Walk Through the Valley

by Debbie Viguié

  The next morning had consisted of more watching, waiting. When Cindy went to check on Lisa she found that her parents were there visiting. They were both incredibly well-dressed, but eyed Cindy with thinly veiled contempt that rattled her. She had no idea if the detective had been out to talk to Lisa. She was guessing she had, though, since Lisa didn’t ask about her phone.

  Cindy had retreated back to the observation room. Since noon a growing fear had begun to grip her. Something didn’t feel right, and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

  She was just about to excuse herself to go call Jeremiah and find out how things were going with him when she saw activity in Kyle’s room. The doctor was in there, clearly discussing something with one of the nurses. They were gesturing at a chart and then at some of the monitors that Kyle was hooked up to.

  Cindy felt her stomach turn. Something in the man’s posture scared her even though she didn’t know why.

  “Dad?”

  He turned to look at her and she could see the fear in his eyes. Clearly she wasn’t the only one concerned about what was going on. A second doctor entered the room and Cindy rose to stand at the glass next to her parents. More gesturing by the doctors. The first doctor shook his head.

  “What do you think is going on?” Cindy croaked, barely able to get the words out around the sudden tightness in her throat.

  The first doctor turned and left the room. Cindy turned to face the door and when he walked in the look on his face filled her with terror.

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor said quietly.

  “What are you saying?” Cindy asked, clutching the back of the chair she had been sitting in earlier. In her peripheral vision she could see her father wrapping his arms around her mother.

  “There’s nothing more we can do for him.”

  She just stared at the doctor, struggling to understand what it was he was trying to tell her. His eyes filled with compassion as he stared at her. Finally he reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “You should go in and say your goodbyes.”

  16

  Cindy ran into her brother’s room, tears streaming down her face. Her mother’s cries of anguish echoed in her ears as she fell to her knees next to Kyle’s bed. She grabbed his hand. It was cold and limp and she pressed her forehead against it.

  “Kyle, please, please wake up,” she sobbed. “You’ve always been a stubborn idiot. Be stubborn now. Don’t go. Don’t leave us. Fight, Kyle! Don’t give up. There are more crazy things you have yet to see and do. You’re getting married. Fight for that. For her, if you won’t fight for yourself.”

  She took a long, shuddering breath. Kyle remained completely still.

  “God, please don’t take him. Heal him right now. I know that You can, that You have the power. I’m begging You to heal him, to restore him fully. I believe that You can.”

  Her voice gave out as the tears started coming faster. She kept praying, though. She was dimly aware of her parents coming in. She could hear her mother sobbing. They were there for a while and then they left. A while later Lisa came in. She sat on the other side of the bed and cried and told Kyle goodbye.

  Cindy wasn’t going to say goodbye. She was going to pray and fight with everything she had.

  Eventually Lisa left as well, and once again she was alone.

  Cindy continued to kneel there on the cold floor. She lost feeling in her legs. The hand that was holding Kyle’s eventually went numb as well. Darkness had fallen and the only light in the room came from the city lights outside the window. That was fine with Cindy. Her eyes were burning and more light would have hurt.

  She heard a soft step behind her. A moment later a hand descended on her shoulder. Jeremiah. She didn’t need to turn around to know it was him. Her soul knew his touch. She didn’t know how he had come to be here, but she was grateful that he was.

  Very softly he began praying in Hebrew above her. His presence and the sound of his prayers gave her strength and she continued on praying silently as he prayed aloud.

  Hours passed and finally the sky outside the window began to lighten. A new day was dawning. Her back and her neck ached and she was weary to the bottom of her soul. Jeremiah was still standing behind her, his hand on her shoulder, praying.

  Then Kyle’s hand moved.

  Cindy blinked, not sure she had seen what she’d seen. The hand that held his was numb. She stared hard and his hand moved again, there was no doubt of it.

  “Kyle?” she said, voice quavering.

  There was a groan from the bed.

  Jeremiah ran outside and came back a moment later with a nurse.

  Jeremiah tried to help her stand. Pain surged through her legs as the nerves came awake. Her legs started to buckle and Jeremiah caught her, lifting her up in his arms and stepping away from the bed as more hospital staff entered the room.

  She lay in his arms, cradled against his chest and she looked up at him. “How did you get here? Only family was supposed to be here.”

  He smiled gently down at her. “I just told them I was your husband.”

  She smiled. “That’s right. You’re always my hospital husband.”

  “Always,” he whispered.

  He carried her into the observation room where she could watch through the windows as the doctor and nurses were busy examining Kyle. He was going to be okay, she could feel it just as surely as she could feel the strong, steady beating of Jeremiah’s heart.

  Every muscle in her body relaxed. “I’m so tired,” she muttered.

  “Go to sleep. I’ve got you,” he said.

  It sounded like the best idea she had ever heard. She felt him sit down in a chair, but he continued to hold her, cradled in his arms. She was glad, because she didn’t want him to let go. Not ever.

  Jeremiah sat with Cindy asleep in his arms as he held her. He breathed in the scent of her. The last couple of days had been torture. This was where he belonged, by her side, taking care of her, comforting her. All night he had stood and prayed with her, marveling at the depth of her faith and her courage. She was an extraordinary woman, one in a million.

  Her phone was in the observation room on a table next to his chair. She must have left it in there the night before. He picked it up. He’d check it over closely later, but there was something he needed to use it for first.

  Her most recent call was from “Dad” and that was exactly what he was looking for. He called and held the phone up to his ear.

  “Cindy?” a groggy male voice answered.

  “No, just borrowing her phone for a second. I thought you should know that Kyle is waking up.”

  “What?”

  “The doctors are in with him now, but he’s regained consciousness.”

  “We’ll be right there,” the man said before ending the call.

  Jeremiah put her phone back down.

  Ten minutes later an older couple in rumpled clothes came barreling into the room. The woman went straight to the window where she could look in on Kyle. The man paused, staring intently at Jeremiah.

  He moved toward him. “And just who might you be?” he asked.

  “Jeremiah. I’m a friend of your daughter’s,” he said evenly. He shifted Cindy slightly so that he could extend his hand.

  Her father shook it.

  “I’m Don Preston, her father. Jeremiah, huh? I’ve heard a lot about you, mostly from Kyle. Nice of you to join us.”

  The man was sizing him up with shrewd eyes. Before Jeremiah could respond a nurse walked into the room. She looked at Cindy. “There’s a couch in the next room. Do you want me to get your wife some blankets and a pillow?”

  “She’s not his-”

  Jeremiah interrupted Don. “No, that’s okay. I’ll take my wife back to the hotel in a little bit.”

  “Okay,” the nurse said before leaving.

  “Something you should tell me?” her dad asked gruffly.

  “They’d only let family back here,” Jeremiah said. He was
too tired to let it ruffle him.

  “And you went for brother-in-law instead of just brother or cousin?”

  “Cindy and I have seen our fair share of hospital visits and strict nurses.”

  “Aha, so it’s not the first time you’ve told that fib.”

  Jeremiah let his silence speak for itself. He knew the other man was sizing him up. He had a shrewd gaze. Jeremiah knew the man had done contractor work rebuilding infrastructure overseas and had likely come into contact with a lot of interesting people he had to learn to size up in a moment.

  Jeremiah just stared at him calmly, unflinchingly. Perhaps a little too much so. A normal guy would have been nervous and somewhat embarrassed under the circumstances.

  Don looked like he was about to say something else, but he was interrupted by a doctor entering the room. The man looked bewildered.

  “I don’t know how it happened, but it looks like Kyle is out of the woods. He’s going to be okay.”

  “It’s a miracle,” Jeremiah said softly.

  The doctor nodded slowly. “It would seem so.”

  Cindy’s parents hugged each other, tears of relief streaming down their faces. In his arms Cindy just slept on. He didn’t wake her. She needed the rest, and besides, she had already known as he had that Kyle was going to pull through. It was great news, but whoever had tried to kill him in the first place was still out there and they were all going to need to be at the top of their game to stop him from trying again.

  “You can go in and see him in a couple of minutes,” the doctor said.

  “Thank you,” Don said.

  He glanced over at Jeremiah. “She needs to sleep. Take her over to the hotel. Maybe get some rest yourself.”

  Jeremiah nodded. He would gladly carry her the whole way but that would draw too much attention to them both. He slowly nudged her awake.

  When her eyes flickered open he smiled at her. “Kyle’s going to be okay. You can see him a little later. Right now we need to get you back to the hotel so you can get some sleep.”

  She nodded.

  “Are you okay to stand up?”

  She hesitated then nodded again. Gently he set her on her feet. She swayed slightly, but he held onto her until she stabilized. He stood up and put his arm around her and she leaned against him.

  They left the room and headed downstairs. After they exited the hospital they crossed the street and made it into the lobby of the hotel. They were just about to the elevators when Cindy pointed to a man about fifty feet away who appeared to be heading for the restaurant.

  “That looks like Martin, I should introduce you.”

  “Later,” Jeremiah said, staring intently at the man.

  “He’s probably going to have breakfast. I’m too tired to be hungry,” Cindy commented.

  They made it into the elevator and a couple minutes later they were in the room. She staggered over to the far bed, kicked off her shoes, then fell down.

  “You should get some sleep, too,” she muttered.

  “I will in a little bit, I promise. I’ve just got something to take care of first,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  A minute later he could tell that she was completely out. Jeremiah quietly let himself out of the room, pocketing her key. He headed back downstairs and made his way to the restaurant.

  “One for breakfast?” the hostess at the front asked.

  He shook his head. “I’m joining a friend who’s already here.”

  “Oh, okay,” she said brightly as he walked past her.

  Martin was easy to find. He was the only C.I.A. agent in the restaurant. The man was just taking a sip of coffee when Jeremiah slid into the chair across the table from him.

  Martin slowly put the coffee mug down and looked him square in the eyes. “Good morning. I’m Rabbi Jeremiah Silverman.”

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Martin, traveling salesman.”

  “I know. I’m a friend of Cindy’s. I figured it was time we had a little chat. I’d like to thank you for looking out for her as well as you have. You can relax now, though. I’m here and I’ll make sure nothing happens to her,” Jeremiah said, keeping his tone friendly.

  “I’m glad to hear that. It can be a dangerous city, especially when you don’t have a friend here.”

  “Yes, anything can happen in Vegas. At least, that’s my understanding,” Jeremiah said, allowing the corners of his mouth to turn up slightly.

  Martin nodded. “It’s unusual to see a...rabbi...this far from his home.”

  “Funny, I was just thinking how unusual it was to see a traveling salesman this close to his.”

  Martin shifted slightly in his chair. It was true. C.I.A. operatives weren’t supposed to conduct investigations on United States soil. “You know, hard times, unusual times. That’s what we’re living in. Life is too short to just pretend everything is business as usual. Just last week I heard of a guy who died at a wedding out in California.”

  “Too bad for him,” Jeremiah said. “He should have skipped the wedding and stayed home.”

  Martin was referencing the man Jeremiah had killed at Geanie and Joseph’s wedding, the one who had been trying to hurt Cindy.

  “Yeah, he was a party crasher, so I guess he got what was coming to him. Thing is, only people who will miss that guy are his brothers.”

  Jeremiah nodded.

  “Of course,” Martin continued, “a lot of people were wondering why he was there in the first place. Who knows, maybe he was chasing a ghost.”

  Martin was fishing. The C.I.A. didn’t know who Jeremiah was although clearly they had their suspicions. They had decided to come at him sideways through Cindy hoping to find out more about him without having to engage him directly. Only their plan had backfired.

  “Who can say why anyone does anything foolhardy?” Jeremiah said. “Wedding crashers, purse snatchers, people who stalk and spy on innocent young women.”

  It was a threat and Martin knew it. Jeremiah had just let him know that if the man and his team didn’t back off of Cindy, he was willing and able to do to them what he’d done to the man at the wedding. Threatening a C.I.A. agent wasn’t necessarily a bright idea, but he was too tired to be subtle.

  “Some people make promises they can’t keep,” Martin noted, an edge to his voice.

  “I always keep my promises,” Jeremiah reassured him. “When I was young I promised myself that someday I would be a rabbi. You know the thing about being a rabbi? I find it to be a very fulfilling career. I like it more than the job I had when I was younger. I like the lifestyle, the quiet, the communion with God and my fellow man.”

  And that was as close as he was going to get to actually telling Martin he was retired. The other man nodded slowly. “From what I can tell, you also like a certain church secretary. How’s that working out for you? I imagine there are some real...culture clashes... there.”

  Jeremiah shrugged. “Issues of faith and bridging cultural gaps are the only things I’m interested in wrestling with these days.”

  “You sure about that?”

  Jeremiah looked the man dead in the eyes. “I only fight the battles that I’m forced to.”

  “In that case, I hope no battles come looking for you.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “Well, as it turns out, I’m probably going to be leaving the conference early. Pressing business elsewhere. I’m sure you understand.”

  Jeremiah nodded.

  Martin leaned toward him slightly. “What will you tell Cindy?”

  “The truth. It’s better she hears it from me than from someone else one day.”

  “A bold move. I wish you luck with that.” Martin reached into his coat and pulled out a card. He placed it face up on the table. There were no names or identifying marks on it, just a phone number.

  Jeremiah glanced at it then back up at Martin. “I don’t need to buy any medical equipment.”

  “Not now,” Martin said with a smirk. “But keep it with
you. Call me if you catch wind of any more wedding crashers. I’m sure my services might come in useful then.”

  Martin knew as well as he did that the dead man’s “brothers” might indeed come looking for vengeance. Reluctantly Jeremiah reached out and took the card. He slid it into his shirt pocket.

  “Good,” Martin said. “I’m glad we understand each other. Give Cindy my best. I’ll be leaving after breakfast and I won’t get a chance to say goodbye.”

  “You traveling salesmen rarely do,” Jeremiah noted as he stood.

  Martin frowned suddenly. “Oh, Jeremiah?”

  “Yes?” he asked, tensing.

  “I’m not in the business of sharing gossip, but in my position, one hears things sometimes.”

  Jeremiah felt his entire body go still. He knew that whatever Martin was about to say was important.

  “A handful of Israel’s wayward sons are going to be called home. I don’t know why. I just know it’s happening.”

  “Thank you for the warning,” Jeremiah said, forcing his voice to remain neutral.

  “Whatever is going on between you and Cindy. You might want to sort it out sooner rather than later.”

  Martin was being sincere. Cindy had gotten to him. She did that. It was almost impossible not to like her, to feel protective toward her.

  Jeremiah nodded. “Understood.”

  He turned and left the restaurant. His heart was racing in his chest and he could feel himself beginning to sweat. He had succeeded in warning off Martin, but the agent had given him something invaluable. Advance warning.

  Retired Mossad agents were being reactivated.

  17

  Jeremiah made it to the room upstairs and his heart had finally slowed. In the elevator up he’d given serious consideration to trying to find out more information. He had a number he could call. By the time he’d reached the room, though, he had decided against it. His best hope was that he could remain under the radar. Hopefully whatever the reason agents were being reactivated it was something that could be handled by others. If he was lucky they wouldn’t need him or his particular skills. The last thing he wanted to do was go back into the field. It would almost certainly cost him the life that he had spent the last few years building.