The Guardian

baby” was all Jane could say.
    “Well, I think we’re done here for now. If you could come down and fill out the reports and the appropriate paper work we can proceed with filing charges. You can do this at your convenience, but please don’t wait too long okay?”
    “Yes, yes, I want to do that as soon as possible.”
    “He won’t be allowed in my house again will he?” She was anxious to know.
    “No ma,am not if you don’t want him here. Actually, he’ll probably spend some time downtown with us after he gets out of the hospital and they’ve treated him for his wounds.”
    “Thank you, thank you so much.” Jane said as they stood to leave.
    Halloway handed her one of his cards. “You call me if you need anything, anything at all, any time of day or night. That’s my private number there.,” he said pointing to the card.
    “I will, and thank you again.”
    “And again, you’re welcome, that’s why we’re here. These people will see to it that you’re taken care of and that your daughter is checked out and a report is filed on anything they find.”
    Halloway and Griffin turned and walked out into the cool night air. He looked around at all the flashing lights, the media frenzy that was happening. They would put this shit right back into the paper and all over the news. Only now their vigilante had a die hard fan and word would spread like wild fire. There was nothing he could do. They knew who and what they were dealing with. They just didn’t know where or how to find him. The problem now was that their vigilante had a name. He would come to be known as the Guardian.
    Chapter 41
    The next morning the papers, TV, and radio were all over it like a bad habit.
    The City of Las Vegas has a new hero.
    The Guardian!
    Halloway looked at the headlines. “Holy shit” he thought. As he read the accompanying article he couldn’t believe what he read. They were making this guy into a hero. Christ almighty, now they’d never be able to catch him. Every child rights supporter and activist in the country would go out of their way to protect this guy. This has turned into a real nightmare.
    The article explained, without giving any names or pertinent information because of the girl’s age, the criminal charges that were pending. It went on to say how this Guardian had come to the girl because she said she had prayed for help. She said that God had sent her a Guardian Angel. It exposed Gil Johnson as a child molester.
    Apparently, Mr. Johnson, the boyfriend of the girl’s mother had moved in with them. He had moved in after having dated the mother for about a year. Shortly after that Mr. Johnson began sexually abusing the young girl. He was being held in the Clark County Detention Center pending a hearing on his charges of sexually abusing a child under the age of 14.
    Of course, Lieutenant Halloway had little faith in this guy actually being sent down as an angel from God. He saw what this so called angel was capable of. It did seem to him that this so called angel wasn’t very forgiving. But then again, who was he to question the powers above.
    The “Today” show, Katie Couric on the evening news, hell, even Paul Harvey, Larry King, and all the others was talking about him for the Christ’s sake. The news of what this guy was doing was spreading like wildfire. He knew what that meant. There would probably be a shit load of copycat heroes popping up everywhere.
    How improbable it was that in the City of Las Vegas, the cesspit of the country, a hero, a champion of causes called “The Guardian” would pop up here. Nobody really cared about the kids in Las Vegas. The school district didn’t. The politicians sure as hell didn’t. Anyone who said they did was a liar. It was usually a smoke screen. It was just lip service to generate donations for something or someone. It was only those interested in generating money for themselves. However, this was an election year. Anything was possible.
    As sad as it was, it took one man, one series of events to bring about the attention to the things that are most neglected. Child Welfare Offices was seriously over crowded. They had to turn kids away. They were faced with lawsuits. Lawyers were offering free service to find homes to protect the kids. With the population explosion in this town, the number of kids who needed this help was overwhelming.
    The sad part of it was they were popping up billion dollar casinos all over the place. How hard would it be for