't want it to curse my bride and send her to hell. She was my reward, not the beasts, and I wasn't quite ready. You didn't take your bride till you'd prepared a place for her. I needed our home prepared for her coming. I sat there and continued planning, long after they had walked away.

# Maddie

Church had been like I expected. They'd sung incomprehensible songs about a God they apparently all liked but I'd never thought was real. They prayed for hopeless situations like someone dying of cancer, a need for a couple of million dollars overseas in Africa and more locally for the police to bring back a runaway child they were all worried about.

I could see why people would believe in God if they were praying like that. They could pray about anything and it would look like an answer to prayer. Take the man dying of cancer for example. If the person died they'd be glad they were out of their misery and thank God for answering prayer, and if the person didn't they'd thank him for keeping the person alive. Either way it would seem God had answered even if there wasn't a God.

After that the preacher got up and spoke about loving others. That was the only thing in the church I saw that had merit because you should care about others. The part of the message about God being able to do the impossible as we loved others and prayed for them was not believable. Like loving others got you anything but taken advantage of...

After church Al introduced me around. I didn't want to meet any of these people. Al however didn't ask me. He just did it. He introduced me to everyone we walked past.  
"This is Maddie," he'd say. "I finally convinced her to date me." Everyone without exception laughed. Apparently he'd been praying for God to show him if I was the woman for him for several weeks. They all seemed to know that. They all told me to run as fast as I could. They said he intended to lasso me.  
"Better men than him have tried," I said. It made them all laugh more. Then they'd turn to him, and say,  
"We'll pray for you brother. You'll need it." I wanted to yell at them all, but my mother raised me right.

It was only when he said it to Pete and Levi and a man called Reece that he got different reactions. Pete said,  
"Maddie won't date you. She's my girl. She's always been my girl. You shouldn't steal your brother's intended wife." I hoped he was joking. Al acted as if he was. Levi said,  
"You should leave her alone. You're endangering her life."

The man called Reece was the weirdest. He said something completely unexpected. He said,  
"One thing is too amazing, one thing I do not understand... the way of a man with a maid." It was that that flummoxed Al. He didn't even laugh. He just raised one eyebrow like my father would've and then I knew who he reminded me of.

I suddenly realized Al was a perfect blend of everything I'd always loved about my father and everything I'd loved and missed about Fran, except he was a terrible tease. Fran was the only person who could motivate me, or even force me into doing things I didn't want. My father didn't motivate me at all, he simply convinced me what he wanted was fun and would result in relaxation. Al loved to fish for hours on the beach, and to stand there and do nothing more than talk and tease just like my Dad. There were times though when he decided what he wanted was important and then he'd do whatever he had to so it would happen. He just made me get involved against my better judgment, and then he'd prove to be right in what he got me to do. He was perfectly suited to me. Or he would be if he'd just realise I was the one who should win all our arguments.

He could enjoy and not be irritated by my laziness, and he could get me moving against my will without me even noticing how until it was too late. When he did it ended up being fun most of the time, even if the fun was in arguing with him. I began for the first time to be very afraid. This man was dangerous. I had to stay away from him. It was no part of my plan to fall in love with someone who was a lowly construction worker. So when he asked me out for a second date to church that night I said no, and made him drop me home with Moses. He got the last word though.  
"This isn't over between us Princess Madison." He drove off before I could answer him, the fiend.

Pete phoned me about five, and asked me to church.  
"What are you up to Pete?"  
"I thought it was obvious. I thought I told you I was asking you to church."  
"I hate church," I told him. I was true. I saw no value in sitting there being lectured about a bunch of lies. Still I needed to get Pete to leave me alone, and hating church wasn't enough to get him to leave me alone. So I went on, "besides you told me what you thought of me all those years ago. Nothing's changed. It's still my fault Fran's dead Pete."  
"No, it's not."  
"Pete you know it is. Just forget about it. Just forget about me."  
"I was telling the truth. I'll always love you Maddie."  
"Yeah I know. I love you like a brother too." He sighed.  
"I've never felt like your brother. That hasn't changed," he told me, and hung up shocking me. I already knew he thought he loved me. I just thought he'd grown out of thinking it years ago. Men were so stubborn, even nice ones like Pete. Why couldn't they fixate on women who wanted to be chased and leave me the hell alone?

Moses started crying then, so I went and fed him. It was while I was feeding him that Levi turned up. He flashed his badge so I stood back to let him in, holding the feeding baby in my arms. He sighed and didn't enter.  
"I don't want you to let anyone in Maddie."  
'Huh?"  
"Maddie this guy is dangerous and he's fixated on you. You need to not let anyone in. You must ignore all men."  
"Including you?"  
"Especially me; he won't care I'm a cop." I absorbed that for a moment, and then I got very scared. I looked round.  
"Do you think he's watching me?"  
"Yeah. I think he is." Then he turned around, and walked down my stairs, the jerk. There I was terrified and he just walked away. At the bottom he waved to me, and said, "Remember what I said, and be careful." It ruined the rest of my weekend. I spent most of it looking around to see if I could see anyone watching me. It was a weird feeling, preternatural, like my world was poised waiting for someone to act, to hurt me. For all I looked there was never anyone there, or no one I could see. My skin crawled though, so maybe some was...

# Al

I sat down next to Levi before church started that evening. I was glad he'd come. I'd wanted to talk to him since this morning. He was why I'd backed down this morning and again this afternoon. Otherwise I'd have dragged Maddie kicking and screaming to church, even if I had to trick her into it.

"I'm worried about Maddie," I told him.  
"You should be. You've endangered her."  
"I don't see how. Surely she's safer with a strong man near her than by herself."  
"She might be if that strong man was her father, but not if he's anyone else."  
"What not even a fiancée or a husband?"  
"Especially not then."  
"Huh?"

"Look this creep is a psycho. He killed Pete's sister. The girl was a virgin. He carved 'whore' on her chest." I hadn't known that. It made no sense. Why would you call someone a whore when evidence said they weren't? Besides it was sick!  
"What? Why?"  
"We're not sure. The psychologist thinks it might be because she flirted with him. It was innocent, but compared to Maddie..."  
"Yeah compared to Maddie she was a whore because Maddie's so innocent she doesn't even know when a guy is trying to attract her attention."

"No I don't think that's true. Maddie notices, she just doesn't want to notice, so she pretends she hasn't noticed."  
"Huh?"  
"I swear it's true. That woman is the most observant woman I've ever seen. The day Fran disappeared she could tell me about everyone on the beach down to what they wore, who'd flirted and who they flirted with, she could interpret accurately every gesture made by everyone she saw and recall it perfectly. The girl notices, she just refuses to participate."

"Oh really," I said. Levi laughed.  
"Yes really. Now admit it. You're annoyed because she won. She made you back off." I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing. But all the time I was thinking about some sweet revenge the next time I ran into her. There was no time to think more because then the service started.

It was in the sermon that God spoke. The preacher was standing up the front reading from Song of Songs and preaching about God's love for his bride the church. It had nothing to do with Maddie until suddenly God spoke clearly,  
" **How beautiful are your sandaled feet, O prince's daughter.** " At that exact moment I had a vision of Maddie on Friday night, swinging her body up into my four-wheel drive, clad only in her bikini, cover up and a pair of pretty sandals decorating her lovely feet. I was overwhelmed by a flood of emotion I could only identify as love for Maddie. It was like God poured it over me, like he was bathing me in it.

"Lord?" I asked. I needed to be sure it was him. Maddie wasn't even a Christian. I couldn't seriously consider a girl for a future wife if she wasn't his child. Sure I'd teased her about dating, but I'd had no real intention to take her anywhere but church unless she found God. Another verse flickered through my brain, one I didn't even know I knew...  
" **Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife.** " That made it even more confusing. Mary had been the virgin mother of Christ, and was pregnant with Jesus when God said this to Joseph. Maddie was also a virgin, and Maddie meant maiden. I'd looked it up. She wasn't pregnant. However, there was a baby in the situation with little Moses, mimicking Mary and Jesus, but I felt like I was grasping at straws, because Maddie wasn't pregnant. Besides her name was Maddie, not Mary... That was stretching the vision too far, and I didn't want to be led by my emotions, only by God.

So I was honest.  
"Lord I'm too stupid to understand you. I'm sorry." God likes honesty, and He seemed to like mine since I could feel His amusement. Yes that's right God has a sense of humour. After all he invented laughter. He didn't say anything else though so I prayed further.

"I promise you Lord as soon as I figure out who you mean by Mary, I'll do what you say and marry the girl. I don't want to offend you by marrying someone who is not your child, for I know you expect Christians to marry Christians. So I'm sure you'll be happy if I wait till you make your guidance clear. Also if you do mean Maddie as Mary, I don't want to marry her until she's yours, so I'd appreciate it if you'd find her. In return, can I ask you to protect Maddie even if she's not my future wife? This man who's hunting her is dangerous and I need you to protect her."

I still didn't know what God meant, but I knew God agreed with me, and heard me about everything I prayed. There is a verse in the bible I'm fond of, written by the apostle John that says,  
" **This is the confidence that I have in Him, that if I ask anything according to His will He hears me, and if I know that He hears me I know that I have the request I have asked of Him.** " He'd heard me. It was a done deal.

Right then I realized everyone had stood up and was singing the final hymn. I stood too. Afterwards I asked Levi to tell me more about the killer. He said he couldn't. He just said to be careful around Maddie. I told him there was safety in numbers and suggested we all go visit her together. It was then that Reece, the assistant pastor who'd been sitting behind us, spoke up.  
"Who's 'we'?" He'd clearly been listening in on our conversation.  
"Pete, Levi and Me... Why?"  
"If there's safety in numbers, then I should come too. The girl needs protection from the evil man you're speaking of." I could see Levi didn't like him coming, but he agreed if we were to go he should come, but then he said we wouldn't be going tonight.

Then Reece stunned us further when he showed he'd been eavesdropping. Surely pastors shouldn't eavesdrop? Nevertheless it became obvious he had, when he said to Levi –  
"You're wrong about one thing."  
"What's that?"  
"The girl doesn't choose not to participate. She's simply innocent. She doesn't know what participation in flirting or other behaviours mean. She's the purest woman I've ever seen." I rolled my eyes. He'd met her only once. I knew he was wrong. Maddie was Maddie. Yes she was innocent, but she wasn't pure, unless you meant pure trouble. I kept my opinion to myself. It wasn't worth the argument with Reece, who was technically my elder, being assistant Pastor of the church.

# Chapter Seven: Disasters in Dating

Women are like teabags. We don't know our true strength until we are in hot water. – Eleanor Roosevelt.

## Maddie

Monday dawned bright and clear and I realised I was in trouble. I'd been up half the night with Moses who'd refused to be satisfied with what I'd put in his bottles. The kid was upping the amount he was eating and I'd been too slow to realize. How did mothers do this day in, day out? I was exhausted. So when someone banged on the door at six am, I threw open the door yawning and staggered out into bright sunshine clad in only my see-through nightie (and of course underwear).

It was Al, and I would've been amused if he hadn't cried out,  
"Aaah! Put some clothes on!"  
"Jerk," I said, but went and found something to throw on.

When I went back out into the kitchen I was greeted by five men, six if you counted Moses as a man. Al was holding Moses and heating up yet another mega-bottle. Pete was making coffee, and the rest were sitting watching my door with this odd look on their faces. I'd never really noticed before that temptation makes men drool and their brains switch off. Or at least if their brains are on, it's on one thing...

"Damn it all!"  
"Princess Madison, I'm shocked!" Al said. Did the man never shut up?  
"What is it now?"  
"It's not even seven and you're swearing."  
"Jerk! Anyway it's not my fault. It's not even seven and they're annoying me." I grumbled something under my breath about unwelcome visitors too early in the morning. Maybe I shouldn't have said any of it because it's better to pretend not to notice, but I blame it on my difficult night.

"That's why I've made two important decisions honey."  
"Huh?"  
"I'm taking you off the market and I'm buying you a wrap."  
"Huh?"  
"Sweetheart I know you love me and it's not fair to the rest to keep them hoping... or interested."  
"I wish you would be serious. Shut up!" He only laughed, but then he changed the subject and started talking in riddles.

"Boss, why don't you take Clint to the work site while I finish up here? You both need to get away from my princess before she fries your brain. I'll get there when I can to sign those leave papers. Levi, I know you and Pete must interview Maddie again, but when you've finished I'll need to talk to her and I'd appreciate you sticking round under the circumstances. Also Levi, I think you're wrong about what you said Sunday. I think Maddie needs to get serious with someone, and I'm volunteering as the first sacrifice."

Now that was clear, and I objected!  
"I'd rather date your boss. At least he can afford me."  
"My Dad owns the cattle on a thousand hills. I think my family is richer honey."  
"Huh?" I didn't get it, but Pete and Levi were very amused. It made me want to smack him more.

Anyway Al's boss was not on the market, because he just grinned when I suggested him, winked at me, smacked his young apprentice upside the head to get him moving, and then exited the room with him. That was reassuring because I'd thought I was safe around him. It was nice to be right. Every time I'd seen him around except at worksites there'd been a woman with him, who he clearly loved, probably his wife. He was the one exception I'd found where a man winking at me was harmless.

"Look I don't want to get into anything. I'm gonna be late for work." In fact I should have started getting ready for work ten minutes ago.  
"You sure are," Al told me. "By about a week if I get what I want."  
"Huh?"

I badly wanted to find out how going in the shower was going to take a week, but I had this policy of disinterest and I was afraid to blow my cover. I wiped the confusion off my face and turned to go. Al wasn't going to let me ignore them though...  
"Talk to Levi sweetheart. Then it's my turn." So I talked to Levi, fuming because Al was bossing me around again. Besides he was calling me sweetheart which was even more annoying than calling me princess.  
"Can I hit him?" I asked.

Levi was amused, and he finally lost that terrible look on his face, the one men get when they are thinking of sex but trying not to let you know. Anyway, he and Pete had other things to talk about as I soon found. Pete started the conversation going when he told me,  
"We think you know this creep Maddie."  
"I don't. I really don't."

"Yes you do. He's fixated on you so at some time you will have seen him. You'll have run into him a lot. I know you have a memory that just won't quit. Think about it."  
"The only person who's always around that I've noticed is Al. And if he's not him then he should've noticed other men who were around." Al snorted when I said his name, but then he quietened when I mentioned the second thought. He looked thoughtful, but he didn't say anything when I most wanted him to.

"C'mon Maddie. Think! Who's almost always around, at the hospital, the labour ward, the community midwife office, the beach..." I thought and then three faces flashed into my brain, like my mind had been just waiting for me to notice.  
"Ummm... Al's boss is around a lot, and this doctor called Lloyd, and I think... but I can't be sure... Reece is."  
"Reece from church?" Levi said.  
"Dr Lloyd was at church too... and yeah."

"Let's go through them one by one," Levi told me. "Al's boss? Why was he at the beach?"  
"That's easy. He works on construction sites near the beach, just like this jerk." I pointed at Al as I said it.  
"And the hospital and labour ward?"  
"I never saw him at the community midwife office, but he was in the ward visiting his mother when I was training with Susan. His sister gave birth recently I think. I never saw him at church."  
"He does go there," Al said, "but I don't recall seeing him last week."  
"I did," said Levi. "But that's not important since Maddie here generally doesn't go to our church and there's no other woman from there murdered. It's not one of our areas of interest."

"What about this Dr Lloyd," Pete asked.  
"He's an obstetrician / gynaecologist," I told them. "So he's always up the hospital."  
"He'd have access to the community midwife office," Levi said with dawning interest.  
"Well yeah, he'd put slips in the folders," I told him.  
"He'd have access to patient records too, with addresses."

"Well yeah, but he wouldn't know where Susan lived, or the other midwife. No one has access to those records except people in administration, and they can get into anywhere."  
"Even the community midwife's office."  
"Yeah, and the wards."

"What about the beach?" Levi asked, obviously ignoring my last bit of logic.  
"That's easy. I met him years back. You should remember him Pete. I remember you got angry at him once."  
"Huh?"  
"He was annoying me at the beach by showing off his moves. He's a pretty good surfer."  
"That was him?"  
"Yeah! I thought you told me you never forget a face!"  
"I meant a female face!" That figured...  
"Anyway, what was with you that day Pete? I was just trying to sleep on a towel ignoring the jerk when you decided to make me run away or get very wet."

Pete laughed.  
"Don't lie to me Maddie. Levi reckons you always know everyone's motive. You know what I was up to. So don't tease me. You know I've been in love with you for years."  
"No you haven't."  
"Yes I have."

"No you haven't. You wouldn't know the love of your life if you fell over her in the street. You're unobservant."  
"Huh?"  
"Stop lying to yourself Pete. You already met her."  
"Huh?"

"Look this is all riveting stuff Pete," said Al, "but don't you have better things to do than let the Princess here wind you up?"  
"I am not winding him up!" It was a lie, but as if I'd admit it.  
"Princess I'll put you over my knee if you don't give the poor guy a break."  
"Don't you threaten me you jerk!" I was outraged.

"Darling."  
"Huh?"  
"You should call me darling or sweetheart. I'm your fiancée now. And it's not a threat Princess. It's a promise." Then he had the audacity to wink at me! You know already how much I hate men who wink. Why'd he have to go and spoil everything like that?

I turned to Levi.  
"Are you gonna let him talk to me like that?"  
"Yeah," he said. "Stop winding up my partner or I'll let Al here put you over his knee, and then I'll arrest you for assaulting a police officer."

"Huh? How have I assaulted him?!"  
"Verbal abuse."  
"You're all creeps."

They all laughed.  
"Yeah but you love us," Pete said.  
"That is such a lie," I said. "I only love one person here." Then I realized what I'd said... I blushed embarrassed at what I'd implied.

"Do tell," said Al after about thirty seconds of pregnant silence from the men. "No Princess, don't answer that. It doesn't matter because I meant what I said earlier. I'm taking you off the market."  
"In your dreams." He just smiled at me, sat up the baby for a burp, and winked at me again when I looked angry.

It was Levi who got the conversation back to where it should have been and firmly off me.  
"So what about Reece?"  
"I don't know what capacity he's using to get into the hospital, but I've seen him visiting people on many wards."  
"We know why that is."  
"Huh? ... Why?"

"It's not important Maddie... When have you seen him at the beach?"  
"Oh... Well he likes ice-cream. He often takes some kids there on a Sunday afternoon for ice-cream."  
"The ice-cream shop?"  
"Yeah, the ice-cream shop. The one where Fran went missing." I saw them all digest that and get very quiet.

It was eating away at me about the other.  
"Why is he always up the hospital? He visits all the wards."  
"Oh, that's easy Maddie. Reese is the Junior Pastor. He does the chaplaincy work."  
"Oh," I said. Now I knew why I didn't like him. He was another bible-basher, but he was more of a bible-basher than the others. At least they weren't paid to do it, and you could divert them...

Pete had started the conversation, and now he finished it.  
"Thank-you Maddie," he told me. "You've been very helpful."  
"You're welcome Pete... I'm sorry I stirred you earlier."

"It's okay darling. If you ever don't stir me I'll be worried about you."  
"Darling?"  
"You heard me."  
"Yeah I did, but I don't think you should call me that."  
"Yeah I know, but I'll do it all the same. Call it a declaration of intent... Or maybe a declaration of war." He looked sideways at Al as he said it. Al grinned back at him.

"You can't be serious Pete. You need to listen to me. You don't love me, and you'll hurt her."  
"Who Maddie?"  
"You are so thick. She's so obvious... You really don't deserve her."

Al interrupted him as he was about to speak.  
"You should go shower and get dressed Maddie."  
"Don't boss me around jerk."  
"Okay," he said. "Here Pete, take Moses. I'm just gonna see Maddie here gets on with her day. We'll be right back." I shrieked.  
"You are not laying one hand on me, you jerk!" I bolted for my bedroom, slamming and locking the door behind me once I was in.

Behind me I heard three male voices laughing.  
"Now that was something," said Pete, "I've haven't seen her move so fast in years..." Then I heard no more because my blood pressure sky-rocketed and I couldn't be still any longer, throwing myself into furious preparations for a shower. I decided as soon as I got myself under control I was going to plan some serious revenge. How dare he wind me up! How dare he get to me like that! Only I was allowed to wind people up like that! My friend the construction worker was about to undergo some character construction, courtesy of myself... What can I say? It was my duty as a women and I owed it to the rest of my sisters out there, and especially to the woman who would become his wife! That woman wouldn't be me because no matter how rich Al's father was, he was just a carpenter or something.

# Al

Maddie was in the shower so I had time to run the idea across Pete and Levi's minds. It wasn't my idea. It was God's. If it hadn't been God's idea I would have thought it the stupidest idea I've ever heard. God has never been stupid. God always knows what he is doing. He never does anything for just one reason.

It was going to cause me some hellish days and nights, because of temptation, but as Christians you have to trust God. You have to trust Him even when what you're doing for Him is the craziest thing you've ever heard. Trusting God could cause you to turn aside most of the volunteers in an army so you were seriously outnumbered (Gideon), back yourself into the corner against an impassable sea (Moses) and in my case make a serious play for Maddie when it could mean both our deaths. Besides Maddie was impossible, or at least impossible for me. Anything between Maddie and I was doomed to failure before it even began.

"Yesterday God suggested something about Maddie. I don't like it, but I have to trust him."  
"What did he suggest?"  
"Well it started with this vision of Maddie and a verse. Normally I'd ignore it and just think that temptation was getting the best of me. Maddie is enough to drive anyone nuts with temptation. Except then the verse came; God said the verse to me."

"What was the verse?"  
"It was one from Song of Songs... God said,  
" **How beautiful are your sandaled feet, O prince's daughter.** " You remember how Maddie was wearing practically nothing on the day Moses's mum was killed, but she had those pretty sandals on. So God said this verse and then I had a vision of Maddie climbing in my truck that day, holding Moses and wearing nothing but her beach clothes and sandals."

"What do you think He's saying?" asked Levi.  
"Well it didn't end there or I would have just thought no more about it and thought God was just bringing Maddie to my attention again. He's been doing that for months. That's nothing new."  
"So what happened next."  
"Well I questioned Him, and He said, ' **Do not be afraid to take Mary to wife.** '"

"What?" Pete exclaimed.  
"What does it mean?" Levi interrupted him, speaking to me.  
"I meditated on it all night. I don't think he wants me to marry Maddie. She's not a Christian. But as I was meditating he pointed out Joseph married Mary early for the sake of the child, but it wasn't a real marriage. I mean it was in Joseph's eyes, but not in God's because he never consummated it till after she gave birth to Jesus."

"I don't understand where you're going with this."  
"I think it's pretty simple. For as long as that creep's out there Maddie's not safe. She needs a man around her full time to protect her. So does Moses. He's already lost one mother and I don't trust him back in the foster system until the creep is caught, because every woman who gets near Maddie or what she wants dies... Or haven't you noticed."

"I've noticed," Pete replied, and I knew he was thinking about his sister. The room's atmosphere changed and grew depressing. Levi had his mind on more than Fran though, and he made his objection strongly.  
"I don't see how Moses is at risk."  
"Maddie has to hand him off. What's the likelihood child services won't have a female case worker who meets Maddie to pick up the baby. From the moment she takes the baby she's at risk, because she's come into Maddie's orbit. He's already been put at serious risk when the creep killed his mother. I'm not going to stand by and let it happen again."

"Even if all that is true, what does it have to do with you?"  
"God seems to be nominating me. He's saying take her to wife and protect her."  
"What? That's ridiculous!"  
"Yeah it is," I agreed, because it was a stupid idea. All the same I said out loud the thought that had kept returning against all my inclinations. It was like someone was putting it in my mind. It was like it was from God. "If it's a real marriage, it's stupid. I wouldn't want to marry Maddie if she paid me. But I'm gonna do it anyway; I'm gonna --" I was going to say fake it, but Maddie didn't let me finish.

"Don't kid yourself jerk!" It was Maddie. She'd come back in quietly from her shower and like all women everywhere she had to listen in, and she couldn't keep her opinions to herself. "I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man on earth."  
"So you keep saying, princess. I'm under no illusions... But I'm not talking about a real marriage I'm talking about a fake marriage for the purpose of getting the creep's back up."

"You're a moron!"  
"Yeah I know. I'm a moron with three weeks leave up, enough money for a pretend wedding ceremony, a house on acreage that has big dogs, guard dogs, and I'm already in your orbit Maddie and everyone thinks I'm interested. Hypothetically speaking Levi, what does your psychiatric advice says about what will happen if Maddie gets married or involved with someone other than the creep."

Levi was quiet for a minute, but then he said.  
"He'll kill both of you."  
"Yeah he'll try... And you'll catch him... And no more women will die."  
"She's not doing it," Pete protested. "It's the stupidest thing I ever heard." Maddie sat down heavily in the chair.  
"So how do we get married that fast Al?" she said. I laughed. I wanted to tease her about how fast she accepted my proposal. I didn't though. I wasn't insane. It wasn't the time for teasing. I needed not to stuff this up.

Levi spoke before I could,  
"Pete's right... It's too dangerous."  
"God's in it. I trust him."  
"Even if it costs your life... Even if it costs hers..."  
"Let's be perfectly honest Levi. Maddie's life is already in danger. She only has to smile the wrong way at someone and it's all over. The creep is not sane."

After that no one had anything to say for a long time. We sat in the kitchen and refilled our coffees, and sat there sipping them with each grappling with their own problems. I didn't know what Maddie was thinking because she was impossible to read until she opened her mouth, and even then half of what she said was to manipulate the people around her. It was one of the reasons I would never seriously date her unless she became a Christian. You couldn't tell when she was manipulating you for her own reasons, or the public good. The girl was too clever for her own good.

I knew what the rest were thinking though, including myself... I was planning how to get out of the fake wedding afterwards. There would be people who would be hurt I'd faked it and got them all excited, like my family. You see marriage in Australia isn't like marriage in Vegas. You need a month to get married in Australia. So it would look like I'd been setting this up for a month and not told anyone. Then later when I told them it was all a fake? Well needless to say it wouldn't be pretty!

Pete was mourning the fact that he wasn't the one pretending to marry Maddie, but realizing he could never protect her twenty-four seven with work, and he was worrying about her.

Levi was the one with the casting vote. He was being torn between the irrefutable logic of my words, fear for Maddie who he'd fallen for like all of us because the woman was that moreish, and the knowledge that if he didn't do this another woman might die. That was the crux of the matter. Did he risk Maddie who was already at risk, or did he risk both her and someone else?

In the end he spoke up.  
"No, Al. It's not happening. It's too dangerous. Moses has to go to child services, and Pete and I will try to be present at the handover so the other woman involved is safe. Maddie has to go back to her normal life. Thank-you for the offer, but we'll protect Maddie."  
"You're being a fool. God's always right."  
"Maybe, but I can't risk Maddie like that. You know why."  
"Huh?" she said. "Why?"

He didn't answer her. We all knew. Maddie wasn't Christ's. So that meant if she died she'd go straight to hell. None of us could face the thought of Maddie in hell after the kind of death the creep would give her. Levi loved her, so he wanted her saved, and not in danger. Pete loved her too, no matter what Maddie said about it. I loved her more than I liked to admit, even if marrying her properly was out of the question. I'd fought not to love her, but I'd failed.

The difference was I knew my dogs, and I knew they would protect her. I knew God would too. If God suggested it, it was the best solution. Levi was the boss though. It was his case. So even though I could feel disquiet in my soul, and knew Moses was heading into danger, I couldn't do anything else but hand the baby over to Maddie and let them see to his future. I resolved to pray though. Moses and Maddie would both need it. They would be walking where angels feared to tread.

# Maddie

I ran into Reese at the hospital when I was waiting for the social worker from child services. Levi and Pete had left to go meet her, and I had been left alone. All of a sudden he was just there.  
"Hullo Maddie," he said. He made me jump.

'You scared me," I told him. He smiled.  
"You don't need to be scared of me Madonna." I didn't know what to say to that since Madonna wasn't my name, but instinct kept me quiet about it. Until I knew if this man was safe, it was best to be careful around him. Especially since he was creepy, like all bible bashers were. So I glanced at him, but then quickly dropped my eyes and looked away. He was staring, so I blushed.  
"It's been a scary few days."  
You're safe with me Madonna."  
"Uh... Thanks."

"I've been meaning to ask you a question Madonna."  
"What is it?"  
"I was wondering if I could take you out to dinner some time." I looked at him then. I couldn't help it. I swallowed and looked nervously at him, but then I looked away.  
"Reece please don't be offended, but I don't like to date... I don't date anyone... I'm scared of dating."  
"I know."

Huh? The man didn't even know me, why did he think I was scared of dating. I wasn't really. It was only half the truth. I was scared of dating him... I was scared of dating someone who didn't fit my life plan. An impoverished Junior Pastor was not in my life plan, and the fact he was a bible-basher made him even worse. There was also the fact he was one of three men who could have been Fran's killer. I was too smart to say that though.

"Then you understand why I have to say no. I need to trust someone before I can date them, because I need to know they are the right man for me. I don't want to marry the wrong man."  
"Yes I understand that Maddie. I understand that better than you realize." Uh oh. I was hoping he really didn't.

But then he went on and said, "I think you should stay away from Alistair."  
"Believe me. I don't want Al anywhere near me, and as soon as Moses goes to his new home, I won't have to see him again."  
"Good, that's very wise of you. I'll see you at church Madonna." I wanted to say, not if I see you first, but I didn't, so I made a noncommittal sound and he left.

After he left I was still scared, and I don't know why I did this next thing. It must have been a left brain impulse. You know the kind of thing you know is superstitious and stupid but you do it anyway. It was like crossing my fingers. It was insurance of the superstitious kind.

On Sunday Al had dragged me kicking and screaming to church, and I'd seen nothing that convinced me God was real. In fact it all looked like a big con to me. It was only a day later but the reality I might die soon was starting to feel real to me.

Al had talked about God making a plan to keep me safe, and I'd only come in on the end of his insane story but the fact that he was so sure had made me question if I was right about God being a myth. Al thought he was real. Of course Al was most likely certifiably insane, but just in case I figured I'd conduct a little experiment of my own. A bit like the ones I did at the beach when I was trying to see what would cause a man to give up on me fastest. Except this time I wanted to know if God was real, because if he was then I needed him on my side. I just didn't want to be safe; I wanted something else too. There was someone I desperately cared about, someone I loved, and I wanted to be involved in his life. I couldn't just stand by and ignore stuff anymore. I needed to stop being lazy and ignoring things and get involved and fix things for him.

"I'll make a deal with you God," I said to the ceiling. I didn't know where else to address my prayer. I wasn't sure where heaven was but up above the ceiling was the sky. If earth was hell at times then heaven had to be somewhere out there in the sky. I felt odd as I did it, it seemed too much like talking to myself, but I wasn't backing down.  
"I'll believe in you, and I'll go to church from now on, if you give me back Moses and keep us both safe. I need to know you're real before I can trust you, so I'm asking you to show you are. I don't want you to speak because then I'd just think I'm going nuts."

"Moses is going into foster care today," I went on, "and I'll never see him again. I can't be his foster mother because I'm not registered as one, and besides for me to have him permanently lots of things have to change. You know what I mean if you're real. You know I'd have to be married so he can have a father who'd feed us both. I can't work and look after Moses. You know I don't want to get married. So it would be nice if you arranged a father for Moses that I liked a little bit. Anyway I guess what I'm saying is this is all impossible unless you are really the God of the impossible like someone said in church on Sunday. So will you do it? I'll believe when you do. Anyway if you're out there and you're listening, thank you for that."

# Chapter Eight: Fact-Finding for Fools

My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far I've finished two bags of M&M's and a chocolate cake. I feel better already. – Dave Barry

## Maddie

The year I turned five I asked my Dad how babies came. Of course I'd had an ulterior motive. I'd been told a baby was coming and I wanted to stop its arrival. One of my friends at school had said babies were 'poo-poo heads' and I didn't want anyone like that at my house. I still recall Dad's answer.

"Mummy and Daddy will go get him from the stork."  
"What's a stork?" I'd asked because I'd never heard of them before. I figured it was some kind of shop that the baby was sold by.  
"It's a bird."  
"Are you sure Daddy?"  
"Yes pumpkin. I'm sure."

I hadn't argued with him because Daddy had this funny look on his face that I'd never seen before, and he looked kind of red. It made no sense to me. Plus I'd never seen a bird carrying anything bigger than a twig, so I reasoned it must be a very big bird, about the size of an elephant. It would have to be quiet too, since I'd never seen one, and with the size of this bird that meant it wings were unusually quiet.

If I was going to have to stop the stork and it was as big as an elephant, I needed to work out how to halt something that could fly and squash me. I was pretty short and I didn't want the stork hurting me because it didn't see me. I could only stop a stork that size if I knew more about it. Surely there was a secret weapon against storks. After all Prince Phillip in Sleeping Beauty, which was my only reliable guide to how to fight off scary things, had his trusty sword and his horse and he'd stopped the wicked witch hurting Aurora. There had to be a secret weapon against babies, or storks.

Luckily for me at school we had computers and books in the library and a librarian who could read. The other advantage of the school library was my best friend's mother _was the librarian_.

The next day armed with the information I knew I went up to Cynthia's mother and asked where I could find a big book on Storks. She laughed and asked me if a book on 'Birds of the World' would do, and I said it would. That was when I knew my Dad had lied to me. The stork she showed me in the book was nowhere near the size of an elephant. About ten of them were sitting on the roof of a house, and they only had one leg. I knew I had difficulty carrying heavy things standing on my own two legs and I had hands.

Since the stork didn't deliver babies, my Dad had lied to me. I would have never forgiven him, but then he took me to the beach that afternoon, and the rest as they say is history. A Dad who lies to you and Mum but takes you to the beach is better than a Dad who doesn't. I decided to forgive him. I figured I would remember that red-faced look and not believe anything he ever said after that look crossed his face. This worked for years, and was the beginning of my studies of how to work out what people were up to by the expressions on their faces.

Anyway, when Moses arrived in my life the first time, he certainly didn't come by stork. He came by foul play. It was more unusual than the way most babies arrive, and made him fairly unique. All the same he left in the usual way babies without mothers did, into foster care. So I was very surprised, when I arrived home the same afternoon I'd given him away, to find I was wrong. Moses was more unusual than the average baby, he kept returning like an elevator or a revolving door... There was more. Storks were real after all. Perhaps God was a stork, and that was where the myth came from...

I'd had a full day at work, and a late afternoon spent trying to enjoy some surfing at the beach. It was only as I walked towards my steps that I spied a basket that looked like the type storks delivered babies in on my doorstep. Moses was screaming in its depths. I could hear him from twenty meters away. The basket was even wrapped in a white sheet, like the pictures of Disney storks. Except the sheet had red stains on it...

The last time I'd seen him was that morning when I'd handed him over to the snotty hospital social worker soon after Reece left. I could've done without her attitude. I was still recovering from Reece's weird comments, and I was dreading giving Moses away. Once I saw it was her I knew I was doomed. It was even worse because Levi and Pete had not stayed with her after all. I couldn't really blame them for that. I knew what she was like. One way or another bad things were going to happen. It was always this way with this woman.

I knew the woman very well. It had been at hate at first sight from the moment she first laid eyes on me. I knew it wasn't personal. She hated all women on sight. Some women are like that. They don't feel the sisterhood between women. It didn't matter; I wasn't in the mood to put up with her. Normally I'd deal her the usual way and ignore her, but today I was angry and upset about having to give us little Moses. I was spoiling for a fight.

"Well if it isn't Nurse Parker!" she'd said unoriginally. I just looked at her, and didn't answer. Really there was no point in buying into her games. I wanted to win the fight, not lose. The woman had always been a cow, and the only way to handle a cow like her, since you couldn't placate her, was to make her furious. You may as well deserve what she wanted to hand out to you anyway. Besides if it kept her happy, I reasoned, it was a public service. It might save the next woman if she was mad at me.

When I said nothing, she got very red in the face. I started counting mentally... One... Two... Three... She made it to six and then exploded.  
"Nurse Parker! I'm sure you have all day to waste, but I don't. Where is the baby?"

I nearly said, 'Well, duh' because there was only me and a desk in the room. It wasn't like there was anywhere else to put him. But what was the point of changing strategies and talking since she'd already lost her temper. If she lost her temper but I didn't, and then she got even more furious, it was one win in a day of misery.

Anyway Moses gave himself away. He woke at her furious voice and let out a startled cry from behind my desk. I'd put him there so he was in a quiet corner. She picked him up and he stopped yelling for a second as she patted him. He hiccupped instead.

"I'll remove this precious bundle from your vicinity and get him to his new carers. Good day!" I was disappointed. I'd wanted a bit more of a fight than that, but she was already leaving. Then she turned round at the sound of movement near the door, and made an awkward sound because she'd exposed her nastiness to whoever was there. She made a valiant effort to retrieve the situation, so I knew the person there was some man. She said--  
"Oh! I was just picking up the baby and talking to Nurse Parker about being more competent. I'm sorry you had to hear that. If you'll come this way I'll show you to my office and we can process the child together."

I would have turned round and checked who was with her and greeted them but it was probably just Pete and Levi... I didn't want to look at them because suddenly there was a huge lump in my throat, and tears brimming in my eyes. I realized Moses was going and I'd never see him again. Deep down I'd been hoping God was real and I'd get to keep him. I realized I was a fool. I'd just lost Moses forever.

So now after hours of working while upset, and trying to bury my misery in my favourite place, the beach, I got a shock. Imagine my surprise when I saw that occasionally, contrary to all scientific evidence, storks did in fact drop off babies in baskets. It must be true because Moses was being delivered back to my doorstep in one.

I rushed up the stairs and I would have picked him up instantly, except there was blood on the basket, hence the red stains. I knew what blood looked like. This stuff looked fresh. It was all on the outside of the basket. I stopped suddenly afraid Moses was hurt, but then I looked further along my landing and realized the blood trail went into my apartment.

In a way that was worse, but at least Moses was safe. I didn't want to leave him there but I had no choice. There was no way I was going into my apartment, and I couldn't move him because my darling baby was a crime scene.  
"Sorry Moses," I whispered. Then I fled.

If there was one good thing about the next few minutes it was that a police car was driving down the street when I ran out onto the road into its path. They say the police are never around when you need them, but apparently they were wrong. There was a screech of brakes, a feeling of déjà vu that help was right there, and then the inevitable reaction.  
"Hey lady," said the first genius, getting out of the car. "You're under arrest for jay walking, and--" But I had no time to cooperate with the cops. I gasped out.  
"Levi. Call Levi. You have to, there's so much blood." Cops, like any other emergency worker have words that get them moving, and blood is one of them.

They stopped trying to arrest me, and both of them followed me up to my apartment. When they saw the outside of the scene, and the baby in the bloody basket, one of them pulled on some gloves and gently turned over the bloody blankets, checked out the baby and handed me a screaming Moses. I held on to him wordlessly, tears welling up in my eyes. Moses was home. He'd been in danger. He was safe now.

"Stand back," he said, and then he kicked in my front door. I don't know why he didn't stop to ask for a key, but perhaps he didn't realise the door was my door. The other got on his two-way and called it in.  
"This is Officer Bradley. We have a Code 2 and probable code 102, and 135 at Unit 2/ 5 Second Avenue Burleigh Heads. Requesting urgent assistance, and crime scene. Officer Levi Johanssen requested. Ambulance required." I heard the voice on his two-way respond.  
"Thank you Officer Bradley. They are on their way." Then he ran after his partner into my flat, ignoring me. So there I was left holding my baby. They hadn't even asked if he was mine.

Of course it wasn't the homecoming I'd hoped for. Moses wasn't happy with anything I did. I took him away from my door, and down my steps, and tried to calm him by rocking him a little. I had nothing to feed him though, and he sounded hungry. In the end he cried himself hysterically to sleep. As for me I sat on the kerb, hugging Moses and waiting for Levi. The ambulance arrived before Levi, and Levi came next, with Pete.

When I saw him there were only two things I wanted.  
"Don't tell me who he's killed," I said to Levi. "I don't want to know. Get Al, please just get Al." I didn't know when I'd started associating Al with safety, but the only person I wanted to come and hug me was him. I was trying not to get hysterical, but it wasn't working. Pete sat down with me at the kerb, and tried to sling his arm around me, but I sat forward letting it fall off. "No," I said. "Don't touch me. You mustn't touch me. I don't want you to die."  
"I'm a cop Maddie. I can protect myself."  
"No. Al has dogs; really big dogs. Besides I believe in God now, he gave me back Moses."

I knew I wasn't making sense, but I didn't care. I knew only two things. Someone else had died because of me, and God had said only Al and his dogs were to protect me and Moses. I'd overheard that this morning. Now I knew God was real I was not going to do anything He hadn't suggested. Moses and I needed God to save us.

Pete might have argued, but Levi pulled out his phone and called Al and then handed it to me. It rang and Al answered.  
"Hello?" and then I burst into tears. "Maddie?" he said. "Maddie!" So Levi took the phone off me and started talking very fast. I don't know how he made himself heard because Moses was roaring again at the volume only a hungry baby can, and I was crying noisily too. Pete meanwhile was also trying to shout over the both of us.  
"Maddie! Maddie! Tell me what I can do!" Levi ended that too because he hung up the phone, slapped my face about as gently as slapping is ever done, (I was hysterical), and then pulled me into his arms and hugged the life out of me. It wasn't wise for him to hug me either, but he ignored my protests, and I needed the hug anyway. It shut up Moses too.

So that was how Al found us when he drove up in his truck about fifteen minutes later. I was trying to give Moses a bottle (Pete had gone into my flat and quickly made up one from left over formula) and crying. Levi was hugging me and saying over and over,  
"It's alright, Maddie. It's alright." When Al got out of the car, he looked straight at him and said, "Thank God. Take over here please." Al gave him a grin, lifting one brow in question, but he came over and pulled me into his arms as Levi let me go. I don't know what it was about Al's arms, but the minute I felt them I calmed down.

I gave one big sniff, and said accusingly in a broken voice,  
"What took you so long?"  
"I was doing something important princess."  
"What?" I said crossly.  
"I was buying you a present, but now you've ruined everything."

It made me smile through my tears, so I just shut up then and enjoyed feeling safe in his arms. Moses had the last word when he spat the bottle out and demanded to be held up to burp. Al took him from me then, and Moses greeted him with a sleepy baby sound. So there we sat in the gutter, a little temporary family united by God and the stork. Al held Moses over his shoulder with one arm, held me close with the other, and I held the bottle and fell asleep in his arms.

# Inside a killer's mind

For the second time I really questioned whether she was the one. After everything I'd done that day to get her attention, here she was sleeping in the arms of another man. Earlier she'd been in the arms of the cop too.

She wasn't flirting with either of them, so she wasn't a whore. But she wasn't my idea of an obedient wife either. Wives should only hug their husbands, and until then maybe their fathers. I would have to teach her some important lessons when I took her. Wives swore to love, honour and _obey_. I started planning her discipline.

The beast was pleased and suggested some modifications, but I pushed him away. I wanted my wife alive. You couldn't enjoy a dead reward. If she wasn't meant to be my wife I'd know soon enough after I took her. If she wasn't my reward she was a reward for the beast. Time would tell.

# Levi

It was an epiphany. How had I been such a fool? I'd been secretly in love with this girl since the first murder and now I realized she was not what I wanted. Now I realized it wasn't really love. It was just the actions of a man's susceptible mind in the presence of a very beautiful woman. I was an idiot.

At the first murder scene I'd noticed her not only because of her beauty, but because I'd been deeply suspicious of her. Then I'd noticed other things. She was in agony over her friend, but she was too devastated to say so.

She'd attracted me like no other woman. What attracted me was her unusual way of dealing with grief. Unlike other women she didn't bawl all over me, which I hated, no she sucked her grief inside like she was a black hole. I realized what you see is not what you get. I fell for the beautiful mystery that is Maddie.

I guess every man wants a mystery woman, part femme fatale, part moreish beauty. Whatever it was, Maddie had it. That was as far as it had gone because Maddie didn't reciprocate. When she noticed a man was attracted she ignored it. She didn't flirt. I'd thought she didn't notice what all the men around her were thinking until she started spitting out motivations for everyone's behaviour on the beach. I'd realized here was a seriously intelligent woman who was wasted as a nursing student. She should have been a psychologist. She should have been a cop.

Except I'd bet she was too lazy to work out in the area she had to. It was not that she wasn't fit. You didn't get muscle tone like she had unless you did some form of serious exercise. Cops though had to be able to run down suspects, kick in doors and defend themselves.

Don't get me wrong. She was still a mystery. She was just not my mystery. Now I realized I'd been in love with a woman who didn't exist for the better part of the last few years. It was the hug that did it. I wrapped her in my arms and it was the first time I'd ever held her.

I realized, any man can be tempted by any woman. Sometime in the last few years though, my feelings towards her had shifted. Now she felt like she was my sister. I suddenly realized the problem I'd felt this morning when she'd come out in that see-through night gown was like that of a brother who'd had an unexpected wet dream about his own sister. This morning, I'd been disgusted with myself for being attracted. I'd thought it was because lust was a sin. Now I was even more disgusted, but it made sense why. She wasn't my girl, so I handed her over to the one whose girl she was and got out of there. Pete of course was not happy, but we had a crime scene to process. He'd get over it. Working helps...

# Al

My day had not gone to plan. I started it with a plea to Levi to listen to what I'd thought God was saying. He'd shut me down fast. That made things worse. As soon as I walked out of her flat that morning and went off to work I had no peace.

I was seriously worried for Maddie. My urgency was reinforced by some guidance I hadn't told Levi about that morning. In my defence I hadn't told him because the other stuff already sounded so delusional, and this bit sounded worse.

In my quiet time that morning I'd read the story of Jesus, Joseph and Mary, mainly because of the verse about marrying Mary yesterday. God had started talking to me as I got to the plot of Herod, when he planned to kill all the babies in Bethlehem while hunting Jesus. He'd said,  
"Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search..."

I hadn't told Levi about this, but it was driving me nuts all day. As soon as I'd started praying God had shown me a vision of Maddie, Moses and I flying down the road in my truck towards my farm. Behind the farm, framed in my windscreen were two familiar triangular shaped hills, and the outline of their shape in the sunset was just like two pyramids. It was the second vision He'd sent me about Maddie. I couldn't afford to keep ignoring them.

Of course the vision made no sense because Moses was gone. Levi had shot me down in flames that morning about the first vision, and he'd taken Moses and Maddie away. He'd had the power to do that, and there was no way to fight him over it. In the vision though, Moses was back, and so was Maddie.

I didn't know what to do because I couldn't butt into an active police investigation, and much as I wanted to I couldn't kidnap Maddie or Moses, because it was wrong. So I'd prayed.  
"Lord," I said. "I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to save Maddie or Moses. I don't know who you are calling Herod. I trust you but the others don't trust my guidance. If you want this, you will have to make it all happen. The minute you do I am willing and I'll take Maddie and Moses back to my farm. I will pretend to marry her first, as you suggested. I don't understand why you want that but I'll do it anyway."

After that I still couldn't shake the urgent need to pray. I'd never felt anything like it. The urgent burden wouldn't leave me alone. I prayed incoherently, in snatches, ridiculous requests that I had no real reason to pray because as far as I knew she was safely at work. The prayers were something like,  
"Lord, hide her... Lord, don't let him get near her... Lord make her invisible till I can finish here... Lord... I don't know how to pray, just keep her safe... Send an angel... Send whoever you need... Lord!"

I worked my guts out on the building site that day, because I knew we were behind after Friday. The whole time I was fixing walls, and bracing frames I was praying. Twice I hammered my thumb and let out a yowl of agony because my mind was not on the job. My mind was focused on the urgency I felt. The second time the nail split right down the centre, and blood went everywhere.

That was when the boss tried to send me home. I couldn't leave him though. I knew if I was right I'd be gone the rest of the next few weeks, and he'd be short-staffed. He couldn't afford to be behind at the work site as well. I stopped praying temporarily and started organizing leave verbally while I worked. It made no sense to organize leave, but I did it anyway. I did it in obedience, and because it wasn't enough to believe. I had to act on my beliefs. Alright, alright God made me do it. I was on a mission from God. That's the only excuse that makes sense. At any rate organising leave gave me a slight sense of peace. It didn't take all the worry away, but it lowered it to about half.

By four I'd had enough. So had we all. We'd caught up and I'd rung a friend who'd I'd known was out of work, without telling anyone, and asked him if he would fill in for me while I was on emergency leave. Then I'd told my boss I was going, and then I filled out the paperwork properly. I was so fortunate I had three weeks leave due.

I'd not heard one word from Levi all day about Maddie, but somehow deep down I could feel the Lord urging me on. He wouldn't let me rest till I'd totally organised two weeks leave, with an option for a third.

So now at the end of the day when the phone call came and I ended up at Maddie's place, and found her hysterical in Levi's arms, with Moses clutched in hers, I was awed by God's foreknowledge. Something bad had happened in her flat, because there were police swarming all over it. I was betting I knew what it was. I was betting the poor women who'd collected Moses was in there, and she wasn't okay. I was betting my prediction this morning had turned into fact. I got out of the car and was greeted by Levi with relief in his voice.

"Thank God. Take over here please." I gave him a grin, and a questioning glance at his tone, but did as he suggested. The minute she was in my arms there was a sense of rightness I'd never felt before. There was peace, all mixed with serious attraction. I didn't know what God was doing, but I realized it was too late for me. I was one hundred per cent, head over heels in love with Maddie. I was a goner, because Maddie was going to break my heart. She'd done it to every other man in her vicinity all her life, without even knowing she had. The difference was I didn't think I was in love with her; no, I knew I was. She was it for me. She was it for me even if it would not work out well.

She gave one big sniff, and said accusingly in a broken voice,  
"What took you so long?"  
"I was doing something important princess."  
"What?" she said crossly. I wanted to laugh and tweak her on her nose, but I had no spare hand. All the same I could fix her tears.  
"I was buying you a present, but now you've ruined everything."

I expected her to do something else, like fight with me, which would relieve tension, but I hadn't reckoned on trauma. Maddie had had days of trauma, possibly years with all the deaths around her. She was at the end of all her strength, and her courage. So instead when Moses started wriggling and acting like he wanted a burp, she handed him to me. I adjusted him over my shoulder, smiling at the little tyke as he gave me a baby grunt of welcome, and he promptly threw up down my work shirt. It didn't matter. I put my other arm around Maddie and held them both. I think Maddie fell asleep. I didn't care. I was just thankful to God for the gift of Maddie and Moses. They spoke to my heart.

Levi and Pete had left in the middle of this, they'd gone in the house and I knew I was forgotten and so were they. Maddie really could sleep through a tornado. I sat there for long contented moments finishing Moses's feed, but eventually I heard the buzz of the first mosquito, and I knew I had to move.

I shifted the baby first, because he was the most vulnerable, placing him on the ground carefully with one hand. Then I shook Maddie awake.  
"Wake up Princess. We need to move."  
"Uh uh."  
"Don't make me stick you in the shower Princess." She woke up then, yawning.  
"Huh? (Yawn) Did you (yawn) just threaten me."  
"Sure did honey. Would you like your shower cold or hot?" She woke up then and growled at me.

I laughed and said a quiet prayer inside my head.  
"God," I told him, "I love this woman. This is going to be such fun." It would be too, even if the ending wouldn't. Eventually there would be problems between us because of our differing beliefs. For now I didn't care because Maddie was so lazy I'd win most of the arguments, and the ones I didn't were going to result in even more fun. So I spoke to her.  
"C'mon," I said. "We need to go talk to Levi and then I need to get you and Moses out of here."

I handed her the baby and went up the stairs. Crime scene was there, and they didn't want to let us in.  
"Look," I said. "The lady needs some clothes so we can take off, and we need to talk to Levi, and we need the baby's stuff." They could see the sense of that because no matter if Maddie needed clothes or not, babies needed formula and bottles and nappies and all sorts of things that didn't grow on trees. So they got Levi.

When he came out he wasn't in a good mood. I hadn't expected he would be. This creep had obviously killed someone viciously, judging by all the blood in the entry. I'd been right in what I'd warned him of this morning. Levi would be thinking it was his fault. Guilt can make a saint grumpy. None of us were saints. We're merely Christians. Even the best of us are inadvertent hypocrites. We're only human after all.

"I don't have time right now," he fired at me. He didn't even look at Maddie which surprised the hell out of me. Everyone looked first at Maddie then at whatever else interested them.  
"Moses will need a feed soon and we need to resolve what we discussed this morning."

He sighed and then went quiet for a moment.  
"How big are your dogs?"  
"Big. They're shepherds. He might get one or even two, but I breed them. I have a lot."  
"You breed shepherds?"  
"Yeah and I train them. I sell some to the dog squad."  
"I didn't know that."  
"Yeah well I don't advertise much. I only want my dogs going to good places, so I search out responsible organizations for them."

"I like the idea of dogs. I really do. The other idea is insane."  
"Why?"  
"This guy is already angry at anyone around Maddie. You don't need to marry her to make him angry."  
"I want him angry at me, not just at her. If he thinks she's living with me, he'll be angry at her. If he thinks she's married to me, he'll be angrier at me. It'll give you a chance, if something goes wrong, to rescue her, because he'll be focused on me." He sighed, and then rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache.

"C'mon! It's no worse than what's happening now... I'll tell you something else. I had another vision. God showed us going to the farm, and He spoke to me again. Levi, he called the guy 'Herod'."  
"So?"  
"So Herod was a Jew, like Jesus was a Jew. Maybe he's saying the guy is in our church. Every man Maddie named is in our church."  
"So?"  
"Look, it couldn't be my boss. I was with him all day. That leaves two for you to investigate out of those Maddie named." I saw him think that over. After a while he said,  
"But Herod wasn't religious." I realized he was right, but I wondered if Herod pretended to be religious. Maybe he wasn't in the church, maybe he was some sort of ruler... or leader. I wished I knew more about bible history. All the same there was no time for this.

"Okay maybe I'm wrong about that, but Maddie still needs to be safe and it's the safest place we've got. The dogs patrol 24 hours a day. It's how I train them... Look I took 2 weeks off today and lined up someone to relieve me. I have the option for another week. Moses can stay with us so another woman doesn't enter the picture. In the meantime all I need is a judge who'll pretend to marry us, and give us temporary custody if we need it, or Pastor Steve. I'm leaning towards the judge. You know I know a judge." I grinned at him when I said it. Not many people could say they had a judge on their speed dial. I could.

"You're deeply nuts, you know that?"  
"Yeah. You know why." Maddie was enough to drive any man nuts.  
"Yeah I know why, and I give up. I'm gonna let you take her off the market. It might even let me catch up on some sleep while the guy hunts you two. Pete will be a little irritated with you though."  
"I can hide from Pete too. My dogs will protect me."

He laughed then and I knew I had him.  
"I'll call the judge we know. You can meet him at his chambers." I smiled.  
"Yeah, but it's probably better I call him Levi. I might be more likely to twist his arm. You organise the witnesses. We're on our way as soon as we pack the baby bags."  
"Pete and I will need to come too."  
"Wouldn't have Pete miss the wedding for the world!" I snickered when I said it.

So that was that. We had a lot to do of course. Maddie had to pack some bags but couldn't enter her bedroom which was a crime scene, so Levi pulled all her stuff out of her cupboard and shoved it on the front porch. I stuffed it in some plastic bags supplied by one of the cops examining the kitchen. He grabbed the baby's stuff too and I lugged it out to my truck. Then it was a simple packing job. I left Maddie inside holding the baby while I did it. She was safe inside with all the cops there.

# Inside a killer's mind

The beast got very angry after she'd been in his arms half an hour. I hated the beast, but he had his uses. After a while I realized he wanted to take me over, kill him, kill her and protect me. I couldn't let him. There were cops and crime scene across the road and it was too dangerous. Anyway I didn't want her dead.

I remembered the story of Sarah in the bible, when Abraham told her to pretend to be his sister. She hadn't wanted to lie to Abimelech, the sin had been Abraham's, but she got kidnapped all the same. God had to get her away from Abimelech. I had to get her away from him, but I couldn't let the beast do it because I wanted her safe. I had to wait for God to give me a chance at my bride.

So I left. I had the best of intentions. The beast needed to be soothed for the sake of my bride. The woman this afternoon had not been enough. There had been something about her the beast hadn't liked, so he was still angry. She'd died too fast for a start, and she was older and didn't scream as much. No the beast needed someone younger, someone just starting on the pathway to whoredom. Someone who had their whole life ahead of them and would try to stay alive longer, who would promise to do anything the beast wanted, but who would fail. Whores always failed.

Then I knew. There was one other woman who deserved to be sacrificed to the beast. I had noticed her tempting a man. I would feed her to the beast, and then once he was calm I would come back and take my wife from the man who did not deserve my reward. Surely two sacrifices would be enough for the beast. I'd never given him two in a day before.

I left and went by her place, but she wasn't home. I was out the front of her house in my car, waiting in case she suddenly came home, when I heard my cell ring. So I answered it. I had to go to the hospital. The beast might have to wait till I did some work.

The call told me I didn't have time to feed the woman to the beast just yet. The beast and I had another appointment, and I promised him if he waited he'd have some extra fun. Sometimes it was better to wait before you fed a woman to the beast. The beast was more satisfied with longer hunts. I had to keep him satisfied because my bride had just done something dangerous again. It was time; I had to collect my bride before she was tempted to look at someone else, and then I would have to hide her, but I would feed the woman to the beast before I trained my bride. I needed the beast happy for her sake.

# Chapter Nine: Calamities and Cantankerous Behaviour

By all means marry. If you get a good wife you'll become happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. –Socrates.

## Levi

It was a long night. I called the judge at his chambers and explained what Al wanted. I know Al said he'd call him, but I knew Al had a lot to organize. If I didn't call the judge would go home. Al needed to have his fake wedding ceremony with Maddie tonight. He hadn't heard from Al yet and argued with me a bit, but in the end he gave in.

He promised to say the words over them, but not file the papers, including the temporary custody ones, but he said it was wrong. Marriage words should never be said between a man and a woman unless they meant it. You could lie to people, but you should never lie in front of God, and you shouldn't play around with the law of the land. Children should be settled permanently as soon as possible. Then he said he'd need two witnesses and he wasn't calling his day staff in for such a ridiculous reason. I told him to expect a phone call about the whole thing from Al, and said I'd organize plenty of witnesses. He told me he'd be looking forward to Al's call because he wanted to give him a hard time over his vows. I laughed.

Then I had to tell Pete about going ahead with the fake wedding idea, and Maddie staying at Al's property. You better believe that was a mistake.  
"I'll marry her. If anyone's gonna marry her to pull this creep out of the woodwork it's gonna be me. I have a gun and a Taser. Al doesn't need to do it."  
"Dream on, Pete," I told him. "You saw the girl's face. She feels safe with him, not you. Besides he's the one God's apparently talking to, not you, and he's got dogs."  
"She's my girl. She's always been my girl."  
"Whatever, Son. Get in the car." He got in but he wasn't finished with the argument.  
"I'm gonna marry her."  
"You'll have to line up," I told him. "Besides you're not off duty till we put this crime scene to bed. You've got no time to protect anybody."

So then he shut up, and I started making plans. If we were going to do this then it needed to be as public as possible, with all the witnesses that would tell the perpetrator the wedding was real. With such late notice it was a bit of a challenge. All the time I was praying we weren't making a mistake. All the time I was praying those visions really were from God. If they weren't... if they weren't God only knew what would happen.

## 

# Maddie

I was late to my wedding. Of course I'd known all along Al was faking it because that was the plan. I just didn't realize the man was insane, and he wanted us to fake the whole nine yards. Shopping for a wedding on an hour's notice with a baby present was a challenge, and lateness was a consequence. When I did realize the opportunity for fun this would be, I dealt with the situation as best I could. I took advantage.

I knew we were out in public and the crazed killer could be anyone near us. All the same I wasn't giving up any chance I had to annoy Al. I wanted Moses, not Al, so he needed to have no illusions about me. If Al was insisting we make this look real, then I knew how to make him regret giving me the opportunity to ruin his day. All men had two things they were wary of with women, and I was about to remind him what they were (shopping and whining). It was time for Al to pay up for every time he'd forced me to let him win. My Mum had always told me women were smarter than men, and it didn't matter if you lost sometimes. What was important was never to lose when it mattered.

"In what alternate universe did you think I would marry you in a dress like that," I whined. I even got the voice right.  
"Princess, you're marrying me in white. I want photos for our children." I gave him a look at that.  
"Of course I'm marrying you in white. You're still not winning this argument. If you think I'm dressing up in something under five thousand dollars you are deeply nuts."  
"Honey, Moses won't care if it's worth $5000 or $10, but if you want a good honeymoon you have to let me save some money."

"No," I said.  
"Yes," he said.  
"No."  
"Okay," he said. "I guess you're not getting married in white after all." Then he grabbed me by the hand and started dragging me over to the door. So I caved. What was a girl to do? Even if the wedding was a fake, a girl has to have some standards. The minimum standard is white and it fits and makes her look like a supermodel.

It was the same in the jewellers. I was starting to see a pattern.  
"I thought your father owns the cattle on a thousand hills," I said when he refused to put down more than five hundred on a wedding ring, and didn't get me the matching engagement ring or tell the jeweller to put aside the eternity band for later.  
"He does," he said, smirking so I knew the joke was on me somehow. I couldn't figure out what was so funny though. "But he doesn't waste the cattle on a thousand hills. He doesn't even waste the cattle on one hill." I rolled my eyes. Thank God the wedding was a fake. Not only was the guy a cheapskate. So was his father. How could I have forgotten? He was Dutch.

Anyway by the time I'd annoyed him in the suit shop, I'd got my point across at the expense of considerable aggravation to me. He'd learnt the perils of shopping with a woman, and he'd learnt that even a cheap wedding in the hands of the right woman could cost him an arm and a leg and a hell of a lot of wasted time. The cost so far was just over two K, and the emotional cost should've been higher. He should've let me go shopping by myself and just handed me the credit card.

I'd learnt something too. It was to dread his smirk. His smirk told me somehow I was losing. I just wasn't sure where. Perhaps he misunderstood the lesson I was trying to teach him.

Every time he pulled the smirk I knew I was about to lose. I could push him so far, but then he'd turn the tables on me and I'd lose something I was whining about. I always surrendered because a bite of cake was better than losing the whole thing. If you added all the cake pieces together they added up to a meal...

If I was winning overall, why didn't it feel like I was? Perhaps I hadn't expected to be aggravated back? So it wasn't just that I was late. I was also furious and I wasn't sure why. It was not a state I was often in. Men didn't get me hot; I got them hot. It was a rule.

The judge was there at his chambers, and so was Levi, Pete, Pastor Reese, Pastor Steve, Al's mother and sisters, my family and the photographer from the Gold Coast Bulletin... That was when I knew how serious this was. This had the look of a shot-gun wedding. In fact it looked so real I was started to wonder if it was real.

"What're you doing?" I whispered.  
"Marrying you," he whispered back.  
"Well duh," I hissed at him, rolling my eyes.  
"Princess, we have no time for this. The judge needs to get to bed before ten pm. He's an old man." I wanted to argue. I really did, except then the judge boomed out,  
"Who gives this woman?" My Father replied,  
"I do." Then it was too late. We'd started.

There was only one slight hitch in the wedding.  
"I'm not saying that. That's ridiculous!" Al, Pete and Levi all laughed.  
"Now, young lady, you have to say that," said the judge. "Those are the vows you agreed on."  
"No," I said. "I really didn't."  
"It's fine," Al told the judge. "There's no point her swearing she'll obey me when I already know she won't. How's about we compromise? She doesn't swear to obey me, and I don't swear to cherish her."  
"You will too." I told him.  
"Well I can't cherish you if you're annoying the hell out of me all the time by disobeying me." I growled at him when he said that.

He laughed and suggested something else. "Okay, okay, how about this... You don't swear to obey me; you swear to obey me when it seems like the best thing to do. Then it's my job to convince you obeying me is wise."  
"No. I'm never going to obey you, so what's the point of swearing it. Let's switch to the modern version of the vows."  
"Okay, but then I can only swear to try to cherish you when you aren't disobeying me."  
"Whatever." So the judge put in the amended version Al suggested, and just like that it was all over.

The judge said...  
"I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride." And I turned to him for the kiss and he laid one on my nose.  
"What are you doing?" I hissed.  
"I'm keeping our vows. You wouldn't swear to obey me, so I'm not feeling like cherishing you with a proper kiss."  
"You are such a--"

Then he kissed me, for a while.  
"What was that for?" I asked when I had my breath back. His eyes gleamed.  
"I changed my mind," he said.

I was tempted to hit him, but I didn't because right then the judge said,  
"Let me present Mr and Mrs Jansen," and Al spun me around to face our guests. It was over.

# Al

By the time the wedding preparations and the ceremony were over I knew I'd never be able to top it when I got to the real thing. Maddie was every man's dream girl. Not only was she gorgeous, she was clueless. She was trying her hardest to make me regret what I was doing, but the whole time I was having such fun at her expense I could have shopped with her for hours. She thought she was making me suffer, but who gets out of a wedding and only pays a little over two K? I could have married her for real and not regretted it, if only she'd been a Christian.

The argument in the middle of the ceremony was a case in point. I didn't care what we said in our vows since the wedding wasn't even legal. It was just a front to convince someone else we'd married. So I just had fun with it. She couldn't even face a fake wedding without a promise to cherish her. The girl badly needed to be loved, and she didn't know what she wanted enough to stick up for it. She was so bad at winning arguments she didn't even realize she'd lost because my promise to cherish was based on her obedience. All I had to do was talk fast and I got what I wanted. I was watching the gleam in her father's eyes as we turned round. He knew what I'd done and was amused. I decided I really liked her father.

I knew I wanted to marry her for real. I could imagine the bliss. I'd come home from work after a hard day's work, and she'd want her own way, but I'd just turn the tables on her and get what I wanted because the girl couldn't be bothered fighting properly. She was so lazy we'd hardly fight. She didn't listen to me, so I could keep running rings around her verbally. When we did fight I could imagine how good the making up would be. That kiss had been everything I'd dreamed of.

It was soon time to go. I'd made sure everyone knew we were meeting them for a reception at a local pub. It was how I was going to make my getaway. Levi was going to meet them all at the pub and tell them we'd been called for our flight early and were boarding our plane. He'd offer them the pub dinner I'd already paid for. Meanwhile Maddie, Moses and I would be relocating to my property out the back of Nerang. So long as I made sure we lost anyone who was following us, we were safe. Even if we didn't the dogs would all be out tonight. I'd make sure of it.

It took me about half an hour to realize Maddie was sulking, because she didn't say anything. She was usually quiet, so when she decided not to talk to me because I'd annoyed her, I didn't notice. So finally she caved and gave me a proper ear-bashing Maddie-style.

"You are such a jerk!"  
"Huh?"...  
"You are such a jerk."  
"Princess you said that already. You'll have to be more specific. Which area of jerkiness are you complaining about?"  
"As if you don't know." I could think of three, but didn't know which she'd finally noticed.  
"No really I don't."  
"You must."  
"Must I?" I was trying not to laugh because I knew from dealing with my sisters that laughing at a sulking female guaranteed you hours in the dog house.

I could have continued like that for hours, gently stirring her and waiting for the explosion but right then my cell rang. It was Levi. I was driving so I put it on speaker phone.  
"You didn't let me kiss the bride." I was wrong. It was Pete.  
"I had enough trouble getting Maddie to lay one on me. She doesn't give kisses away to just anyone Pete."  
"Yeah I know," he grumbled. "I've been trying to get her to kiss me for about seven years."  
"Pete!"

That was when Pete realized what I'd done. He laughed.  
"She's right. You are scum Al." When had she called me scum? Hmmm... Sometime I'd have to find out.  
"So how are our guests? Disappointed we couldn't make it?"  
"I dunno. Levi went in and told them and then we went back to the crime scene."  
"Well we made a clean getaway by the looks of things."  
"Good. We'll let you know when it's safe to come back."  
"I'm sure Maddie will be glad to hear about that."

It ruined the argument that was brewing, but she still didn't talk. I would've worried, but this was Maddie. It was just as likely she was sleeping as sulking. In point of fact, by the time I pulled into the property she was asleep. I figured sooner or later Maddie would let me know if what she'd been mad about was important.

I carried Moses in first since technically he was the baby and stuck him on my bed between pillows so he couldn't roll out. The dogs were out so Maddie was safe. Then once Moses was settled I went back for Maddie. She half woke when I picked her up, but this was Maddie, she could sleep through an earthquake. Anyway I knew I needed to feed the girl, so I just stuck her on the sofa, not in the spare bedroom. It was uncomfortable enough I figured she'd wake up by the time I'd unpacked the truck and cooked dinner.

I busied myself for the next ten minutes putting away the baby's stuff, getting bottles in the sterilizer, and boiling some water. It was just as the water finished boiling, that I heard Maddie making movements in the living room.

"I'm in the kitchen Princess. C'mon in."  
"Oh," she said, when she realized what I was doing. "Is Moses awake."  
"Haven't heard a squeak from him."  
"Good," she said. "I need to talk to you."  
"Sure but I have to say if you want to continue the argument we were having in the car I've thought of a better way to end it."  
"No, Al. This is serious. I need to talk to you."

I looked up at her, and she did sound serious. In fact I had a feeling I'd never met the serious Maddie, but I was meeting her now. She even looked shy for once, like she didn't know how to start. It was the cutest thing I'd ever seen.  
"Fire away Maddie."

"How do you know?" Hmmm. I suddenly realized the downside to Maddie's taciturnity. I had no idea what she was talking about.  
"How do you know what?"  
"How do you know you're a Christian?"

If I'd been expecting a deep and meaningful question, it wasn't that one. In fact if I had to pigeonhole Maddie, it would be as someone who wasn't the least bit interested in if there was a God, let alone how to become a Christian who worshipped Him.

I could have asked her why, but I could ask her that later. No one comes to that question without a good reason. It's the job of every Christian to answer it properly.  
'I know I'm a Christian because God and I have a relationship. We talk Maddie. God's real and He has a voice. He hears me and I hear Him, and I obey Him."

"So if God hears me I'm a Christian?"  
"No, Maddie. God has ears. He hears everyone. He sees everyone. He sees everything they do and everything they think. The problem is in us. We can't hear Him because God refuses to talk to us until we come to Him the right way. He'll only talk to a non-Christian about becoming a Christian. He'll talk to a Christian about anything.

"So what you're saying is God is sulking?!" Well that was a novel way of looking at it. Maybe I didn't put that well...  
"No honey. God's not sulking. He's upset because we won't follow Him. But He only talks to people about what's important. For someone who is not a Christian the most urgent thing is to make things okay with God first, and then become a Christian. People make Him angry because they do bad things to each other and that has to be sorted out first. He doesn't like people hurting each other. People don't usually want to hear what God wants for the world either and they don't usually want to be friends with Him. He waits till that's fixed up."  
"Oh."

I waited a while for her to talk again, but she didn't because she was obviously thinking about what I said. The suspense was killing me. So finally I asked.  
"Why do you want to know about that Maddie?"  
"Because I prayed a prayer and I made a promise." I waited again, but being Maddie she didn't elaborate. The girl was a clam. I needed some steam. Or perhaps I could just ask...

"What was the prayer and what did you promise Him?"  
"I asked Him to give me back Moses and I asked Him to give me a husband so I could keep Moses... And I promised Him..."  
"Yes?"  
"I promised Him I'd become a Christian if he did the impossible and made it happen."  
"So now you want to know how to become a Christian, because He's kept His promise."  
"Yeah... Only He hasn't finished doing what I asked, because I don't really have a husband."  
"Is that right?"  
"Yeah. He has to give me a proper husband."

"So what if I told you the judge objected to our fake wedding and told us that as soon as we said the vows in front of God we were really married no matter what the law said, and I could lift up the phone and get him to file those papers we signed tonight of our intention to marry, and our marriage would be real, in about a month, when we do the ceremony again. I want to marry you Maddie. I just can't until we've waited out the month..."  
"Really?" She squeaked with nervousness when she said it.  
"Yes, really Maddie. So what are you going to do now Maddie? Are you going to keep your promise to God? Because let me tell you something Princess, the minute you pray the prayer to become a Christian I'm lifting up that phone and I'll tell him to file those papers for real. The only thing stopping us getting married is a phone call, because I won't get married to someone who isn't a Christian. I'd marry you in a second if you were."

"But what if I'm not sure I want to be a Christian? What if I'm not good at it and I fail?"  
"What is a Christian Maddie?"  
"I don't know."  
"Then let's start there. You can only be a Christian if you want to be, so you have to know what a Christian is. A Christian is just someone who's given their life to God. All of their life honey. Not just the bits they feel like giving. They say they want to belong to Him. They are friends with God honey."  
"So how do I know if I want that?"  
"I don't know Maddie. I only know why I want it. It's because God's the best person I've ever met. He loves me so much, more than anyone else, and he watches over my life. He wants only the best for me."  
"Oh."

"You can't make a decision like this lightly Princess. Friends have to understand each other. So you need to find out who God is, and I have just the way for you to do it. I have a movie you can watch that tells the story from the bible of how much God loves us. So I have a suggestion. Why don't we cook tea, and feed Moses, and then sit down and watch it? Anytime you want to stop the movie and ask a question you can."  
"Okay... But Al. I meant what I said to God."  
"I can see you did. But God doesn't expect you to make such a decision lightly Maddie. He wants you to belong to Him, but he wants you to really want that, not give it to Him out of guilt because you made a hasty promise and now you don't feel right not keeping it. God is very serious about who He wants as Christians. He wants them to be serious about Him back."  
"Oh."

Right then, as if it was a play, and it was on cue, Moses woke up. We were out of time for our discussion, but really I'd said all I had to say. I loved Maddie, and I wanted nothing more than to push her into a decision and to force the marriage on her. I burned for the girl.

It wasn't right though. This girl would either be the love of my life or the biggest mistake I'd ever made. The only way through the situation was to be honest and up-front. It wasn't my decision whether Maddie became a Christian, and it wasn't God's. God would have her like a shot and so would I. No the decision was Maddie's, and she had the right to understand it and decide if she really wanted it.

# Inside a killer's mind

At first when I heard about the wedding I was furious. That was my bride, not his. I'd earned her. Then I was angry at her. Then I realized it wasn't really her fault. He'd tempted her by being there when she was in trouble. She never looked at him.

In fact she seemed more interested in the baby than him. Maybe she thought he was the best way to keep it. Until I told her she wouldn't know I'd been the one to give the baby back, and the beast had been the one to kill that terrible whore who'd taken him. So I wrestled down the beast, and went to watch a wedding; what I could of it.

I was so pleased with her behaviour in the ceremony. She wouldn't promise to obey him; because she knew deep down he wasn't the husband for her. It wasn't until the end that I got really furious. It was when he kissed the bride. He laid hands on my reward and kissed her.

The beast roared with anger.  
"Whore!" it snarled. I wrestled it down because this was my bride. She shouldn't have kissed him, but he hadn't given her a choice. She'd been arguing with him and he just forced her. Only the beast had the right to punish women like that.

I had to get out of there. I went into the men's room and smashed my fist into the wall. When the pain had calmed the beast again I followed the wedding guests to the reception. The beast and I had plans. He might have kissed her, but he would never have her. We would watch for the right time and then we would just take her. She was my bride and this was my wedding night. Later I could say the vows with her in front of God. Later when I trained her and showed her that it was me she should obey, not him, we would say the vows. She would swear to obey me. She would do anything I said. Women always did, one way or another.

They didn't show up to the reception. I wanted to lose it but I couldn't. There were too many witnesses around. The cop said they'd left on their honeymoon already and I knew it was too late. By the time they came back he would have made her his whore. The beast was raging and I was fighting him.

It was then I remembered what I'd planned earlier. I remembered the one the beast also wanted. I could punish the cops who helped him, by feeding this woman to the beast, and I could calm the beast. After that I would make plans for when they came back.

My bride would be a whore and I would have to search for another bride. I would have to kill this one first. Adultery was a sin. There was someone else who the beast would have to kill before her though; her fellow adulterer. All it would take is time. After all, even if they'd taken off on a plane they had to come home. I already knew where he lived. All I needed to know was when they'd come back.

# Pete

My cell rang.  
"Anderson." I said.  
"Pete." It was a whisper.  
"I can't hear you. Wait I'll put you on loud... Okay."  
"Pete, I'm so scared."  
"Why are you scared Alison?"  
"There's someone outside, they're creeping around." In the background I heard a window break.  
"Hide!" I said urgently. "I'll be right over."

I'd known Alison for years. She'd been Fran's best friend till they'd had a falling out the year we met Maddie. Then she'd moved away. By the time I joined the police force she was already working at the coast as an ambulance officer. I probably wouldn't have thought much about it if I hadn't run into her again in the course of my job.

Alison was my emergency date. When my frustrations got too much over Maddie, and I needed to get my head out of the clouds and my feet on the ground, she was my reality check. In the years when Maddie was hated by me I dated Alison as something else, she was a friend who never asked for more because my heart was broken. We'd never kissed of course. That would be like kissing your sister. So now when Alison called I knew I had to go. I'd never forgive myself if anything ever happened to her.

"Levi, Alison's got a stalker. We need to go." There was a current emergency priority on the coast for any calls about prowlers. That was because last year we'd almost caught the bastard who was currently hanging around Maddie's associates through a call about a stalker. We knew it was him because he'd left DNA at the scene of the death of the woman he'd stalked. We'd been too late to catch him, and we'd found her body later, but we knew it was him.  
"It won't be him. He's already killed today."  
"It's Alison. I'm not taking a chance."  
"Fine." He jumped in the car with me, because that was what you did. You supported your partner. Where one went, both went.

We stuck the lights on but no siren and ran every red light on the way. Alison was two minutes away, but a lot can happen in two minutes with a prowler. We got to the house and kicked in the door. Upstairs Alison was screaming. I'd never heard anything like it. Her screams drowned out the sounds of our entry. I ran up those stairs like I'd been training against Olympic Athletes for the hundred metres.

Alison was on the bed and he was on top of her.  
"Get your hands up!"  
"I'll kill her," he growled in the most savage voice I'd ever heard. He had a knife.  
"Police! Get your hands up!" Levi roared. The perp was slow but finally he did it, and as he raised himself to his knees off her I breathed a sigh of relief as I realised Alison still had her panties on. He'd ripped everything else off her, but he hadn't got to those.

She was bleeding where he'd cut something into her stomach. I was hoping it wasn't what I thought it was, but deep down I knew it was.  
"Get off her!" I ordered, seething. "Get off the damn bed and lean against the wall." I stayed where I was when he obeyed, and kept alert as Levi went forward, and grabbed his hands and cuffed him, then he turned him around and I heard Levi slamming him violently back against the wall.

But I'd already stopped watching him. I had eyes only for Alison. She was in tears on the bed. This was my Alison, my precious Alison. I went to her and grabbed her up in my arms and rocked her like a child. She hated me touching her bare skin to bare skin, and she gasped because it hurt her where he'd cut in the letter 'W'. So I pulled off my shirt and I covered her with it. Then I rocked her again.  
"It's alright now. It's alright sweetheart," I said.

Then from behind me I heard Levi say in a shocked voice --  
"Reece?" He was the one person Maddie had suggested who we knew it absolutely couldn't be. He was one of our Pastors. How could it be Reece? That was when Alison answered me, and I knew she would never be the same again.  
"He tried to... He tried to... Pete, oh Pete, Reece tried to rape me."  
"Shhh," I said. "Shhh. It's alright now honey. It's alright. We've got him, you're safe now." But I knew it wasn't alright. He'd touched my Alison and some women didn't ever recover. I swore right then that somehow I would heal her. I started praying. I couldn't do that by myself; it's God who is the healer.

Then I realized. When Maddie had been in danger tonight I hadn't felt one tenth of the emotion I felt now.  
"I swear to you Alison, I'll make it up to you. You'll get past this." I kissed the top of her head.  
"It's not your fault," said Alison. "It's mine. He said it w-was. He said I was f-flirting."  
"It's not your fault Alison. It's his. It's most definitely his. You never flirt. He's a liar--"

"Pete, you need to call for an ambulance, and a paddy wagon."  
"Yeah sure," I said. It would be hard though, because I was crying. I'd just realized what Maddie meant. It had never been Maddie. That was only infatuation. It was Alison all along. How had I not known? Now she was hurt and it was agony. But I sucked in the emotion and I made the call, and I kept on praying while I did it.

# Chapter Ten: Slip-ups, and Sincerity

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is - Winston Churchill

## Al

We got the phone call about one am. Everything had changed by then, and neither Pete not Levi knew. Maddie had cried buckets tonight, and she'd made that promise and prayed that prayer to God that I'd prayed she would for months. It was funny the difference a day could make.

All the same I hadn't rung the judge yet, because last time we'd had a wedding ceremony most of the vows had been a tease on my part. Maddie deserved better. We wouldn't confuse the rest of the witnesses by calling them back for another wedding, but I intended to take her to the judge as soon as we got the all clear. I was going to marry the girl and really take her off the market. My decision to do that followed the most terrifying but awesome hours of my life. I'd been terrified she would change her mind and not keep her promise.

We'd eaten late because Moses hadn't settled. The little tyke was drinking an incredible amount now and it seemed to take forever. Then after his feed he'd screamed for a full two hours. Maddie said it could be colic, but we couldn't go out and get stuff when we were in hiding. It didn't matter what we wanted. It was better he was safe, even if he had gut pain.

I'd been exhausted, since I hadn't slept much the night before and hadn't stopped all day. Maddie wanted to watch the movie though, so when he'd finally settled I'd put it on. The movie I showed her is based on the life of Jesus and mostly based on the book of Luke. I'd had plans to talk to her about what she saw, but my day caught up with me. She watched and I unfortunately fell asleep, so Maddie made all her discoveries about God largely uninfluenced by me.

She punched me awake when Jesus walked on water.  
"How did he do that?" she demanded.  
"Huh?" I said groggily. "What did he do?"  
"He just walked on water in a storm. I thought you said this was a true story. No one can walk on water. No one can stop a storm."  
"Jesus can. He's not a man. He's God. He can do whatever He likes."  
"How can you believe that?"  
"The disciples saw Him."  
"Oh... Then he really did?"  
"Yep, twelve men saw Him do it, and then one man was taught to do it in His power."

I tried to stay awake after that, but it's a long book, so it's a long movie. She punched me again, when he was being flogged.  
"Umph!"  
"Why doesn't he stop them? He's stopped them before?"  
"Huh."  
"Jesus! Why is He letting them beat him like that?"  
"It's why he came to earth honey."  
"Huh."

"Look its Passover. At Passover a lamb was sacrificed by the Jews to save them from sin. God would forgive them if they offered up a lamb in faith. But a lamb can't really take away sin. A lamb is just a sheep. The only way sins could be forgiven that deserve death is if the sentence was carried out. It's the same if someone owes tax money. The tax is still owed till it's paid. Jesus paid for all the wrong things people did. He died and went to hell for us. Watch it honey. He's doing it. He's paying by dying."  
"But it's not fair! He didn't do anything wrong!"  
"He had to, honey. He died because someone had to die for our sin. It was him or us."

"Oh..." she said. "What's sin?"  
"Have you ever told a lie, or taken something that doesn't belong to you, or hated someone?"  
"Well yeah. But nobody's perfect."  
"Yeah, nobody's perfect except Him. He was. He never lied, never stole, never hated. Jesus did nothing wrong and in a minute when He dies He's going to cry out 'It's finished', because He's finished paying for the wrong things we do. Then He's going to go straight to hell and do that for us too."

"But that's still not fair."  
"No it isn't fair, is it Maddie? He did it anyway. He did it because He loved you and me so much He knew if He wanted us not to go to hell someone had to pay, and He decided He would." That was when Maddie burst into tears and I knew she would come.

"Keep watching," I told her. I was wide awake now. We watched until he died, and then lived and the stone rolled away as Jesus rose from the dead, and then she hugged me in happiness.  
"He came back," she said. She was crying again.  
"Yeah he came back. He's God, death and hell could never hold Him. He created them. How could they hold Him? ... So now you know why I love Him and why I obey Him; it's because He first loved me enough to die for me and go to hell for me. He did it for you too."

"So how do I tell him I want to give Him my life."  
"Just like this... Just speak to Him Maddie and tell him how you feel about what he did and tell Him you want Him to be your God and you will follow Him."  
"That's it?"  
"That's it."

"Okay," she said and then she prayed. "Jesus... I don't know what to say... I never knew you did this before... But now I know I'm so sorry you had to do that... I'm glad you did it so I could be a Christian, but I wish you hadn't had to. I'm glad you're alive again. It wouldn't have been justice if you stayed dead. I want to keep my promise. I want you to be my God. And I want to give you my life... and I want... I want us all to be a proper family... And thank-you for hearing me and loving me and..." Then she just burst into tears and sobbed her heart out, and I'm not ashamed to say so did I. My princess had found Jesus. Now she was really a princess. Now she was a daughter of the King called God.

After that it was time for Moses's late feed and then we both went up to bed. She went to the spare room, and I went to my room I was sharing with Moses, because I found it easier to wake all the time than she did. I'd only been asleep a couple of hours when the phone call came.

"Al," I'd croaked, when it rang.  
"It's Pete."  
"Yeah what's up? Do I need to let more dogs out?"  
"No mate. We got him."  
"You got him?"  
"Yeah we caught him red-handed."  
"So are you gonna tell me why Reece did it?"  
"... How did you know?"  
"I don't know. I just thought he was the most likely. Reece was fixated on Maddie like the rest of us, but Lloyd wasn't. He's in love with that Angela who sings up front at night. I knew it wasn't me, and I knew it wasn't you, and I knew it wasn't my boss, so it had to be Reece. I bet you if you asked Maddie she would have told you she thought it was Reece too. That girl's a genius."  
"You two ever thought of becoming cops."  
"Nah. I'm a father now. I can't risk my life like that. I'll leave the heroics to you."  
"You, my friend are deeply nuts."  
"Not true. I'm simply a one man woman who's found his woman."  
"Yeah me too."

"Liar. You don't love Maddie. Oh maybe you had your first crush with Maddie, but you don't love her."  
"Who said anything about Maddie?"  
"Huh?"  
"You heard me. I expect you to make an honest woman out of Maddie when she finds Christ, but I'll beat you to the altar."  
"How much do you want to bet on it?" I challenged him, interested. I figured I wouldn't take the bet but I could stir him about it later. After all I was already ahead. At least the judge held my papers already. Pete wasn't in the mood for idiocy though. So we said our goodbyes and hung up.

I yawned and tried to get back to sleep, content in the knowledge that I finally had everything I wanted. I'd prayed for a wife for years, but I'd never expected to get her this way.

It was as I was drifting off to sleep that a quiet thought slipped into my mind. I suddenly remembered that insane list I'd made up when I was a child. The list that I prayed that asked God for what I wanted in a woman. It woke me up. I started killing myself laughing. There she was, 'Princess Madison', possibly the only woman in the world who liked to sleep a lot on the beach. She preferred not to talk and genuinely could entertain herself at the beach for hours and hours without bothering me when I was fishing. There had been something about dolls too, but I couldn't recall what it was. I was willing to bet if I mentioned the word doll she'd give me the reaction I'd prayed for years ago, but now didn't care about or recall.

Of course she had other qualities that I thought were equally important, the ones my Dad had thought good. She liked to make me spend money on important things so I didn't waste it on ridiculous stuff, and she liked to make sure everyone she cared about was nice to each other. She just had her own unique way of doing it. Most of all she wanted a family and a husband, which I'd been looking to be for some years.

In fact I realized now God had set out to design two absolutely unique individuals that suited each other because of their absolute differences. But he'd still made two people who wanted the characteristics of the other in a mate. It was funny as hell, but also awesome in its rightness. So I laughed with God a while, and then I thanked Him, and right in the middle of the thanking I fell asleep.

# Maddie

It had been a tiring night. Al had woken me up for a progress report on everything that happened last night, at the crack of dawn. He told me Pete and Levi had caught Reece in the act and he was locked up. Then he'd handed me Moses and a bottle, and told me he had to go feed and train his dogs. I hadn't complained because cuddling Moses and feeding him when he was all sweet smelling from just being changed felt so good.

When he'd come back in he'd told me if I was serious about keeping Moses I should get ready to go see the judge again. The judge wanted us both in front of him, to check we were really serious this time.

## One month later...

It was our wedding day. Al always liked to give things the Al spin, so it was going to be a little unusual. Normal brides get to plan their wedding but not me apparently. He'd already paid for all the wedding gear, he'd told me repeatedly in the last month, so we were eloping.

He had turned up this morning and was still being all mysterious about the details. He frequently was. He said it was romantic. I don't know why that made me want to slap him one, but it did. I'd never been tempted to violence with anyone but Al.

Today though I was tired, so it was worse than usual. Moses had kept me up half the night. It was a given the poor baby had colic. I'd been trying to fix it with every propriety brand of anti-colic drops in the pharmacy, but nothing was working.

So when Al pulled his usual mysterious act I was too tired to argue. I'd only asked the essential question, which was,  
"Where are we going?" He hadn't answered me properly. He'd just said--  
"I'll tell you later. I'm too busy now. Just put your wedding dress on." Then he'd smirked; the jerk.

Later when Moses and I were dressed up to go, and we'd packed Moses and his thousand and one things into Al's truck, he'd blindfolded me. Really I would have objected, except it was very bright outside in the truck, and it might help me catch up on my missing sleep. I hadn't been able to find my sunglasses this morning. Tiredness turns my brain to mush and my memory lets me down. I can't function on less than ten hours sleep. So my sunglasses were missing, along with half my brain cells.

"Where are we going?" I'd asked again after ten minutes in the car. The blindfold wasn't fun anymore so I was objecting, but being me I hadn't put a lot of effort into it. I don't remember him doing more than laugh. I was tired though, so I nodded off.

Finally we'd arrived somewhere and I'd woken up when the car lurched to a halt.  
"Where are we?"  
"It's a secret."  
"No really where are we?" he leant over and tweaked the blindfold away from one ear, leaning close.  
"Where we are is a secret," He whispered. Then he jumped out of the car, got Moses out, came round my side, opened the car door and said absolutely nothing else. He grabbed one arm and started guiding me up some stairs.  
I took it for a while, but the man had no idea of how to guide a blinded person. Every time I tried to take the blindfold off though, when I nearly tripped, he wouldn't let me.  
"Trust me," he'd said, "It's a surprise... No, no, no, you can't look."

I realized then I'd forgotten to pack my bag in the truck; I hadn't packed for my own honeymoon. I didn't care about what I was wearing now, because I was appropriately dressed in my wedding dress. I did care about what I needed to take on a honeymoon. I couldn't wear my wedding dress for the rest of the week. Who knew what kind of honeymoon he'd decided on? He was a man. He'd probably think skiing was appropriate...

"I haven't packed for the honeymoon!" I wailed. "We can't get married till I've packed. I don't have a thing to wear!" For once it was really true. "Besides you still haven't told me what to pack. I don't know where we are going!"  
"Can't tell you that. That's a surprise too. All you need is your toothbrush and toiletries."  
"I have to pack for Moses! How do I know what to pack for Moses?"  
"You don't. It's a surprise. I've packed for you and Moses... Don't peek."

I cooperated with 'his surprise' till I nearly fell up a stair, and then I ripped the thing off.  
"Hey, but this is the same place we were last time we got married." We were at the courthouse.  
"Princess Madison!" he said, pretending shock. "You were supposed to keep that on."  
"You try walking in these shoes in a blindfold! Anyway, I've decided I don't like surprises."

"I thought you'd think this was romantic. It's the same place but this time it's going to be different."  
Huh"  
"Yeah this time we're both going to mean every word we say, and the clerk at the registry office is going to file those papers and then you and me and Moses are hopping on a plane. I have plans for a honeymoon with you princess."  
"Okay, but you know we can't take Moses with us. He's not ours yet."  
"I know this judge..." he said, leaning in confidentially and whispering in my ear. "I reckon we can get those temporary custody papers sent off too, and you never know what can happen after that." I rolled my eyes because I'd met the judge last time Al pretended he was marrying me. He didn't seem like the pushover Al was implying.

I would've said something sarcastic but I needed to know if he was serious about Moses and custody.  
"Promise?"  
"Now Princess you know I'll do my best but I'm not superman."  
"That's not fair. I consider Moses part of our cherishing agreement."

I didn't really, because I knew we could lose him now the bad guy was caught no matter what Al did. Until the papers were final you can always lose the baby. It's not over till it's over! However, God had answered my prayer for a husband so I could have a chance to keep Moses, so I figured the rest would also work out. I wasn't telling Al that though. If he thought I was going to make his life easy now things were settled between us then he didn't know me very well. You didn't have a good marriage if your husband was bored, and it was my job to keep him on his toes, and his to keep me happy and provide my needs. Especially things that cost an arm and a leg, like court costs. Or things that were difficult to provide by yourself, like babies.

Al had the last word. Like always it took me a while to realize he'd backed me into a corner.  
"Honey you and I need to talk about what that word cherishing really means."  
"I don't care about what other people think it means. I want it to mean you'll do your best to provide me with Moses and any other children I decide I want and to look after us all."  
"Sure honey," he said. "That will be my pleasure." He was smirking as he said it, and I knew instantly he'd got the wrong idea about how to provide me with babies. Or perhaps I'd worded it poorly... I tried not to blush.

I wanted to argue, but I suddenly thought it was unwise. What if I said I wanted a nanny for my kids, and to be lazy as hell and he got angry and walked off and then I lost Moses? I wanted Moses more than I wanted to be lazy. Besides this was Al. He'd grown on me like fungus. I couldn't see myself marrying anyone else. He was kind of sweet in his annoying way. If I had to have a husband I couldn't picture anyone else in the role. For a start I only wanted to kiss him, not anyone else. I realized until I went through with this, and the judge granted us temporary custody I should wait. We could argue about stuff like fostering other babies later. The essential things were in place.

I had a volunteer for a husband, who I actually liked. He'd actually made me change my opinion of him over the last six weeks. Well I felt a little more than just liking, but I wasn't telling him that. Do you think I'm a fool? Once a man has you admitting that you love him it's all downhill from there.

He seemed to like looking after kids and performing the baby chores 70% of the time. I'd never met any other man like him. Then there were all the other things about him...

He made seriously nice coffee, which was a bonus. He'd spent money on me like water over the last few weeks, so obviously he wasn't lacking money. He already had a house, even though it was a little further from the beach than I was used to. He said his Dad was rich, what more did I need to know? I could change their miserly characteristics later. They might have been Dutch, but now they were Australian. Besides once I married him half of everything he owned would be mine!

He had one very important characteristic I really liked more than the rest. He liked to fish and surf on the beach for hours, and that meant I could sleep for hours on the beach, baking in the sun... Or at least I'd be able to once Moses grew a little and I hired a nanny.

That was another thing, he really could kiss... I'd never been a fan of the practice before Al, but there was something about the way I felt when his lips met mine. So I let him steer me up the stairs into the courthouse, and I let him pull me into the Registry office. In an unusual step that I'm sure wasn't completely normal the judge was the celebrant. However on the one occasion I'd been near the judge I knew he was a stickler for the legal protocols, and so I could trust that the man had the right to stand as a marriage celebrant.

The judge sat up straighter when we entered. That wasn't what shocked me into silence. It was when Al turned to him and said,  
"How are you, Dad?" That was when I knew I was in big trouble because we would make promises in front of his father, who while he was clearly a celebrant, was also a judge. I'm going to repeat myself. His father was a judge!

I knew unlike my father, this man had the power to enforce the law. This was worse than living with my mother. This man would know if I broke the promises I made because he was going to be family. I wouldn't just face nagging. I'd face legal precedents. What a jerk? Al had lied to me... Or at least he hadn't exactly lied, but he hadn't told me everything! Who the hell did he think he was?

"Uh," I said.  
"You said something honey?"  
"Uh, you didn't say your father was a judge."  
"Didn't I? ... Sorry, honey, I thought you knew." That smirk was there again!  
"You told me he owned the cattle on a thousand hills. I thought he was a farmer! You didn't say anything about him being a judge as well!" He was in the wrong, and he should be ashamed.

I swear, both the judge and Al laughed, but it was the judge who answered me.  
"He has two fathers, sweetheart." Huh? I thought. Who the hell has two fathers? This was so confusing. I was missing something here. I could tell by Al's smirk, and the judge's smile...

I wanted to run out of there screaming, but I suddenly realized this wasn't as dangerous as what I'd done a month ago. It hadn't hit me till now, but I'd made some dangerous promises, and I was about to make some more...

I had made a promise to God, and it led on from a prayer I'd made earlier out of desperation. I hadn't thought about it when I did it, but God's more powerful than a judge because otherwise how could he have done the impossible. That was what struck me now. I was remembering what they'd said in church. God saw everything, and he understood what everyone thought. I don't like to break my promises to the wrong people, the dangerous people like my mother. It's one of the reasons I don't talk much. If you don't say anything you can't be pinned down. What was I going to do? I'd said a whole heap of things...

"Uh," I said.  
"Is something else bugging you honey?"  
"Uh, kind of... Al has anyone ever tried to run away from God and not obeyed Him?"  
"Sure honey."...  
"What did God do to them Al?"  
"Oh..."

He was smiling. I was pretty sure he knew why I was asking that after me telling him over and over again about my promises to God last month. So he smirked as he went on,  
"Is this really important right now honey? Dad said he doesn't have much time."  
"Yeah, it really is."  
"I'll tell you later Princess, but you may have heard the story. It's the story of Jonah and the whale."

I didn't know the story, but I figured any story with a person in it and a whale could not end well for the person. So I shut up, and let the judge start our wedding. The whole time I was praying though, and I wasn't paying much attention.

I didn't know if you could renegotiate your promises to God, but I was going to try. I wasn't going to stop following him. I'd enjoyed following him for the whole of the last month. At least I'd enjoyed it when I thought about it in the mad minutes between trying to grab sleep, dealing with a Colicky baby, and dealing with Al's special brand of 'surprises' that never seemed to be well timed. I just needed to fix the fine print...  
"God? ... Am I going to like obeying you for the rest of my life, because it seems to me, there's a lot of fine print we haven't discussed? ... Can we renegotiate our agreement? ... Can I ask you to...?" It was while I was praying, that I lost track of the ceremony, and Al nudged me gently.

"Honey, the judge is waiting for you to say I do."  
"Oh," I said... "I do."  
"I now pronounce you man and wife. You can kiss the bride."  
"Wait a second," I said. "What did I just promise I would do?" Al gave me a big smile.  
"I thought you'd argue with me again Princess Madison, but you didn't. I promised to cherish and you promised to obey."  
"I did not!"  
"You did too!"  
"But I didn't mean it. I take it back--". That was when he kissed the breath out of me, and I forgot what I was saying, and that my friend is how he got the last word about his wife obeying him. It's a last word he's always teased me about ever since.

# Appendix of Bible Story References and jokes with a synopsis of the story or verse for those who like to tie up loose ends...

## The God who owns the cattle, on a thousand hills.

This is a verse from Psalm 50, where God confronted with sacrifices given without true devotion, says:

I have no need of a bull from your stall  
or of goats from your pens,  
for every animal of the forest is mine,  
and the cattle on a thousand hills.

God is saying he doesn't care about the blood of cattle, or the offerings people bring. He owns the world and all that is in it. Instead he prefers we are thankful to Him and fulfil our promises (vows) to Him.

Maddie unfortunately doesn't realize that when Al is talking about a rich father, Al's referring to God who is the father of all, for He created us all.

## Jonah and the Whale

This story is found in Jonah 1-2. If you've never heard it it's quite hilarious in itself.

For those who are afraid reading the bible will cause them distress or annoy them or require a master's degree in English, essentially the story is as follows...

The story is that God had decided to destroy Nineveh the capital of the Assyrian Empire because it was a wicked city. The bible book doesn't tell what Nineveh did that was so wicked.

(Historical accounts though say that Nineveh was the centre of an empire built by slave traders who would attack towns, kill most people in terrible ways, and enslave the rest. They made their fortune from attacking innocent villagers and torturing them and then selling those who survived. They worshipped very evil Gods, even practising human sacrifice, if I recollect correctly.

Of course many nations did that in those days, including some Jewish kings. This does not make the reasons for Gods anger any less valid. Anyway I'm sure you can picture what the soldiers of Assyria did to the poor women they caught, and to innocent babies also, for they liked to cause pain and ridiculed those they victimised. They were all that can be evil in this world.)

Anyway when Jonah was told to go tell them God was going to destroy them he ran the other way. _He didn't do it because he was afraid of the Assyrians, He did it because he was afraid he'd tell the Assyrians and they'd decide to change. He didn't want them to change; he wanted God to kill them all._ So he jumped on a boat going in the _opposite_ direction.

A storm came up that was going to sink the boat. It came out of nowhere and was so terrible the sailors who were all superstitious thought someone had annoyed the Gods and cast lots to see who did. Jonah's name came up, and when they asked him what he'd done, he told them and told them to throw him into the sea, because then the storm would stop.

They argued because they were good men but eventually they had no choice. Jonah didn't die in the ocean because the storm stopped and then a whale swallowed him. He stayed alive in the huge stomach of the whale three days and said sorry to God. The whale vomited him up near Nineveh where Jonah obeyed and the people said sorry and stopped being evil. Jonah wasn't pleased though. He was mad at God for forgiving them and not destroying them

In an interesting side note, while they did stop their evil deeds for the reign of this king, when the next king came he did the same as all the evil kings before him. As a result God did destroy Nineveh some years later. So Jonah's prophesy did in the end come true, just not as fast as He wanted.

## The Story of Moses and the Princess

This is told in Exodus 2:1-10.

The Jews (called Hebrews at this time) were living in Egypt as slaves. The pharaoh hated them because they outbred the Egyptians and he was worried about their numbers even though they were slaves. He decided to kill all the boy babies but keep the girls, and to keep the nation as slaves. Threatened with the death of her son, Moses' mother put him in a basket in the Nile and prayed he would be safe. His sister was told to watch over him in the river. I have no idea whether she was going to leave him in the basket all day, and then rescue him at nightfall when she was finished with her slave duties, or when the Egyptian slave bosses were no longer around. Possibly she was. However, a princess of Egypt came down to the river to bathe, found the baby in the basket and fell in love with him. She took him as her son. So a Jewish baby became a prince of Egypt.

The princess of course, being a princess, instantly hired the baby's sister as a nurse. Like Maddie she wanted the child but wanted someone else to help with the work. So Moses had his family and the princess' family too.

## Abraham and Abimelech

Abraham was a man in history who was told by God to move to Canaan which is now part of the countries of Palestine, Israel, and Jordan. You can read his story from Genesis 12. He went but he had some trouble on the way.

In those days there were many Kings in the lands he went through. Kings could seize any woman they wanted as a wife or palace concubine (think harem woman). Abraham was married to his sister, which was legal in those days after the flood for there weren't many people yet, and genes had not degenerated to the point where in-breeding made that unwise. She was probably only a half-sister, or a step-sister, but she was still his sister.

Anyway, Abraham knew his wife was one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen. He knew any king would want her. He also knew the usual practice was to kill the husband, so the wife was free to be married or placed in the women's quarters. Abraham didn't want to die and wasn't brave enough to trust God. He told Sarah to tell anyone who saw her and asked who she was that she was Abraham's sister, rather than his wife. That way there was a chance Abraham wouldn't be killed.

A King called Abimelech saw Sarah and wanted her and took her to be his wife, placing her in his women's quarters. Abimelech had many wives so it would take some time before he could make the wedding happen. In the meantime God punished Abimelech, by stopping all his wives pregnancies, probably knowing God in a fairly abrupt manner. When Abimelech wanted to know why God told him it was because he had stolen Abraham's wife. Abimelech gave her back and gave Abraham some goods so he would not be angry. However Abimelech was angry with Abraham because he'd caused him to sin through a lie which caused him to want another man's wife, and he knew how much worse it would have been if he'd actually married her hastily instead of waiting for proper preparations.

When Reece knows Al has married Maddie, he is pinning his hopes on God giving her back because he sees her as his bride. However Reece is deeply nuts, has never married Maddie, and quite frankly since he's a murderer who's not of sound mind, he probably doesn't even know God. Anyway God has Al in mind for Maddie's husband, not Reece.

## Jesus walks on water

This story is related in Matthew 14:22-33, Mark 6:45-52 and John 6:16-21. _It is not actually found in the book of Luke, so you will notice Al was wrong. That's right. A man was wrong! Did I deliberately write it like that? Well no. I made a mistake too, so a woman was wrong too! Amazing..._ But the irony is funnier if left alone...

Anyway all are slightly different accounts. The one in Matthew is more detailed because Matthew was an eyewitness in the boat when Jesus walked on water out to them. Mark related the story, as told to him later. For Mark and also John the important thing was the miracle Jesus did, not the bit about Peter walking on water too.

The disciples went ahead of Jesus across a lake in a boat and he stayed behind to pray. They got caught in a late afternoon storm in a very large lake. Night fell while they were fighting the storm to get to land. In the middle of the storm they saw what they thought was a ghost walking on water.

In every movie where someone is shown walking on water, the water is calm. In this case there was a raging storm and they were right in the middle of a deep lake when Jesus walked out to them across the raging waves. This in fact is one of the reasons Maddie is so amazed. They thought he was a ghost. He called out and was heard over the fierce sound of the storm, which is also completely impossible to anyone but God. He told them not to be afraid, it was Him.

That was when Peter wanted to walk out to him on the water, but Peter couldn't do it because he didn't have enough faith and Jesus had to save him and pull him up on top of the water so he didn't drown. Then Jesus walked Peter over to the boat, despite the raging storm, and helped him in. Once in the boat, Jesus turned and spoke to the storm, and it stopped instantly. That was the moment they all realised Jesus was God. It says in the bible the winds and waves obey God.

## Jesus the Passover lamb

This is not a story but a bible reference found in the book of John. If you want to avoid a sermon, stop right here, for this story is actually part of what's known as the gospel.

Every story of Jesus' death showed He died on the eve of the Passover. This was when the Jews would kill the Passover lamb and take its blood and put it on their door posts as a remembrance of the time death passed over them in Egypt and God set them free from the Egyptians. After killing the lamb they would prepare the feast.

The point is Jesus had to die just before the night of the Passover to be the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Why? Because this was when the Passover lamb is offered for the sins of the world. All gospel accounts position Jesus crucifixion as happening on the eve of the Passover, with his death occurring at 3PM or so in the afternoon, around the time Passover lambs were always sacrificed, because it had to be done before night fell, because then it was the Sabbath and Passover.

How do we know he is this lamb? Well John the Baptist full of the Holy Spirit prophesied over Him that He was in John 1:29, when he said--  
" **Behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world**."

In fact one of the thieves on the cross and the guards, and all the Pharisees taunted Jesus to come down if he was God (Luke 23:35, 37, 39). He would not. While he could have saved himself, since He had before (Luke 4:28-30), he chose to stay and die for our sins. What use would a lamb have been that ran away?

It also striking that as soon as Jesus died the temple curtain in front of the holy place ripped in two in a huge earthquake. It is striking because the thing stopping everyone entering the presence of God was sin, and only priests could go into the holy of holies with the sin offering. If anyone entered this place unworthily they were struck dead by God. References to the curtain ripping are found in Matthew 27: 50-54, and Luke 23:45. At Jesus' death the way was open because the one lamb that could pay for the sins of the world, Jesus, had finished making the sacrifice. This is why he called out on the cross, " **It is finished!** " (John 19:30). There was no longer a need for the blood of lambs to cleanse sin.

For those who are interested there are three important days on the Jewish calendar and they have their important counterparts in the New Testament. All are associated with the King of the Jews and events in His life and after his ascension to heaven: The Day of Passover, the Day of Pentecost and the Day of Atonement! For those interested in some biblical sleuthing, which two are fulfilled, and what important day is yet to come...

## Jesus is beaten

This account is told in several gospels in Matthew 26:67-68, Matthew 27:26; Mark 14:65. Mark 15:15-19; Luke 22:63-65; John 18:22, John 19:1-3. It shows the fact that even though Jesus had done no wrong, (no one could find anything to condemn him for, and Jesus had not committed blasphemy because He was God as He said he was), he suffered as if he was a criminal and a blasphemer. How can Jesus be God when God is one, and God the Father was in heaven? Jesus said it best when He said, "I and my Father are one!"

## Jesus' crucifixion

Again this is in every gospel, but each is a different account. This is probably because Jesus took 6 hours to die. I don't know about you, but I couldn't stay and watch someone I loved being tortured for six hours. So accounts are based on what each saw, and on shared information from those eyewitnesses the gospel writer talked to. Accounts are found in Matthew 27:32-56, Mark 15: 21-41, Luke 23:26-49, and John 19:16-37.

Essentially, many messianic prophecies were fulfilled at Jesus' death and I would spoil all that if I told the story. If you haven't read them you can on biblegateway.com. His death is an amazing story, and quite horrifying, but also quite amazing in that it shows how much he loved each one of us; but except by his friends and family and one thief, his love for the world was unappreciated at the time. We who are Christians appreciate it now.

## Jesus rises again

Again this is told in all gospel accounts, and again from slightly different viewpoints. Jesus was witnessed alive by many people, and each account witnesses different witnesses' stories. They are found in Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20-21.

# About the Author

I am Australian widow with four children and two step-children, living and working in China. I wasn't always a writer. At different times, for reasons of acute boredom I have pursued a lot of entertaining professions and hobbies.

Personally if I lived my life the way I wanted I would spend all my time on my favorite activities. I like to catch up with family, write, read incessantly, watch movies, and study towards my Masters. Fortunately God insists I live a balanced life. So in my spare time I pray a lot, spend time with God, and work a full time job! I am so blessed because my genetics have meant I rarely need much sleep.

As to my career I am an experienced teacher, although I have also worked for Social Security as a clerk, sold roof tiles, been a wife and mother, worked as a Podiatrist and run various departments (or worked in them) in my church. I have always taught. I held my first unofficial math class on the steps of my neighbor's house when I was about ten. I am also a jack of all trades since I've been a single mother since my husband died when we were both 34.

In 2012 after living in India for two months working at Asha Bhawan, God gave me the theme of this series, and revived my desire to create stories that amuse, but also make us think. I hope you enjoy them.

I am currently finishing the final book in the seven book series, which is mostly written and have another series on the way God willing, and if God helps a semi-autobiographical book about learning to pray. If you like my books please leave a review. If you hate them also write a review. Like all authors I will think about your criticisms, although like most of us I hate criticism! May my God bless you!

## Other books by the Author

### Seven Deadly Sins series

(This list is in the series order. Books can be read in any order. I have also included the type of genre so readers have a guide to those they may like since some like tear-jerkers and some prefer humor).

Rescuing Rachel (Lust): Humorous Crime Fiction

Saving Sophie (Hate): Serious Crime Fiction  
Healing Hope (Envy): Serious Drama (only one crime in the book – no mystery).

Motivating Maddie (Sloth): Humorous Crime Fiction

Finding Faith (Gluttony): Serious Crime Fiction

Adoring Abbie (Pride): Humorous Crime Fiction (In pre-production)

Caring for Cassie (Greed): Serious Drama with a twist of Crime Fiction (In serious editing).

### Coming Soon

Kidnapping Kelsie

How to lose your job in less than ten days

Weird God Stories: A Humorous look at learning to Pray

###

