Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love

“There’s a guy . . .”

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There are times when I wondered how much God wanted to dump into my lap.  After the adventure Amber and I shared a few years back, I thought my quota of lifetime adventure had been adequately filled.  Sara apparently thought differently.  And there was a reason Sara sent Rin my way.  There was a guy.  A bad guy.  Wasn’t there always?

“ . . .by the name of Parson Shivers.” Rin finished.  I dropped my coffee cup, coffee splattering across the floor.  The waitress was none to happy.  I apologized profusely to the woman and helped her clean up the mess.  After we determined the floor was clean, I sat back down across from Rin.  She looked at me.

“Sara figured you’d know the guy.”  Shit.

“I don’t know the guy, really, Rin.  I know his brother very well.  We knew he was into girls, but not to this extent.”  Just how did I go about telling Stimple his brother was a bigger cretin than we imagined.  Rin continued her tale.

“When Sara and Kim were digging around over in Korea to find old comfort women, they ran across some of my relatives.  One of them told Kim about me.”

“And how did they piece all this together and get Parson Shivers out of it?”  I figured it would lead back to our old buddy, Slick Vanderwall, and I wasn’t far from the tree.

“Sara knew a guy back here in Ohio, Slick Vanderwall?”  Bingo.

“He’s a good man.”

“So Sara said.”  Sara and Slick worked together while Sara was in college.  Slick was a private detective in Columbus.  He was a tremendous help to us when we tracked down Pervis Stahl, another cretin who lived to torment young women.  But, I figured with the demise of Pervis, an adventure I’d never dreamed I’d share in, that would be the end of my being a Hardy Boy and Amber being Nancy Drew.  Sara, apparently, had other ideas.

“If I might ask you, Rin, just what is my role in all of this?”  She gathered up the pictures, tapped the pile into a neat stack and put them back into the envelope.

“She knew Amber would need your help.”  I looked at Rin.  Figured the little shit knew all about this already.

“I see.”

“She said you would do whatever Amber said.”  Rin looked at me for some kind of confirmation.  “In fact, I believe she said you were helpless when it came to Amber.”  Indeed.

“One might say.”

“So, you’ll help us?”

“Us?”

“Me.  And Amber.  And you would make three.”

“And just what is it we’re supposed to do?”

“Get Parsons.  And they also know he’s had some help here in the states.  A woman.”

“A woman?”

“Yes.”

“Any clues on whom that might be?”

“Yes.”

“And you might enlighten me this evening?”

“Yes.”

“Now?”

“A woman by the name of Hanna Doushay.”

All the blood drained from my face.

. . .from the novel in progress. . .Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love