I did not need the nurses bumping gums with my story all over the hospital. I had a sudden thought about Miss Goldman. Was she alive? If so, was she b...dly burned? I decided to ask without giving anything away. "Was there anyone else in the house when it burned down? I mean, were there any other survivors?" In an abandoned house? Why would someone be in an abandoned house? Only a bum would be in an abandoned house. No, you were the only one in the house. Speaking of which, why were you in that. I swear.”Huh ... not sure if I believe him or not!The Marina was neat, but it was almost completely short-term rentals that focused on party boats, a few houseboats, some ski boats and a whole shitload of jet skis. There was a salesroom with a few speedboats and a pontoon style party boat, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of folks looking.I did take a tour of the biggest houseboat and it was aptly named. It was a three-bedroom, three bath party barge with a huge kitchen and a bar, complete. I asked her, "Lucia, did you get any counseling about this?"She looked puzzled. "There is such a thing?"Goddamned fucking incompetent county services! Obviously no one had even talked to her about it except to rattle her around with questions. Assholes! Hell, I'm going to get some lessons from Natalie's dad myself! Hell, I'll talk to her about it myself right now."Lucia, I'm 35, divorced and the mother of two teenagers. Yesterday, a single man invited me to dinner this evening. I accepted."He. The military commander, Ezra Jones, a former Marine captain, knew what we were doing, but everybody else just assumed that these were a regular guard unit on a practice mission. They certainly could not recognize anybody behind the combat armor, so there was no tip off there.We had hardly gotten into position when six trucks drove up and disgorged 12 men from the back of each truck. These men were all carrying repeating rifles, but I could only assume that they were military grade. We were all.