Before the next chapter, a few words of explanation to those who may have
been confused by the discussion on promotion and relegation in pro sports
(based on comments in the reviews section). In layperson's terms, this
involves nothing more than dumping the worst teams in the majors and
consigning them to the minors until they improve their record. The best
minor league teams get bumped up to the pros. This would happen every
year, and ensure the best minor leaguers get national exposure while
continually weak teams stop getting shown on TV, as they deserve NOT to be
shown at all on the networks - and are forced to earn their way back to the
top. In any case, here's the next installment.
Chapter Five
It was around 8:30 the next morning, a Saturday, when Ruthie finally woke up from nine hours of sleep. She had not slept that much since a week before her beloved maternal grandmother, Jenny Jackson, passed away at the Camden residence when Ruthie was just the tender age of five. She got out of bed, took off her nightgown with a single hand's sweeping motion, and headed towards the parsonage's attic restroom. She clicked on the lights, and looked at herself, gasping at the incongruous sight. She had to cover her mouth to stop from screaming.
Her normally oily hair was bone dry and totally disheveled, her makeup was smeared so much that she looked like a pathetic clown, and her fingernails from tip to root were totally filled with coal black grit. Her body was marked with the fingernail scratches Peter had left on her in several places: her bosom, thighs, butt and back. To top it all off, she bore the markings of not just one but five hickeys, all the way around the circumference of her neck. She figured she did at least as much damage to Peter's body the preceding evening.
Ruthie turned on the shower and stepped inside, trying to clean off as much evidence as she could of the previous evening's passion. Her thoughts first turned to what had happened during that hour. As before, Peter had prepared himself for the moment at hand. So had Ruthie, who had started to take the Pill the day she got back from camp. Then, as if from a romantic movie, they had become one. This time, however, it was different. They had not just had sex. They truly made love, getting in touch with each other's feelings. Maybe that was why Peter fell asleep so content right afterwards and why she had the best sleep in her entire fifteen years.
She still had no regrets about their mutual decision to take their relationship all the way. She knew as early as the start of the calendar year that this was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, and why she was so happy when Peter got her the promise ring. They still had almost three years of high school to go through, but if her boyfriend popped the question right now she would gladly accept and they would get married the moment he turned eighteen -- she being about seven months older than he was. There was an old saying that if you treated a human being like a human being, he or she would act like a human being and that was exactly how Peter treated his girlfriend. She hoped she was returning the favor.
She did worry, though, that her parents would find out eventually and that they might ground her or restrict her to study dates in the manse living room. At least Paris was more reasonable on the issue - and besides, did not Annie tell Eric to chill out when he fretted over Matt spending the night with Sarah and having sex out of wedlock even though he was 22? Wait a minute, they were already married, just in a civil ceremony and they had not had the chance to legitimize it in a clerical setting. Ruthie was still bound by her secrecy oath not to tell anyone that her brother and sister-in-law had eloped.
Ruthie had now shampooed her hair and was lathering up her body, after having cleaned out her fingernails. Her thoughts turned to the fact that her conversation with Peter after their unity turned abruptly from how they felt about each other to their friends, Rhiannon and her boyfriend. It occurred to her that not only did it seem strange they were even talking about it but that Peter had changed the subject so quickly after the most incredible experience of their lives; almost as if sex was as perfectly normal as breathing air. Well, it was, she admitted quickly, but that was not the point. Could not he have waited until at least the morning to bring it up - or asked her before supper, which by the way was incredible?
"No," she thought to herself, "I should cut him some slack. He admitted that it had slipped his mind, and I'll take him at his word."
Ruthie finally rinsed herself off, turned off the shower, and stepped out to dry herself, wrapping a large Turkish towel around herself. She opened up her medicine cabinet and took both the Pill and the morning after, brushed her teeth, then after running some conditioner through her hair and rinsing it off over the sink, turned on the hair dryer.
As she partially dried her hair over the next ten minutes (let the air-dry the rest, she thought), she finally thought about what she and Peter actually said about their friends. There was simply no way they could be exaggerating something like this; the detail in which they described it pretty much ruled out a conspiracy. However, why would they tell her and Peter? Why didn't they go to the cops themselves after camp let out, or talk to a guidance counselor at school? Ruthie felt terrible that what happened had transpired, but why did she have to be dragged into this?
If it was because they thought they could trust her, she felt honored but still bewildered by it. If they just had to tell someone, at least they got it out of their systems. However, as she had suspected all afternoon yesterday, they probably told her because she was a preacher's kid - PK - and that was very unfair. Like her siblings, Ruthie was proud to be a PK but that did not make her better than anyone nor did it give her a monopoly on wisdom. The community did have higher expectations of her, of course, but she was only human. Moreover, if she were a victim of that kind of indecency, she would want to either bury herself in a hole and die or tell someone other than another PK.
Ruthie finished drying her hair, ran a brush through it to force the remaining cowlicks down, hung up the huge towel and stepped back into the bedroom, pulling out a fresh change of intimate apparel and putting them on herself. She looked out the window and noticed it was still quite windy outside that morning, so she chose tight fitting blue jeans and a turtleneck shirt as her wardrobe since she knew the hickeys would be there for least another day or so. She also dispensed with makeup today, not even blush. However, she let her hair hang down and split down the middle, with half hanging down the front of her right shoulder and the rest hanging down the rear of her left.
She unlocked the door to the attic bedroom and headed down two flights of stairs. Eric, Annie and the twins had left for the supermarket. But breakfast was still being served, and Ruthie walked into the kitchen to see Lucy (still in her nightgown) and Kevin (in uniform) making out, while their twenty-month old twin children, Charles John and Jennifer Ruth, were downing bottles filled with orange juice.
"Ahem!" coughed Ruthie. The husband and wife broke apart.
"Good morning, Ruthie," said Lucy. "A little late this morning, aren't we?"
"I conked out about an hour after I came home about 10:30 last evening. I slept through the night," replied Ruthie; grabbing a plate and mug and helping herself to toast, jam, banana bran muffins, orange juice and a cup of coffee. "I see you guys haven't lost your spark."
"I couldn't sleep last night, Ruthie," said Lucy. "I was waiting for Kevin to come home. Guess what? We're going to have another baby!"
"Congratulations!" Ruthie was thrilled at the prospect she was going to be an aunt again. She hugged her sister and brother-in-law.
"Thanks, Ruthie," said Kevin. "By the way, there were a couple things we wanted to talk to you about. First Lucy and I both have something on our minds."
"Shoot."
"Well, Ruthie," said Lucy, as Ruthie started her breakfast, "we know about you and Peter. We're not going to tell Mom and Dad because that's something you and your boyfriend have to deal with. We just want you to know that we're just looking out for you."
"Sis," said Ruthie, "I'm fifteen years old; I can take care of myself."
"We're just worried that you two guys may have rushed into this without thinking of the consequences," replied Kevin. "I know you guys are careful, but nothing other than abstinence is 100% effective. Look at Lucy and me; we got pregnant with the twins while Lucy was on the Pill."
"It's not like Peter and I planned on having sex, not this soon anyway," said Ruthie. "We were at camp, the opportunity just presented itself and we just thought it was the right time. We liked it; we decided we wanted to keep doing it whenever we had the chance. Wait a minute, how did you figure out he and I are having sex at all?"
"Well, Ruthie," said Lucy gently, "you and Peter were holed up in the attic for nearly six hours a week ago, and you spent all afternoon and most of the evening at his place. It doesn't take a rocket science to figure it out."
"Not only that," added Kevin, "I was doing a patrol of this neighborhood because of a rash of break-ins recently. When I went by Paris' house about 10:15 last night, I saw the curtains of Peter's bedroom fluttering out the open window. Now I'm a big fan of classic movies, and in the old days when you couldn't even say the word 'pregnant' on screen and even married couples were depicted in separate beds, the producers would use the technique of fluttering curtains quite often. It meant there was sex going on in the bedroom behind. They did it that way because they wanted to keep the truth from little kiddies watching, but adults knew exactly what the allegory was."
"Oh, man!" groaned Ruthie. "I would have already left by the time you passed by, but when I looked up and saw the window open, I thought someone might have seen us through the open window doing what comes naturally while his bedroom lights were on at full blast! I wonder if Peter was trying to scream it to the world ."
"He loves you so much," said Lucy, "and he'd never do that deliberately. I don't think it would have even crossed his mind what the signal was. He guards your privacy - I'm trying to think of an analogy here. Hmm, he guards your privacy at least as much as the BBC protects its independence from their owner, the British Government; and much better than the Department of Energy protects Oak Ridge - the birthplace of the nuclear bomb. I know that's not quite what you hoped I would say, but you get my point."
"I get it, Luce. No sweat," said Ruthie.
"But more importantly," added Lucy, "you don't even have to ask us; your secret is safe with us until you want to tell Mom and Dad."
"I don't think anyone else in the neighborhood knows either, Ruthie," assured Kevin. "With all the break-ins, most people put in security systems and have tended to flee town as soon as work lets out on Fridays. In fact, I know that everyone who lives in the houses around the Petrovskys are empty nesters, and all of them drive out to Vegas on weekends. I'm with Lucy; I won't rat you out either."
"Well, Kevin," said a perplexed Ruthie, "technically what Peter and I are doing is illegal as we're both under eighteen. Wouldn't you lose your job if someone else found out since you know a crime was committed but you said nothing?"
"Blood is thicker than water," said Kevin. "I'm not a blood relative, but I am part of the family - well, in a way, some of your family's blood does run through me now. Your secret's safe with me."
Ruthie breathed a huge sigh of relief. As long as it did stay between the four of them - well, six including the Kinkirk's children - she and Peter were on protected ground.
"I do have to admit, Lucy," said Ruthie, "that what you told me about you and Kevin after you guys got married is absolutely true. My view of the other half changed forever a month ago after Peter's and my first time. I don't mean in a big way, but it's the little things. Before, we couldn't wait to see each other. Now there are some days I just don't want to hold his hand, other days he wants to be left alone. Not just that, there are moments when I just want to be a damsel in distress and him my knight in shining armor; other days I get genuinely frightened of him. I know he would never hurt me, but still . I wonder if one day, all the rage he's felt at his father, and Dick, and everyone else that has courted then dumped Paris will just come pouring out at me."
"You two always have us to talk to if either or both of you think your relationship is in trouble," said Lucy. "Now, Kevin has some business that he wants to talk to you about. I'll go upstairs and wash up the twins, then ."
"I can baby sit them while you and Kevin celebrate your good fortune in the garage apartment, before he nods off for the next eight hours," finished Ruthie.
"Thanks sis," smiled Lucy. She kissed her husband then her sister and then gathered up the twins for their baths.
"Wait a minute, Luce, I think it's my turn to wash the twins up. I'll take care of that while babysitting."
"Oh, right. Thanks, Ruthie."
Once Lucy had cleared out of the kitchen, Kevin leaned forward to Ruthie. His voice was very quiet.
"Thanks for leaving the message last night, Ruthie," he said. "Actually, Lucy and I aren't going to do anything today. Right after breakfast, I'm going out and driving to that town an hour away, the one you were telling me about, so I can talk to Rhiannon's boyfriend. Oh, and in the interests of full disclosure, a student at the school where Henderson is now VP and where Julie teaches filed a complaint of her own. I expect in the next few days we're going to get flooded with even more."
"Yikes," gulped Ruthie. "Well, Detective Michaels asked Peter and me to keep our ears to the ground. Anything else Glen Oak's Finest requests of us?"
Kevin wasn't sure how his sister-in-law was going to react to what he was going to say next.
"Unless we can get a smoking gun in the next few weeks, the District Attorney will want to smoke one out. That means that either you or Peter, or even both of you, might have to become 'live bait.'"
"NO WAY!" said Ruthie flatly. "Peter and I compromised our integrity to each other for our own reasons. We did nothing wrong other than act out our feelings for each other. However, what you're asking is reprehensible. You actually want us to go up to Henderson in the hopes that he will do to us what he did to all those other people. You'd sacrifice a relative of yours to the altar of sacrifice?" Her voice was rising with each sentence, until her niece and nephew were cringing.
"No, no, no!" replied Kevin impatiently, and leaned over to his children to calm them down. "All he has to do is proposition you or Peter, or even both of you. Then we can arrest him for soliciting statutory rape."
"In other words, you want us to wear a wire."
"Yeah, something like that. I hope it doesn't come to that, but it might. Discuss it with Peter, and you can let me know on Monday. Otherwise, we're going to have to find a snitch in the juvenile system to reel him in, and you know how unreliable jailhouse informants can be on the witness stand."
"I'll talk to Peter," said Ruthie, finishing her coffee. "I'll go to his place now with the twins. It's our turn to baby-sit them, anyway."
"Great," said Kevin. "You two are wonderful with them, and you've gotten even better after you guys got back from camp. Both of you do understand just how big a responsibility having children are. There's just one last thing, Ruthie."
"Yes?"
"Dump the turtleneck," laughed Kevin. "At your age, I'd think having a few hickeys is a badge of pride, not shame. And besides, it's going to heat up again later on today."
Ruthie kissed her brother-in-law, and ran upstairs to take off the turtleneck. She put on a Crawford University sweatshirt in its place, ran back downstairs, and took her nephew and niece by the hand to their stroller and after tying them in walked them down the few blocks to Peter's place. This was one conversation she was not looking forward to; but if Kevin felt that he owed her, she owed her brother-in-law the same courtesy.
Chapter Five
It was around 8:30 the next morning, a Saturday, when Ruthie finally woke up from nine hours of sleep. She had not slept that much since a week before her beloved maternal grandmother, Jenny Jackson, passed away at the Camden residence when Ruthie was just the tender age of five. She got out of bed, took off her nightgown with a single hand's sweeping motion, and headed towards the parsonage's attic restroom. She clicked on the lights, and looked at herself, gasping at the incongruous sight. She had to cover her mouth to stop from screaming.
Her normally oily hair was bone dry and totally disheveled, her makeup was smeared so much that she looked like a pathetic clown, and her fingernails from tip to root were totally filled with coal black grit. Her body was marked with the fingernail scratches Peter had left on her in several places: her bosom, thighs, butt and back. To top it all off, she bore the markings of not just one but five hickeys, all the way around the circumference of her neck. She figured she did at least as much damage to Peter's body the preceding evening.
Ruthie turned on the shower and stepped inside, trying to clean off as much evidence as she could of the previous evening's passion. Her thoughts first turned to what had happened during that hour. As before, Peter had prepared himself for the moment at hand. So had Ruthie, who had started to take the Pill the day she got back from camp. Then, as if from a romantic movie, they had become one. This time, however, it was different. They had not just had sex. They truly made love, getting in touch with each other's feelings. Maybe that was why Peter fell asleep so content right afterwards and why she had the best sleep in her entire fifteen years.
She still had no regrets about their mutual decision to take their relationship all the way. She knew as early as the start of the calendar year that this was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, and why she was so happy when Peter got her the promise ring. They still had almost three years of high school to go through, but if her boyfriend popped the question right now she would gladly accept and they would get married the moment he turned eighteen -- she being about seven months older than he was. There was an old saying that if you treated a human being like a human being, he or she would act like a human being and that was exactly how Peter treated his girlfriend. She hoped she was returning the favor.
She did worry, though, that her parents would find out eventually and that they might ground her or restrict her to study dates in the manse living room. At least Paris was more reasonable on the issue - and besides, did not Annie tell Eric to chill out when he fretted over Matt spending the night with Sarah and having sex out of wedlock even though he was 22? Wait a minute, they were already married, just in a civil ceremony and they had not had the chance to legitimize it in a clerical setting. Ruthie was still bound by her secrecy oath not to tell anyone that her brother and sister-in-law had eloped.
Ruthie had now shampooed her hair and was lathering up her body, after having cleaned out her fingernails. Her thoughts turned to the fact that her conversation with Peter after their unity turned abruptly from how they felt about each other to their friends, Rhiannon and her boyfriend. It occurred to her that not only did it seem strange they were even talking about it but that Peter had changed the subject so quickly after the most incredible experience of their lives; almost as if sex was as perfectly normal as breathing air. Well, it was, she admitted quickly, but that was not the point. Could not he have waited until at least the morning to bring it up - or asked her before supper, which by the way was incredible?
"No," she thought to herself, "I should cut him some slack. He admitted that it had slipped his mind, and I'll take him at his word."
Ruthie finally rinsed herself off, turned off the shower, and stepped out to dry herself, wrapping a large Turkish towel around herself. She opened up her medicine cabinet and took both the Pill and the morning after, brushed her teeth, then after running some conditioner through her hair and rinsing it off over the sink, turned on the hair dryer.
As she partially dried her hair over the next ten minutes (let the air-dry the rest, she thought), she finally thought about what she and Peter actually said about their friends. There was simply no way they could be exaggerating something like this; the detail in which they described it pretty much ruled out a conspiracy. However, why would they tell her and Peter? Why didn't they go to the cops themselves after camp let out, or talk to a guidance counselor at school? Ruthie felt terrible that what happened had transpired, but why did she have to be dragged into this?
If it was because they thought they could trust her, she felt honored but still bewildered by it. If they just had to tell someone, at least they got it out of their systems. However, as she had suspected all afternoon yesterday, they probably told her because she was a preacher's kid - PK - and that was very unfair. Like her siblings, Ruthie was proud to be a PK but that did not make her better than anyone nor did it give her a monopoly on wisdom. The community did have higher expectations of her, of course, but she was only human. Moreover, if she were a victim of that kind of indecency, she would want to either bury herself in a hole and die or tell someone other than another PK.
Ruthie finished drying her hair, ran a brush through it to force the remaining cowlicks down, hung up the huge towel and stepped back into the bedroom, pulling out a fresh change of intimate apparel and putting them on herself. She looked out the window and noticed it was still quite windy outside that morning, so she chose tight fitting blue jeans and a turtleneck shirt as her wardrobe since she knew the hickeys would be there for least another day or so. She also dispensed with makeup today, not even blush. However, she let her hair hang down and split down the middle, with half hanging down the front of her right shoulder and the rest hanging down the rear of her left.
She unlocked the door to the attic bedroom and headed down two flights of stairs. Eric, Annie and the twins had left for the supermarket. But breakfast was still being served, and Ruthie walked into the kitchen to see Lucy (still in her nightgown) and Kevin (in uniform) making out, while their twenty-month old twin children, Charles John and Jennifer Ruth, were downing bottles filled with orange juice.
"Ahem!" coughed Ruthie. The husband and wife broke apart.
"Good morning, Ruthie," said Lucy. "A little late this morning, aren't we?"
"I conked out about an hour after I came home about 10:30 last evening. I slept through the night," replied Ruthie; grabbing a plate and mug and helping herself to toast, jam, banana bran muffins, orange juice and a cup of coffee. "I see you guys haven't lost your spark."
"I couldn't sleep last night, Ruthie," said Lucy. "I was waiting for Kevin to come home. Guess what? We're going to have another baby!"
"Congratulations!" Ruthie was thrilled at the prospect she was going to be an aunt again. She hugged her sister and brother-in-law.
"Thanks, Ruthie," said Kevin. "By the way, there were a couple things we wanted to talk to you about. First Lucy and I both have something on our minds."
"Shoot."
"Well, Ruthie," said Lucy, as Ruthie started her breakfast, "we know about you and Peter. We're not going to tell Mom and Dad because that's something you and your boyfriend have to deal with. We just want you to know that we're just looking out for you."
"Sis," said Ruthie, "I'm fifteen years old; I can take care of myself."
"We're just worried that you two guys may have rushed into this without thinking of the consequences," replied Kevin. "I know you guys are careful, but nothing other than abstinence is 100% effective. Look at Lucy and me; we got pregnant with the twins while Lucy was on the Pill."
"It's not like Peter and I planned on having sex, not this soon anyway," said Ruthie. "We were at camp, the opportunity just presented itself and we just thought it was the right time. We liked it; we decided we wanted to keep doing it whenever we had the chance. Wait a minute, how did you figure out he and I are having sex at all?"
"Well, Ruthie," said Lucy gently, "you and Peter were holed up in the attic for nearly six hours a week ago, and you spent all afternoon and most of the evening at his place. It doesn't take a rocket science to figure it out."
"Not only that," added Kevin, "I was doing a patrol of this neighborhood because of a rash of break-ins recently. When I went by Paris' house about 10:15 last night, I saw the curtains of Peter's bedroom fluttering out the open window. Now I'm a big fan of classic movies, and in the old days when you couldn't even say the word 'pregnant' on screen and even married couples were depicted in separate beds, the producers would use the technique of fluttering curtains quite often. It meant there was sex going on in the bedroom behind. They did it that way because they wanted to keep the truth from little kiddies watching, but adults knew exactly what the allegory was."
"Oh, man!" groaned Ruthie. "I would have already left by the time you passed by, but when I looked up and saw the window open, I thought someone might have seen us through the open window doing what comes naturally while his bedroom lights were on at full blast! I wonder if Peter was trying to scream it to the world ."
"He loves you so much," said Lucy, "and he'd never do that deliberately. I don't think it would have even crossed his mind what the signal was. He guards your privacy - I'm trying to think of an analogy here. Hmm, he guards your privacy at least as much as the BBC protects its independence from their owner, the British Government; and much better than the Department of Energy protects Oak Ridge - the birthplace of the nuclear bomb. I know that's not quite what you hoped I would say, but you get my point."
"I get it, Luce. No sweat," said Ruthie.
"But more importantly," added Lucy, "you don't even have to ask us; your secret is safe with us until you want to tell Mom and Dad."
"I don't think anyone else in the neighborhood knows either, Ruthie," assured Kevin. "With all the break-ins, most people put in security systems and have tended to flee town as soon as work lets out on Fridays. In fact, I know that everyone who lives in the houses around the Petrovskys are empty nesters, and all of them drive out to Vegas on weekends. I'm with Lucy; I won't rat you out either."
"Well, Kevin," said a perplexed Ruthie, "technically what Peter and I are doing is illegal as we're both under eighteen. Wouldn't you lose your job if someone else found out since you know a crime was committed but you said nothing?"
"Blood is thicker than water," said Kevin. "I'm not a blood relative, but I am part of the family - well, in a way, some of your family's blood does run through me now. Your secret's safe with me."
Ruthie breathed a huge sigh of relief. As long as it did stay between the four of them - well, six including the Kinkirk's children - she and Peter were on protected ground.
"I do have to admit, Lucy," said Ruthie, "that what you told me about you and Kevin after you guys got married is absolutely true. My view of the other half changed forever a month ago after Peter's and my first time. I don't mean in a big way, but it's the little things. Before, we couldn't wait to see each other. Now there are some days I just don't want to hold his hand, other days he wants to be left alone. Not just that, there are moments when I just want to be a damsel in distress and him my knight in shining armor; other days I get genuinely frightened of him. I know he would never hurt me, but still . I wonder if one day, all the rage he's felt at his father, and Dick, and everyone else that has courted then dumped Paris will just come pouring out at me."
"You two always have us to talk to if either or both of you think your relationship is in trouble," said Lucy. "Now, Kevin has some business that he wants to talk to you about. I'll go upstairs and wash up the twins, then ."
"I can baby sit them while you and Kevin celebrate your good fortune in the garage apartment, before he nods off for the next eight hours," finished Ruthie.
"Thanks sis," smiled Lucy. She kissed her husband then her sister and then gathered up the twins for their baths.
"Wait a minute, Luce, I think it's my turn to wash the twins up. I'll take care of that while babysitting."
"Oh, right. Thanks, Ruthie."
Once Lucy had cleared out of the kitchen, Kevin leaned forward to Ruthie. His voice was very quiet.
"Thanks for leaving the message last night, Ruthie," he said. "Actually, Lucy and I aren't going to do anything today. Right after breakfast, I'm going out and driving to that town an hour away, the one you were telling me about, so I can talk to Rhiannon's boyfriend. Oh, and in the interests of full disclosure, a student at the school where Henderson is now VP and where Julie teaches filed a complaint of her own. I expect in the next few days we're going to get flooded with even more."
"Yikes," gulped Ruthie. "Well, Detective Michaels asked Peter and me to keep our ears to the ground. Anything else Glen Oak's Finest requests of us?"
Kevin wasn't sure how his sister-in-law was going to react to what he was going to say next.
"Unless we can get a smoking gun in the next few weeks, the District Attorney will want to smoke one out. That means that either you or Peter, or even both of you, might have to become 'live bait.'"
"NO WAY!" said Ruthie flatly. "Peter and I compromised our integrity to each other for our own reasons. We did nothing wrong other than act out our feelings for each other. However, what you're asking is reprehensible. You actually want us to go up to Henderson in the hopes that he will do to us what he did to all those other people. You'd sacrifice a relative of yours to the altar of sacrifice?" Her voice was rising with each sentence, until her niece and nephew were cringing.
"No, no, no!" replied Kevin impatiently, and leaned over to his children to calm them down. "All he has to do is proposition you or Peter, or even both of you. Then we can arrest him for soliciting statutory rape."
"In other words, you want us to wear a wire."
"Yeah, something like that. I hope it doesn't come to that, but it might. Discuss it with Peter, and you can let me know on Monday. Otherwise, we're going to have to find a snitch in the juvenile system to reel him in, and you know how unreliable jailhouse informants can be on the witness stand."
"I'll talk to Peter," said Ruthie, finishing her coffee. "I'll go to his place now with the twins. It's our turn to baby-sit them, anyway."
"Great," said Kevin. "You two are wonderful with them, and you've gotten even better after you guys got back from camp. Both of you do understand just how big a responsibility having children are. There's just one last thing, Ruthie."
"Yes?"
"Dump the turtleneck," laughed Kevin. "At your age, I'd think having a few hickeys is a badge of pride, not shame. And besides, it's going to heat up again later on today."
Ruthie kissed her brother-in-law, and ran upstairs to take off the turtleneck. She put on a Crawford University sweatshirt in its place, ran back downstairs, and took her nephew and niece by the hand to their stroller and after tying them in walked them down the few blocks to Peter's place. This was one conversation she was not looking forward to; but if Kevin felt that he owed her, she owed her brother-in-law the same courtesy.