Those 70ish Girls

It was a cold January day, but Mrs. Morris insisted the three of them have a picnic in the woods. Vanessa and Alice watched as their captor loaded a little wagon with firewood. Both girls were trying not to show how upset and afraid they were. Mrs. Morris had been acting strangely. It seemed as though sometimes she thought Vanessa was her daughter, Jennifer, and other times she was aware that both girls belonged to one of her daughter, Annette’s, co-workers.

When she finished loading the wagon with firewood, Edith Morris turned to the girls and smiled. “Follow me,” she said. “My goodness, you’re both shivering. Don’t worry. You’ll soon be warm and toasty.”

Annette

“My mother is away visiting friends,” Annette said in response to Agent Stedman’s question. As soon as she said it, she realized she should have given her answer more thought.

“But you just said she was ill and you were her only caregiver.” Agent Stedman was trying to back her into a corner and Annette knew it.

“They decided I needed a break and they volunteered to care for her a couple of weeks.”

Until now, Agent Black had not spoken, but he was taking notes. “Where do your friends live?” He asked.

Annette couln’t give him an answer. It would be a lie and what if he checked it out? “I wasn’t telling you the truth,” she said. “My mother was upset with me and she left. I have no idea where she is.”

“You said her health was bad. Is that not true?”

“Mr. Black, my mother is just suffering from the effects of aging. I’m sure she’s fine. Now if you don’t mind, I’d rather not answer anymore questions. You must realize I had nothing to do with the girls disappearance.”

The two agents left Annette and returned to Jack’s home. When they rang the bell, Kat answered the door. They could see that Jack was on the phone. When he hung up, he shook his head indicating he hadn’t gotten any closer to finding out the whereabouts of his daughters.

“Jack,” Blake Stedman said. “What do you know about Annette Morris’ family?”

Jack sat down. He had been up for days and it was beginning to show. “I don’t know anything. The only time we were all together in a social setting was at Kat’s Thanksgiving party. Annette didn’t bring any family members with her.”

“Wait,” Kat said. “My mother gave me a file on each member of Truth or Consequences. She told me I should review them, which I did. Annette’s mother is still living, but her father is deceased. She also had an older sister who died tragically. I don’t believe the file contained any information about when or how she died. I’d be happy to go and get it. I can be back in an hour.”

“I’ll go with you,” Jack said. “I need to get out of here for a while. Blake…Tom, please stay here and wait for us.”

“I’m scared, Vanessa. Mrs. Morris thinks your name is Jennifer and she wants me to go away. What is wrong with her?”

“Don’t worry, Alice. I won’t let anything happen to you. Mrs. Morris thinks I look like her daughter whose name must be Jennifer. Let’s try to act as normal as possible, but stay close to me, Alice.”

The two girls quickly got ready for the day. Everything they needed to shower and dress was easily found in the closets, drawers, and bathroom. As soon as they were ready, they ventured downstairs where they heard humming coming from the kitchen.

“Good morning, girls,” Mrs. Morris said. “You’re just in time for breakfast. I’ve prepared pancakes and sausages. Sit down at the table and I’ll pour you each some juice.”

The three of them quietly ate their breakfast after which, Mrs. Morris told them to go get warm jackets from their closet while she cleaned up the kitchen.

“I made a picnic lunch,” she said. “We’ll go for a walk in the woods. There is a little picnic area a couple of miles from here that has a place to build a fire. We’ll take a little wagon of firewood with us. I used to take Jennifer and Annette there for picnics. They loved it.”

Annette

Oddly enough, Annette was calm as she waited for the real detectives to arrive. So far, everything had gone as planned.

Poor Jack must be so confused. She had to smile at the thought of Kat and Jack discovering there were two men out there posing as detectives Stedman and Black. That was brilliant on her part. Kat had told them all Annette needed to know. Kat was not planning to press charges against her and for entering her house with a gun. She was also considering staying on board with the Truth or Consequences project. Annette’s involvement had been terminated as a result of her recent behavior and it appeared Jack was more than a little dissolusioned as well.

“Good afternoon Ms. Morris,” Agent Stedman said as he flashed his FBI badge. “This is Agent Black. May we come in? We have some questions we would like to ask you.”

“Of course. Come in. Apparently you don’t recall meeting before. You’re friends of Jack Stein aren’t you?”

Tom Black and Blake Stedman both nodded. “We’re here on a different matter and time is of the essence. Are you aware of the disappearance of Mr. Stein’s two daughters?”

“Oh, no,” Annette sunk down in the chair closest to where she had been standing. “What do you mean by disappearance?”

“The two girls were in school yesterday, but never got on the bus. No one has seen or heard from them since.”

“Jack must be devastated, but what questions could you possibly have for me?” Annette sounded a little more defensive than she had intended to.

Agent Stedman watched Annette for a minute. He was trying to determine what her reaction meant.

“We’re checking out every possible lead. I understand you have been unhappy with Mr. Stein recently. You and a man who spent time in prison because your team, (then led by Claire Spencer), outed him, confronted Claire’s daughter, Kat. I see motive to hurt Jack Stein coming together here.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Annette became even more on edge. “I harbor no Ill will toward Jack or Kat. It’s just…just that I’ve been under a lot of stress lately. My mother has been Ill and I’m her only caregiver.”

“Where is your mother? Does she live here?”

Jack and Kat

“I can’t think of anyone who would want to take the girls,” Jack said.

“Jack,” Kat said. “Where is their mother? You’ve never told me how you came to be a single parent.”

“Jennifer was badly burned in a fire while visiting her parents. She had been estranged from her family for years, and then one day she decided to take the girls to meet their grandmother and grandfather. She saved our two little girls from injury, but she did not survive. Neither Vanessa nor Alice have any memory of what happened. I don’t want them to ever remember.”

Here is how the day in the life of a Queen celebrating her 68th birthday goes!

1) Gathers subjects and discusses the day’s expectations with them.

2) Attends a golf tournament honoring herself (Queen MG).

3) Sits around a fire pit and tells stories (photographer didn’t show.)

4) Rests for an hour before attending potluck/game night in her honor.

5) Soaks with some of her special peeps in RV park hot tub (photographers were not allowed)

6) Queen goes back to Queen’s RV Coach, reads all of the wonderful Facebook birthday greetings

7) Watches the movie, Flipper, on television while waiting for the ball to drop in New York

Too bad everyone can’t experience such a Royal birthday bash…or at least attend one.

So far, our time in Galveston has been the best. A really fun couple from Lafayette, Indiana, who went to the University of Wyoming with Kip, met us here.

That’s another great thing about RVing. We’ve spent time with family and friends that we haven’t seen in years, and there is just something about being able to take your own living space with you that makes it more fun and relaxing. Plus you can take your pets with you.

Molly and Cary Cline are a real hoot. It’s been fun for me to listen to the two of them and Kip tell the “do you remember” stories. Between the three of them, they eventually get the story told. (Although the details seem a little contrived to me, it’s usually a pretty good story.) I have no worries that we’ll run out of things to talk about. We have a lot of years to catch up on.

So far, we have eaten at two of our favorite restaurants. On previous trips to Galveston, our friends, Ron and Barbara, introduced us to The Spot, and the Sunflower Cafe. They are both wonderful. The Sunflower rates right up there as far as the great connoisseur of bakery fare is concerned. Kip loves to stand in front of the display case and be amazed at the choices he has.

We also saw the Bishop’s Palace and shopped along the Strand.

While we were reminiscing and looking at all of the delicious baked goods, I decided I was going to treat everyone to Kip’s Grandma McNinch’s homemade cinnamon rolls. Breakfast at my house in the morning! I had brought all of the ingredients for the rolls with me, so we stopped at the store and bought some bacon and eggs to complete the menu. It would be fun to relax with our coffee and enjoy the sunshine we’re supposed to have.

I started to make the rolls and I realized I hadn’t brought any milk…no problem, I borrowed some from Molly. Then, I couldn’t find the yeast, or the special ingredient for the topping, and I have no idea where I put the brown sugar I was sure I had brought from home. When I looked in my spice drawer for the cinnamon, I couldn’t believe I didn’t have any.

Even if she did happen to have it, I didn’t want to borrow all of that from Molly, so I got Kip to take me as far as the Dollar General Store where I found everything but the yeast. I bought self rising flour, which made sense to me. I googled it on the way back to the park and found out you can’t substitute self rising flour for flour and yeast. Self rising flour is made with baking soda. I decided to ignore that little bit of information.

Grandma McNinch’s homemade cinnamon rolls have turned into Grandma MG’s homemade biscuits. Kip, Molly, and Cary might not like them, but in my world you must be flexible.

Either way, the sun is supposed to shine and it’s going to be another day in paradise.

When Annette’s mother got back with all the supplies, the four of them took off in Mrs. Morris’ SUV. They headed for the remote cabin her husband had built twenty years before. No one had been there in years until Annette went to check on it the week before. It needed a thorough cleaning, but it was built to last and had plenty of room for Mrs. Morris and Jack’s two daughters to live quite comfortably for as long as it would take for Annette to accomplish her goals.


“Where are you taking us?” Jack’s fourteen year old daughter, Vanessa, had a protective arm around her younger sister, Alice, who was quietly whimpering. They had looked for opportunities to get away from Annette and her mother, but so far, they had been closely guarded. Even now, they were both blindfolded.

“To a beautiful place,” Annette said. “You will love it. As soon as we get there, we’ll take the blindfolds off. I’ll be leaving you two and Mother there while I take care of some business.”

“Are you going to tell our daddy where we are?”  Alice asked.

Annette laughed. “Oh no,” she said. “Quite the contrary. Jack will be convinced I had nothing to do with your disappearance.”

“Here we are,” Mrs. Morris said. “We had better hurry and unload the car so you can get back home, Annette.”

Both girls began to whimper as Annette and her mother, Edith, led them to the cabin. “I guess we can remove their blindfolds now,” Edith said. “They have no idea where we are and no way to get in touch with anyone.”

as soon as they had unpacked all of the supplies. Mrs. Morris showed the girls to their room. “Stay here until I call you for supper,” she said. “And stop whimpering. We could be here a while, and I refuse to listen to that the whole time.

Later, when Edith Morris came to their room to tell them supper was ready, Alice pointed to a picture on the wall and said, “That picture is of Vanessa and me when we were little. Where did you get it?”

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I hope you and your families had a Merry Christmas. I appologize for my last blog. A whole paragraph was left out and a couple of errors were not showing as corrected. I hope you were able to inderstand it. The blog is switching back and forth between programs and I’m not used to writing, correcting or saving, on the newer one yet. Please bear with me…thanks!