Since you’ve had it, they’ve been following your trail. They’re not far behind.” Somehow his bravado did not sound so brave through his chatte...ing teeth.“Shut up and put your pants on,” Derek snapped. Maddie helped Keith pull on pants and a sweater and then got his boots back on. At least the bags had kept his boots dry.“Derek, we have to get him out of here and get help,” she pled. “He’ll die of hypothermia.”“Give him a torch to hold,” Derek said. “He’ll last.” He pocketed the phone and Maddie. ‘It’s nice to have something familiar.’ The pager in his lap beeped loudly and he frowned. ‘If familiar is what you want, I have some things for you to look at.’ He grabbed a stack of albums from the bedside table and set them in her lap. ‘I have to duck out for a moment. Go ahead and take a peak through those, see if they don’t jog your memory. I’ll be back in a tick.’ ‘Hey, Eoin?’ she called before he could get out the door. He turned, ‘What is it?’ ‘Um…’ she ran her finger along the spine of. But Joe Traynor had reasons to feel frightened. Where we lived, he and Jeanette weren't far enough removed from each other to be legally allowed to live together in the kind of relationship they had, any more than Angie and I were. And from the little I knew of the law, the penalties were pretty stiff. Adding minors to the equation only made things a lot worse. Hell, even I was scared, and I'm usually a born optimist..."Dad? Can I talk to you?" my daughter pleaded as she came back in from the. ‘They will pay and they’ll dwell in hell for eternity, and there’ll be no official law involved. Oh, yes,’ he chuckled, ‘they lived outside the law and will die outside the law. I will be applying to them the same law they lived by.’ Returning to Jennifer, he sat holding her hand and stroking her cheek. He didn’t hear the whirr of the chopper as it left with the visiting surgeon on board. Days lengthened into weeks and every hour in the ward Peter sat with Jennifer trying to break into her.