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want. Prove it. Oh and it doesn’t happen, no matter the proof, until this is all settled, do you understand me?”
    Chris nodded and said, “I don’t want a fling Jamie. I want it all. I want you, me, one house, one life, dogs and kids, maybe even a cat or two. Equal everything. I have no interest in being here for you to just have sex with, is that understood?”
    Jamie reached out and grabbed Chris’s hand, dragged him over to him and said, “That’s what I want too, but you need to prove to me you really tried. I know that shouldn’t matter, but I barely trust anyone anymore, not even my own mother.”
    Chris nodded and said, “You got it.”

MANHUNT
    Two weeks later and Jamie had left his house and was now at the bar. The doctor had found poison in the food and Darren had issued arrest warrants for Marge, Tyson and his sister Kelly. They had gone into hiding, but from what they could determine, they had not left town. They were hiding somewhere within town and now Jamie was walking around with a fulltime bodyguard as was his mother. He had had to finally tell his mother what was going on, but he had watered it down a great deal. She just knew that he had been assaulted two years ago and been set up by his then “pseudo-girlfriend” Kelly. He told her that their mother had helped set things up too. It was hard for her to swallow that Marge, the same woman who helped her out in the diner every once in a while and went to charity events with her, was in on this. He had also told her that Marge had of course tried to kill him, the District Attorney and Chris by poisoning them with food from his own business.
    Marge had left the Sheriff’s precinct and never gone back to the bar. Luckily for Jamie, she had not stolen anything before she left either, but Chris had insisted on searching the place from top to bottom. He had even gone to their houses and each one of their businesses. In three of the locations he had found poorly constructed makeshift bombs, but they would not have caused too much in the way of damage, much less loss of life. They must have been watching TV shows for their placements were horrible and the bombs might have hurt someone, but for the most part, they were duds.
    Now the entire town was on the lookout for the three. Their house was being watched as was the tattoo parlor. It had been shut down, but things like that never stopped people from going back, especially stupid and desperate people.
    Jamie stood behind the bar as he poured a coffee for his bodyguard and startled when he heard glass shattering right before he was sprayed with blood. His bodyguard’s head erupted as the bullet tore through one side of it before it made a gruesome exit out the other. Jamie stared for a second then hit the floor as more bullets flew around, some striking his customers. When the bullets stopped, he heard a car scream away as sirens wailing in the distance drew closer.
    Jamie refused to get up from the floor, but instead reached up under the register where he kept a 9mm and pulled it out. A few long minutes of tense silence later as he heard his patrons groaning or crying he heard Chris's muffled shouts of, “Jamie! Jamie, are you okay?”
    Jamie stood up, gun in hand hanging by his side and looked at the doorway, just as it crashed open. Chris and his deputies piled inside, guns out aiming everywhere at once. When they saw the carnage around them they all rushed in to help the wounded. After a brief inspection of everyone, they determined the only death was Jim Harold, the bodyguard.
    Jamie sat on a barstool, his gun in an evidence box so they could rule it out, though it was obvious the damage had been done by a rifle. Jamie stared at the mess around him, trying to take it all in, starting when a hand landed heavily on his shoulder. He looked up into Chris’s eyes and gave him a sad weak smile. At that moment his mother came running in, her arm bound up. Jamie jumped up and ran over to her.
    “Mom,