Just about that time, in the two-bedroom apartment down one floor, Summer got a phone call from Ashley up at Meriwether. “Hey,” Ashley said, “I thought you might like to know that Mary Lou got hauled off in an ambulance last night.”

“No fooling?” Summer giggled. She knew about the incident upstairs the previous afternoon, and she really was a little ticked that she’d missed seeing Vixen doing a number on their common enemy for the second time. Opportunities like that didn’t come along very often.

“I don’t know what the deal was,” Ashley went on. “But Shelly Battle was there when they took Mary Lou out of some guy’s car, and she said she overheard them saying something about a broken jaw.”

Well, this part of the old Spearfish Lake Class of 2011 gossip circuit still seemed to be working, Summer thought. “Yeah, it seems Mary Lou had another set-to with Vixen like the one she had a year ago last summer,” she snickered. “From what I heard it came out about the same way, too. How bad is Mary Lou hurt?”

“I don’t know, other than what Shelly said. Neither of us have seen Mary Lou around all day, so maybe they kept her in the hospital.”

Vixen will be interested in knowing that, Summer thought. Nancy, too. “So how did the football game go yesterday?”

“We got our butts kicked again,” Ashley snorted. “If the freaking quarterback could hold onto the ball when he gets it, even just half the time, Lyle may have been able to bail it out, but it was fumble city. So what’s happening down there?”

“Other than Vixen dealing with Mary Lou again, not much,” Summer told her. “We’re going to have a cookout this afternoon. It’s just going to be us here in the house, along with a few other people, but it probably won’t be any big deal. Since they don’t have football here, it’s sort of the Southern Michigan University version of a tailgate party.”

“Well, have fun. Hey, if I hear anything else out about Mary Lou, you want to know?”

With a broken jaw Mary Lou wasn’t likely to be a problem for a while, but you never knew. “Yeah, I think so,” Summer said. “After she was such a butthole in school it’s nice to hear about her squirming. So what’s Shelly up to?”

The conversation went on from there for a while, but Summer was just making polite noises back and not paying much attention to what Ashley said. She really didn’t care much about the news from Meriwether, but Ashley was a friend – and might be able to warn them if Mary Lou was intending on starting more trouble, so it was good to show enough interest to keep the line of communication open.

After the phone call was over Summer told Vixen about it, of course. “Good,” was Vixen’s response. “Maybe that’ll give her the message that she’s not wanted around here. You’d better let Nancy know about it, too.”

“Sure,” Summer replied. “I’ll run up and tell her.”

“You might not want to do that right now,” Vixen grinned. “I think Nancy is otherwise occupied with that guy she’s got upstairs.”

“Nancy is up there with a guy?” Summer exclaimed. “How come all this stuff happens and I don’t find out?”

“Beats me,” Vixen grinned. “I’m no gossip, but I did happen to run into Susan out in the hall a few minutes ago.”

“It’s just as well I didn’t find out about it until I was off the phone with Ashley,” Summer shook her head. “I’ll bet that would really yank Mary Lou’s chain.”

“Yeah, Mary Lou would be down here ready to shoot someone, if she could figure out who to shoot. That is, if they let her out of the hospital. Maybe they’ll put her in the nut ward where she belongs.”

“It would be nice, but it probably won’t happen,” Summer sighed. “But I can wait till the party this afternoon to tell Nancy.”

“That’s if Nancy and this guy get out of bed long enough to actually show up,” Vixen laughed. “Boy, who would have believed that?”

A couple of hours later it was time to get ready for the cookout. The way Susan had worked it out she would provide the food, while Cody and Jan would do the setting up, with some help of the kids in the two-bedroom. That meant they had to start earlier, though not much – there wasn’t much prep needed to get ready.

A party like this was not something Cody and Jan had done very often, but there were some folding tables and chairs in the basement of the house that dated from sometime before Susan had owned the place, along with a cheap charcoal grill. Cody got the grill set up and loaded with charcoal, but decided to hold off on lighting it until people showed up.

While they were working on the project, Cody and Vixen got a chance to talk for a moment. “Jan told me about the altercation yesterday,” Cody told her. “Thanks for helping out.”

“It was my pleasure. I don’t like Mary Lou, and it was a chance for a little payback. I got some, too. Summer said that she heard from a friend up at Meriwether that Mary Lou is in the hospital.”

“How bad?”

“She didn’t say, but bad enough to be admitted to the hospital from what we heard. That was what happened the last time I broke her jaw.”

“I didn’t know you were into martial arts.”

“I’m not, but I used to watch a lot of TV wrestling with my dad. Mary Lou fights like a girl, and I don’t.”

“I hope that settled it once and for all,” Cody sighed. “But it may not have. You say that this Mary Lou attacked you?”

“Yeah, just like the last time, a year ago last summer.”

“I hope it doesn’t turn into trouble, but with her in the hospital there’s a chance it might. I know Jan saw her attack you, and Nancy must have seen it too. Maybe Nancy’s boyfriend. So, if it does come to trouble, you were doing it in self defense. I haven’t heard anything about it officially, but it’d take a while for a complaint to filter through the system. All I can say is that if it turns into trouble, let me know.”

“There was no trouble last time, but that was at the Frostee Freeze in Spearfish Lake and there were a whole herd of witnesses around.”

“It may be just as well that you had witnesses this time. Look, if she shows up here again looking for trouble, don’t try to solve it by yourself because you don’t know how she’ll react. I told Jan and I’m telling you, call me if I’m available. Jan called me yesterday, but Mary Lou was already gone by the time I got here.”

“I’ll do that, Cody, but I hate to see Mary Lou causing more trouble for Nancy. She’s already caused both Nancy and me more trouble than we need.”

“I’ll talk with Nancy about it as soon as I see her,” Cody promised. “But again, thanks for helping out.”

The chance for Cody to talk to Nancy came not long afterward, when she appeared, bringing her boyfriend along with her. It was still early for the party, and at the moment Logan was the only one present who didn’t live in the house. Cody had to take Nancy around the corner of the building to talk privately with her.

“I don’t want any more trouble out of Mary Lou,” Nancy said after she and Cody had established what he wanted to talk about. “I’ve got enough going on in my life right now and don’t want to deal with that, too. I really don’t want Logan dragged into it. The hell of it is, Mary Lou was real upset to know that I was just talking with him, and when she realizes that we’re boyfriend and girlfriend she’s likely to be even worse.”

“How much worse?”

“No telling. She really seemed out of her tree yesterday, though.”

“Look, when you first told me about this I thought that a personal protection order might be a good idea, and I think that’s true more than ever. But like I told you before, a PPO is not necessarily a defense, especially if you’re dealing with a psychotic who’s way out of touch with reality. From what you and the others have said, that sounds like a good description of Mary Lou.”

“I’ve thought that since last spring.”

“Then maybe it’ll be more important. While a PPO may not prove to be a practical defense if another incident comes along, busting one of them usually is good for thirty to ninety days, depending on the judge and the circumstances. That might send the message when a piece of paper won’t do the job. I can’t tell you to get one, but I think it would be a good idea.”

“With you being a cop, you’d know more about it than I would,” Nancy sighed. “I know that Alan and the others downstairs had a personal protection order against a bunch of bullies up in Spearfish Lake, and one of the bullies got a month in the country jail as a result of it. They didn’t have any trouble with him after that, and the guy was even civil and apologized the last time we saw him. So what’s going to be involved with me getting one here?”

“We can’t do it today with it being Sunday, but if what Vixen told me is correct Mary Lou is in the hospital for likely a few days anyway. That would give us some time for me to take you downtown and get the procedure going. We could possibly do it tomorrow.”

“It sounds like a good idea. I won’t be able to do it in the morning since I have classes, but the afternoon would work.”

“All right, I’ll pick you up about twelve-thirty and we’ll get you started. I’ll be in uniform since that seems to grease the skids a little.”

“Thanks, Cody. I’m glad you’re willing to help me on this. I never would have been able to get this far without friends helping me out.”

*   *   *

The party turned out to be pretty good. In addition to the residents of the house plus Logan, there were a number of others, including Laura and Stacy, along with half a dozen other students Susan had invited.

The school administration was represented by Susan, of course, and George Wilt, the Admissions Director – everyone there knew him, since he’d passed on their admission to Southern after a personal interview. He had a tough job; based on the limited input from a student’s applications and their admissions interview, he had to predict if a student could manage the different and high-pressure atmosphere of the university. He had a record of guessing correctly a very good percentage of the time.

Cody thought it especially nice to see George there for two reasons: the Admissions Director had stuck his neck out more than a little to see he and Jan admitted in the first place a few years ago. Just as important, Wilt was a competitive pistol shooter himself, almost but not quite as good as Cody, and George had gotten Cody involved with a shooting club that had a range out north of town. Cody kept sharp with his personal Sig Sauer P226 out there, and had the trophies and medals to prove it. Until Susan had come along Wilt had been the closest thing to a friend that Cody had in the administration.

As usually happens at such events, people stood and sat around in small groups, talking about this and that, usually things of not very much importance. However, the presence of Laura “The Steel Virgin” and her roommate made them a special center of attention, enhanced even more after the attempted rape incident in Echo Hall a few nights before, and of course it was a mainstay of discussion.

“The good news,” Cody told Laura and the group standing around her, “Is that I was told unofficially that the results of the DNA tests came back yesterday afternoon, and he’s a dead match for the sample they collected from the girl who got raped over on Bancroft last spring. So, even if he manages to wiggle free of the charge on what he did to you girls, the prosecutor is going to have a slam dunk on him for that. He could be a guest of the state Department of Corrections for the next few years, if the paperwork is all done correctly and the upcoming trial goes like it should.”

“That’s good to know,” Laura smiled. “That means that not only have rapists gone oh-for-three against my chastity belts, and if it goes right I’ll have gone two-for-three on sending them to prison.”

“That’s not a bad record,” Cody told her. “Believe me, I could tell you stories, but they’re not the kind of thing I’d want to tell in polite company. Some women are a long time getting over it. The thing that can make it a lot harder is if they’re afraid to tell someone about it.”

“I was never afraid to tell anyone,” she replied. “But no one would believe me when it happened the first time. The son of a bitch was a popular jock, and it turned into my word against his, so they let him go. That was the big reason I started wearing my steel panties in the first place.”

“Tell me the truth,” Jan put in. “Are you really over it? I mean, all the way recovered?”

Laura let out a sigh. “No, I’m not,” she replied slowly. “Maybe most of the way, but I admit there has to be some residual effect, or I wouldn’t like wearing my steel panties as much as I do. And I wouldn’t be pre-law, because I really want to work to help other women to go after their abusers.”

“I thought that might be the case, ever since I met you the other night,” Jan said. “Sometimes it’s not easy to recover.” She paused for a moment, then said something that Cody never expected to hear from her, at least with casual company. “I still haven’t gotten over it, either.”

“You were raped?” Laura asked.

“Yes,” Jan admitted calmly. “It went on for months, but unlike you, I never had the guts to tell anyone, so I respect you for that. Even with Cody’s help, I’ve been years getting over it. I never would have gotten this far without the help of Cody and his family, not that I’m all the way over it yet either.”

“Did they get away with it?”

“Jan,” Cody said quietly. “You don’t have to do this.”

“No, I think I need to,” Jan replied calmly. “I think maybe I need to admit it so some of the bad dreams will go away.” She turned to look at Laura. “No, they didn’t get away with it,” she said bluntly. “Cody took care of that.”

There were several residents of the house standing around close enough to hear Jan. Being Spearfish Lake people, they knew the rough outline of what had happened, but they knew that neither Cody nor Jan ever discussed the details. What they did know was bad enough, and by unspoken agreement they didn’t talk about it with outsiders, either. Though none of them were close friends with Cody and Jan, they were friends enough to allow them their privacy.

But Laura didn’t know that, so she asked a follow-up question that none of the house residents would have dared to ask – and they knew the answer anyway: “What happened?”

“I thought I was dead,” Jan replied, her voice level and without emotion. “I mean, I knew I was dead, and it just hadn’t happened yet. Then the door opened, and there stood this angel, and no one will ever convince me that I didn’t see wings. Then, with three shots he took me from hell to heaven.”

“Jan?” Laura asked, not quite comprehending.

“It was her father and her brother,” Cody said slowly with considerably more emotion than Jan. “They were flying on meth, and taking turns on her. I yelled at them to stop, and then fired a warning shot. They both reached for a shotgun they’d used to convince her to cooperate, so I had to stop them.”

“You killed them?” Laura nodded in understanding, but wanting confirmation.

“Both of them,” Cody nodded. “My only regret is that I didn’t empty the whole clip into them just to make sure they were dead, but a head shot each was enough.”

“Jan, Cody, I had no idea …”

“Not many people did, until now,” Jan said, still almost conversationally. “Oh, most people in Spearfish Lake know what Cody did for me. I’m sure that Jack and Vixen and Alan and Summer and Nancy and Susan all know that much of it. But Laura, what only Cody’s parents, Cody, and I knew until now is that for years, my father and my brother kept coming after me in my dreams, and sometimes they still do. There have been many nights when I’ve been afraid to go to sleep unless Cody is by my side to protect me. He has only missed one night, my first night in the hospital when I was sedated. If he works a night shift, I stay up and study because I don’t dare go to sleep without him. You have your chastity belt to make you feel protected, Laura. I have my guardian angel.”

Susan was a relative, albeit a distant one, and she’d never heard that, but now she dared to pose a question that no one outside Cody and Jan’s immediate family had ever asked. “Does that have anything to do with why you’ve never gotten married?”

“No,” Jan smiled, obviously a little relieved at being away from such a sensitive topic. “We are married. In fact, we are incredibly married, and more than that. When Cody saved me, I dedicated my life to serving my guardian angel. In fact, I would have to say that I married him before he married me. I only changed my last name to Archer to honor Cody’s family for all they did for me, mostly by making me a part of their family after he rescued me.”

“We’ve never filed any paperwork on it,” Cody explained. “That has to do more with quirks in student aid financing than anything else. At some point when that part of it no longer matters, we’ll find a judge and quietly make it official.”

“I knew some of it,” Wilt put in, possibly in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere a little. “Obviously I didn’t know all of it, though. When I met Cody and Jan for the first time, which I understand was only a few months after it happened. I thought at the time they were both very serious and dedicated people for as young as they were, perhaps a little too serious, given their age. I was wrong. They are as serious as they have to be, and they both have a very good reason to be that way.”

Cody shook his head, grateful for Wilt’s intervention. “I was always a pretty serious kid,” he said. “And I think Jan got a lot of it from me. Jan said she had dedicated her life to serving me. I didn’t realize it until after it happened, but I’ve dedicated my life to protecting her. She deserves it after all she’s been through.”

Susan could feel the discussion descending deeply into a personal level again, and thought the time had come to head it off. “I have to admit that what you just said answered a few questions for me, too,” she told them. “But maybe we shouldn’t embarrass you any more. Cody, why don’t you get the charcoal going so we can get some hot dogs and burgers cooking?”

“You’d better call the fire department,” Cody replied, seeing Susan’s intention and cracking a joke to help it along. “I use a lot of lighter fluid.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Wilt grinned. “I remember reading about a guy who was trying to set a world record for the shortest time of getting charcoal going. He built a stack of charcoal with a lit cigarette at the bottom, and then dumped about a quart of liquid oxygen on it. Instant charcoal lighting!”

“I heard about that,” one of the other guests said. “More like instant fireball.”

That broke the tension and people began to drift away from the rather heavy discussion. In a few minutes, Laura found herself standing next to Jan, just the two of them. “Jan,” she said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up, but I had no idea that there was, uh, such depth there.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Jan smiled. “In fact, I’m glad you did. It may well be that this is something I’ve needed to say for a long time.”

“I don’t know,” Laura replied. “I mean, to hear your story … I feel shamed to hear you talk about what happened to you. It makes me feel like I over-reacted to what happened to me.”

“No, you didn’t over-react, you shouldn’t feel shamed, and don’t ever let yourself feel that way,” Jan told her firmly. “People are different and react to different things in different ways. Your way seems to have worked for you. Mine has worked for me, as far as it’s gone. What happened to us has shaped both of our lives, and there’s no denying that. But the important part is that we took what happened and built something positive from it.”

“That seems like a pretty optimistic outlook.”

“Yes it is. But let me ask you this: would you have ever considered law school, and the field you say you want to pursue, if you hadn’t reacted to what happened to you?”

“Well, no,” Laura admitted. “I was only fifteen when it happened, so maybe I hadn’t thought it out at that age. I had lots of big ideas, but no real plans. I suppose it’s that way for most fifteen year olds.”

“Laura, I have absolutely no idea what I would have done with my life before Cody rescued me and his family took me in. About all I can say is that it probably wouldn’t have been very positive. Now, I’m an EMT, I’m a registered nurse, and in a few years I ought to be a nurse practitioner. Even if my father and my brother had left me alone, none of that would have happened. Yes, I’ve suffered from it, but good things have come from it too.”

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