there, but that they didn’t know where he’d gone.”
“Poor woman,” Cindy said. “It would be terrible not to know what had happened, waiting to hear something, anything.”
“Well, hopefully we can give her some closure. The captain’s hoping for a happy ending, but I’m not holding out much hope of that myself. Now I want you to check in twice a day with me. If you miss a check in I’ll be on my way out as fast as I can. Remember, you’re at a resort, but you’re not exactly on American soil anymore. Tread carefully.”
“Anything else?” Jeremiah asked quietly.
Mark glanced in the rear view mirror. “Yes, for goodness sake, take the time to figure out what the deal is with you two. It would save us all a lot of grief.”
5
Mark couldn’t help but wonder as they drove which one of the three of them was going to explode first. The tension in the car was palpable. He knew why he was about ready to have a fit, but he didn’t know exactly what was up with the other two. It had that relationship weirdness vibe to it. Actually that was probably a good thing given where they were headed. There was no way people wouldn’t think they were a couple.
The drive took a little less than two hours. When they reached the tribal lands the first structure they passed was a tourist center. The second was a large casino with an attached hotel. A couple miles past that they found the retreat center.
Mark couldn’t help but think it looked just like you would expect. Trees, a fountain, all designed to look like a little oasis where the buildings were all one story and placed so as to not intrude on the landscape. Isolated. A nice place to kill someone and get away with it.
“It’s not too late to tell my boss where to go,” Mark said.
“We’re here. We’ll do it,” Cindy told him.
Mark pulled to a stop in front of the main building. “Be careful,” he said, voice low.
“We will,” Jeremiah assured him before getting out of the car. Mark popped the trunk and climbed out as well to help with the bags. He couldn’t shake his feeling of unease at the idea of leaving his friends here. He told himself he was being ridiculous. Jeremiah was more than capable of handling anything that might come at them.
Maybe it was all the feelings about Paul and his death that had been dredged up again that was making him loathe to let the rabbi and the secretary out of his sight. After the bags were out of the trunk, he startled all three of them by giving them quick hugs before getting back in the car.
As he drove off he kept glancing back in the rearview mirror until they were lost to sight. He should have told Cindy to send up an extra prayer for their safety from him.
Cindy couldn’t contain a little thrill of excitement as she and Jeremiah stepped up to the front desk to check in. Even as she felt it she realized that what she should be feeling was fear or trepidation. Sometimes it hit her just how different she was now than when she and Jeremiah had first met. She wasn’t frightened as easily. She took risks. More than all of that, though, the feelings that Jeremiah had stirred within her were the most miraculous change of all.
“Are you okay?” Jeremiah asked quietly.
“I am,” she said, unable to suppress a sudden smile. She, for one, planned on taking Mark’s advice to heart that she and Jeremiah use the time to figure things out. With the wardrobe that Dave had helped her choose in her luggage she was feeling pretty confident that she’d have Jeremiah’s full attention while talking things through.
She did feel a moment of trepidation as Jeremiah handed over the fake driver’s licenses that Mark had provided with their assumed names on them. The woman behind the desk didn’t even give them a second glance, though.
“I have you booked in a room with two double beds,” she informed Cindy and Jeremiah. “Do you want me to see if I can find an available room with a
Learning to Kill: Stories