Chapter 25
During the staff meeting Bud reported that the Admiral had been right in his belief that no one visitor had been present on all of the days that the emails had been sent. Sturgis tried to jokingly get Harm to confess again, but this time the joke fell a bit flat. Everyone was becoming very concerned about where the emails were coming from and no one liked the idea that it was an 'in house' source.
They were all brought up to speed on the latest email that Mac had gotten and when Harm started to protest because he was the defense attorney in the case, AJ assured him that they were not pursuing the email message. "I don't care! This is prejudicial to my client," Harm protested. "This could unduly influence his case!"
"Harm I already think he's guilty, so it can't influence that, and if I'm right on this one, do you really want this guy back out on the street? I mean, good god, he's preying on girls barely older than Mattie! How would you feel if something like…"
"Mac!" Harm's exclamation stopped her from finishing that thought. "First off, you haven't proven that Ensign Navakolf is guilty of anything yet and second, the girl that was raped was a cadet at the Academy, which makes her at least three years older than Mattie."
"But it could have been her Harm. You know Mattie wants to attend the Academy when she finishes high school!" Mac responded.
"I think what the Colonel is trying to say is that we all would want a guy that was capable of what was done to Cadet Johansson to be locked up for a very long time," Bud jumped in when it looked like the Commander and the Colonel were going to have one of their infamous 'discussions'. "I mean I know that not just the parents of the girls would be concerned over this. Harriett and I would be appalled if this were to happen when Little AJ was at the Academy. To have any girl that he would ask out looking at him and wondering if he was the one that had done it," Bud shuddered as he stopped speaking.
There were nods of agreement all around the table to what had just been said and the meeting got back on track now that the verbal sparring match had been defused.
That evening AJ and Miranda enjoyed a quiet dinner where they spent a lot of the time getting to know each other better. She was trying to subtly find out how he felt about the idea of psychic ability and was really not surprised when she discovered that he thought it was all a lot of 'smoke and mirrors'. Because of that, she decided to wait to tell him about her gift.
At her door, AJ said, "I had a wonderful time tonight, Miranda, and was hoping that you would like to go out again soon?"
"I'd love that AJ. I enjoyed myself too.'
"What about Saturday? Maybe dinner and dancing?"
"That would be great," she smiled.
She was about to invite him in for coffee when he leaned close to her and said, "I'll see you then," and gave her a soft tender kiss on the lips.
"Good night AJ," she said as she watched him walk away.
He reached the Escalade and saw that she was still standing there watching him. He smiled, waved, and got into his vehicle. All the way home he thought of what the future might hold for the two of them, he wondered if she was doing the same.
The answer was 'no', Randi knew at least what the near future held for the two of them. She hadn't gotten any visions of their life farther down the road yet, but she wondered how AJ would feel about becoming a grandfather, well step-grandfather anyway, on the day he got married. Randi certainly hoped that Tom would keep what she told him about the wedding date quiet! But he knew how she felt about telling AJ on her own, so she was sure that he would…or at least she hoped so!
To Be Continued….