With everything that’s happened...and I know undercover work is hard even for those trained for it.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, trying to put as much confidence into her voice as possible.
“Good. Do you have any questions?”
“Yes, actually, I’ve had something I wanted to ask you all day.”
“What is it?”
“What was going on when I came into the office and you said Marie said you should think about marrying me?”
“Oh, that. She was expressing concern about me and the fact that I haven’t found a nice Jewish woman to settle down with. She asked me to give serious consideration to marrying the next single woman who walked into the office.”
“And that just happened to be me?”
“Yes. Crazy, isn’t it?”
That wasn’t the word she would have chosen, but she was willing to let it go.
“Is there anything else we need to discuss?” she asked, feeling suddenly very, very tired.
Jeremiah was worried. He wasn’t sure Cindy realized the full extent of the potential danger they were walking into. A man was missing and once they were at the retreat center they would be effectively cut off from the outside world and help. Maintaining a cover for a couple of hours or a day was one thing. Maintaining a cover for a week while under relentless scrutiny from people whose sole job was to work with couples and help them improve their relationship was another thing entirely. If they weren’t careful they could be found out in a heartbeat. Until they’d had a chance to do some investigating, they’d have no idea who might be involved. There would be no one to trust, no opportunity to let their guard down.
“Are you okay?” Cindy asked.
“Yes. I’m just concerned about the risk we’re taking.”
“It will be fine. We’ve been in so many worse situations.”
He wasn’t sure if she actually believed that or if she was just trying to be upbeat.
“Cindy. This is going to be dangerous. We don’t have to do this. We can tell Mark that we’ve changed our minds.”
She shook her head. “We owe it to Mark. Besides a guy is missing and maybe we can help find him before he ends up dead.”
Jeremiah very much doubted that. It was difficult to keep a grown man prisoner for any length of time without proper facilities and personnel to pull it off. It was dangerous, too, as there was always risk of discovery. No, he was pretty sure that whatever had happened to the man, he was already dead. The best they could hope to do was find out why and see the killer brought to justice.
Cindy was looking tired and frustrated. She was also distracted. She probably wanted to finish packing without him around getting in the way.
“Is there anything I can do to help you get ready?” he asked, guessing that she would say “no”.
“You’ve already done more than enough,” she said with a tight smile.
“Okay, I’ll see you in the morning then. Call if you need anything.”
“Okay.”
He left. Cindy was acting a bit odd, but he didn’t have time to worry about that right now. He had to go home and figure out exactly what he should pack. A gun, as much as he wanted to bring one, was probably out of the question. Here he was just a regular citizen, even if he was being sent in undercover somewhere.
He toyed with the possibility of getting a concealed weapons permit, but that would not help him fly under the radar. Just because the people closest to him knew his secret didn’t mean he wasn’t still essentially hiding his true identity and attempting to do so for the rest of his life. He sighed. Why did things have to be so complicated?
After Jeremiah drove off Cindy got her bags out of her trunk. She threw what she could in the washing machine and went into her bedroom to grab her suitcase. It really did look like a bomb had gone off in the room and she stared for a moment, disgusted, as she thought about how much work it was going to be to put it all back, particularly since none of
Learning to Kill: Stories