by Alana Terry
“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not. I’ve been dying to see this for months.”
Keith nodded and took the box, visibly preparing himself for the contents, and then jerked his head up to meet her eyes. “Wha—”
“Okay, so I’m sorry. Sue me. Sheesh.”
“Why are you sorry? This was the best movie of the year. I love this.”
“You didn’t look like you loved it, and Karen seemed bothered...”
He pulled the wrapper from the movie, popped it open, and inserted the disk into the DVD player. “Karen was hoping you’d make me watch Kiss and Make Up.
“Oh, ew. Everything that Wendy Panther is in is just nauseating. I bet she grovels. She has to. It’s like her trademark or something.”
“I think you just passed up Donald on the fun scale.”
A sense of satisfaction washed over her as she settled into an overstuffed chair. She’d upstaged the comedic codger. That was something. It wasn’t much, but after weeks of mere existence she’d take what she could get.
“So, is the secretary on the good side or the bad?”
“I’m not telling; watch the movie.” Keith hardly took his eyes from the screen.
“I’m watching, I just want to know if I’m right.”
“You’ll find out when the director wants you to.”
Erika sent a pillow flying in his direction, but his reflexes—wow. Without taking his eyes from the screen, Keith caught it one-handed, and whirled it back at her. It bounced off her head before she could catch it. “How do you do that?”
All throughout the movie, Erika asked questions, made observations, and proposed hypotheses with abandon. She could see it drove him crazy, but if anything, it spurred her on to greater heights of irritating achievements. His hands balled into fists and gripped the arms of his chair. Her mouth twisted as she watched his jaw clench and his lips tighten.
“Be amused all you want.”
“How do you do that! That’s insane. You never took your face from the screen.”
“It’s called peripheral vision. Mothers and teachers use it to keep kids in line. The military and law enforcement use it to watch their back, and I use it to ensure that if someone is outside lurking, I’ll notice.”
“Okay, so what is Jett going to do now?”
“He’s going to show you in about thirty-two point seven seconds. Watch.”
An explosion ripped across the screen, sending Erika’s eyes back to the plot unfolding before her. She had so many questions she wanted to ask, starting with why Corey had let her call Mark in the first place. It made no sense.
At the end of the movie, before the first line of credits rolled, Erika punched the remote, cutting off the noise. “Why did Corey call Mark? I demanded all kinds of things that she ignored. Why did she do that one?”
Keith sat silent for the better part of a minute before he stretched and stood. “Because we’re required to. If you ask to speak to someone over us, the only way we can deny it is if we’re in the middle of a crisis, and even then, we’d better be able to prove it would put our client at risk.”
“Da—”
“Come on, Erika. Really?”
“Fine. Darn. Is that better?”
Without answering, he strolled into the kitchen and returned with the garbage can. “So, is it garbage or trash?”
“Okay, okay. You win. How about um...” she thought for a moment. “Oh, forget it. I can’t believe we’re quibbling over darn vs. da—”
Keith glared.
“Fine. Whatever. Back to the point. I’m ticked. If I’d known that, I would have demanded to call at every meal and bedtime too.”
“I’m sure you would have had fun with that, but you could have been taking him from his focus on keeping very real people such as yourself alive. Don’t be selfish—even to annoy people who probably deserve it.”
“Does that include you?”
“Especially me.”
Without another word, he returned the garbage can to the kitchen. Seconds later, the sounds of dishes being loaded into the dishwasher followed. Though she felt she should offer to help, Erika strolled toward the front door and tried to open it. Locked. As she realized there wasn’t a way to unlock it, she looked for an alarm panel, but found nothing.
“Behind the silhouette of the little girl. Today’s code is 7-2-9-9-3-2.”
“You’re giving me the code?” Even as she asked, Erika punched the numbers in to see if they’d work.
“They’ll change after you go to bed. The windows won’t break, the doors will lock or not at the push of a button, and it looks perfectly normal to anyone who doesn’t know that’s there.”
“Why?”
“Because we still have to protect ourselves. Just because you seem willing to try to cooperate, doesn’t mean I am not going to do or say something that ticks you off and puts us both in jeopardy.”
“I’m still a prisoner, aren’t I?” She knew she sounded childish, but it was hard to disguise. Everything had seemed so—so different.
“You are still under the protection of the Agency. This is how protection works. We know how to protect you from those who seek to harm you, from our own procedures, and from yourself.”
“It’s all so crazy, though.”
Keith shrugged and pointed to her room. “Now, do you want to stay in there, or do you want the master suite with bath attached so you won’t have to wait for me to let you out in the morning?”
She saw through him, but Erika couldn’t help but grasp at the excuse—anything to avoid all night in the pink and purple bubble. “That makes sense. Seems stupid to make you get up just so I can go to the bathroom.”
“Take some water bottles and some nuts with you. There’s a good TV in there and everything, but keep the shades down. We don’t want to light up like a beacon.” He passed her a walkie-talkie. “In case you need me. No reason to try to shout across the house.”
Twenty minutes later, Erika lay on her back, under the nicest bedding she’d ever encountered, and reviewed everything leading up to that moment—starting with the rude awakening in her bedroom at Helen’s.
He didn’t hurt me. Even putting tape over my mouth and rolling me in rope, he was gentle. She remembered the trek up the mountain, his assurances that they wouldn’t hurt her, and the way he’d avoided removing the tape for fear of hurting her. The way he’d warned her before he tackled...
His demeanor though—it didn’t fit. He often looked surly or put out. He never acted as if she was a burden, and yet she couldn’t discount the visible frustration on his face every time he had to deal with her. She’d thought it was gone, but as she lay remembering, she saw the same scowl and the same tenseness she’d always seen as he waited for her to close her bedroom door.
It didn’t fit. None of it did. How could someone be such a contradiction of himself? Her snarky comments never fazed him, and her attempts to remain aloof and independent almost seemed to comfort him somehow. Why was that?
All along she’d been adamant that she wouldn’t give in to the whole Stockholm Syndrome thing, but when she realized how much she trusted him and Karen both, it concerned her. Had she lost her sense of identity already? Erika crawled from beneath the covers and walked to the bathroom as if to her sentencing. She stood before the mirror and awaited the verdict. Was she really giving up already?
“YOU SAID SOMETHING once that’s been bothering me.”
Keith glanced up from his omelet, almost afraid to ask what. “Only one?”
“Well, right now anyway. You once told me that I needed to keep fighting this. Karen said it too, I think.”
“You do.”
“Why? That’s what I don’t understand. Why? I laid awake all night thinking about it. I just don’t understand why you want me to fight what you think is best for me.”
He finished chewing his eggs, the flavor now gone from them as he worked to think of the right thing to say. How did you explain something like tha
t without creating a worse situation than you already had? “Because it’s not normal, okay? I broke into your home. I bound you, gagged you, and took you away from everything you know, love, and trust. I’m keeping you captive. This isn’t normal. You’re supposed to fight what isn’t normal. If you don’t, then you become vulnerable.”
He watched as his words sank in and filtered through Erika’s thought processes. As tempted as he was to admit that her complacency put both of them in danger because it allowed him to relax when he needed to be on the top of his game, it just didn’t seem wise. That balance of knowledge versus uncertainty kept people safe.
“So, you want me to trust you and resist you at the same time.”
“Basically.”
Her laughter surprised him. “So, you’re saying you’re the embodiment of every stereotypical woman? You want two opposing things in one person?”
“Maybe.”
Erika glared at him as she shoved her chair away from the table. “I don’t get you. You’re like this walking paradox or something. You’re always frowning, scowling, or looking like this is the most distasteful job in the world, but I can tell you love it. You like being put in danger for someone else. For some sick reason, this is your idea of a good time.”
“I like helping people, Erika.” He tried to think about a comparison that’d make sense to her. “Okay, you manage a coffee shop. You have customers that come in every day, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t you like knowing that you made a difference in someone’s day? Your diligence made the trek to what might be a very boring job a little brighter because they know someone remembered their favorite coffee combination and asked about their aunt in the hospital.”
“How did you know—?”
“We watch, Erika. You know that. We watch.”
He observed as Erika processed his words and as he did, Keith prayed. With each assignment, regardless of whether it was a voluntary protection or a forced one, he always prayed that those who didn’t know Jesus would see something in his life to pique their interest. For those in enforced protection, he prayed that the nature of his job wouldn’t blind them to the reality of their need for the Lord.
Keith had little hope that Erika would show any interest while he knew her, but small seeds, no matter how long they lay dormant under the soil, might germinate with the right conditions. All he could do was pray that those seeds weren’t blown away by life’s winds.
A wry smile twisted his lips as he imagined what she’d say if Erika could hear his thoughts. She’d accuse him of losing his mind to cabin fever or something equally ridiculous. He couldn’t blame her. Blown away by life’s winds. Cheesy.
“If you like, we can take a walk along the cliffs after dark. We’ll have to cross the road, but it shouldn’t be too busy. We can’t be seen, but at least you can smell the ocean and see the moon on the water. It’ll be something different anyway.”
“Handcuffs?”
“Nah,” he agreed. “Not necessary. I’ll have my gun.”
“Gee, what a comfort.”
Keith almost let it go but couldn’t. “You know, I truly do hope you never have to discover exactly what a comfort my gun really is.”
Chapter 16
“WELL, AT LEAST IT’S a full moon.”
She’d been out of sorts all afternoon, but Keith didn’t quite know what to do about it. Whatever her problem might be, he’d have to wait for her to spill it. Meanwhile, her comment about the moon unsettled him. You wanted her to say and do things that kept you on your toes, you idiot. Well, now she has. Aloud he simply said, “That it is.”
He passed her two bottles of water, a package of beef jerky, and a package of nuts. “Want to take an apple or something too?”
“How long will we be gone?”
“You don’t leave the house without enough to keep you going if anything happens. Period.”
“Wow. You’re practically telling me how to escape again.”
Laughing, he passed her an apple. “Put it in your pocket. Escape all you want to. It’ll keep us from boredom.”
“Isn’t boredom indicative that we’re safe?”
Keith checked his gun and then stuffed it in his pocket. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
Two miles to the cliffs—a short walk, but he could sense that she needed the exercise. The day would have been better. She could have seen the waves, the birds flying overhead... something. Night was safer. Fewer eyes, harder to see, and easier for him to sense something off in the house when they returned. Mark expected everything to come to a crisis soon. He needed to be on his toes, and fresh air and exercise would help.
“Keith?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m not going to sue you guys.”
Of all the things she could have said at that moment, he certainly hadn’t expected that. “Well, I know I’d appreciate it if you didn’t.”
“I want to. I want to make sure that this never happens to anyone again, but I can’t.”
His heart sank. For days, over a week actually, he’d been certain that she understood that “this” was a good thing even if she didn’t like it. “Why not?”
“Well, besides the fact that I have no idea who or what to put on the papers, as much as I don’t like it, I have to believe you’re doing this for my own good. I don’t understand it, and sometimes I still think you’ve got the wrong girl—”
“Do you know how much I wish I could wake up tomorrow to a text message that says, ‘Oops, we got the wrong one. Take Erika home?’”
“How sure are you that I’m the one?”
“If it were possible to be more than one hundred percent sure of something, I’d be more. It isn’t possible that we’re wrong, Erika. It’s not possible.”
“I don’t believe that.” She stumbled, but Keith grabbed her arm as if he’d expected her to, and then released her again.
“You don’t have to believe it, Erika. If it keeps you sane to doubt, then doubt. Knowing that there’s a price on your head isn’t easy to live with.”
“Is there really a price on my head? What if the one who put the price out there got it wrong? Isn’t there some way to convince him that he got it mixed up?”
“Even if he’s wrong, he has men all over the country looking for you. We can’t just go in there and say, “‘Look, we know you’re a creep and want this woman dead, but you really have the wrong one.’”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
He watched the wheels turning, praying she wouldn’t press it further.
“On the bright side, at least even if I was the wrong woman, it’d mean the right woman would be safe—for now anyway. Maybe she has children or a husband. Them getting me would be hard on my parents, but I don’t have anyone dependent on me.” Erika laughed. “Now I just sound morbid.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to say it....” The sounds of cars told him the road was close. “Okay, Erika. I have to take the gun out now. It’s really simple. You stay with me, you don’t step out where anyone can see you, and you don’t scream.”
“Like you’d really shoot me. Come on, Keith. We both know you’re not going to hurt me.”
“Don’t test me, Erika. I’m serious. Don’t. I will shoot you before I’ll let you put us in jeopardy.”
“But—”
“Just don’t. Maybe we should go back.” He hesitated, hand on the gun as he searched her face in the moonlight. The irony of being near the ocean, with a huge full moon shining down on him and an attractive woman, while holding a gun and threatening to use it on her amused him. “I think I’m glad I’m not much of a romantic.”
“Yeah, that would have just killed the moment.”
THE STEELY EXPRESSION in his eyes, combined with the resolute hold of his jaw, told her he wouldn’t budge. Despite his protest, Erika knew that Keith was probably one of those guys who had his own brand of sappy, affectionate displays. He’d probably compliment her on things like her abi
lity to take him down when he wasn’t paying attention or that she could hike for miles without talking if necessary. It sounded like a romance made for him—and at that moment, she’d never been more thankful that Corey had been right. He’d never be interested in her. That she was slightly disappointed almost bothered her, but the sight of that gun kept her mind from exploring the reason.
“Come on, I’m not going to run. I just don’t believe you’d actually use that thing.”
“Well, don’t try me, and I won’t have to prove you wrong. It’s a win-win situation.”
“Can we get down to the water?” Changing the subject seemed like the best option, especially now that she could see the lights of a car passing. Vehicles didn’t pass often, but they were out there.
“Not near here. About ten miles either way and I think there’s some beach, but it’s not smart to walk that far in the dark.”
“So,” she peeked out from the trees. “There’re no cars. Can we go?”
He listened and shook his head. “Semi coming. We’ll let him pass first.”
“How can you hear that? I don’t—” Just as she started to insist he was crazy, the distinctive sound of an approaching truck reached her ears.
“I have excellent hearing—particularly when it’s something I don’t want to hear.”
The dash across the road? Anti-climactic. She’d expected something more exciting than a glance, a listen, and a brisk walk across the road and over the guardrail. They scrambled down a few feet to the ledge and made themselves comfortable. Once settled, Erika sighed.
“When this is all over, I’m taking my vacation and coming back here. This—” her arm swept over the view before them. “Totally amazing.”
How long they sat there—neither of them talking but both listening to the sounds around them—only Keith knew. He had his phone and his watch, but Erika didn’t even ask. Each second that ticked past could have been a century for all she cared. The waves below crashed loudly against the rocks, but the sound soothed. She loved the scent of the salt, the spray that occasionally sent a light mist up toward them, and even the occasional car that whizzed by on the way to who knew where.
