Married To The Mob

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But no one moved. The kids stared at him, their eyes wide open, their mouths forming perfect Os. Carlie also stared, but her stare came full of fascinated horror.

“What are you waiting for?” he cried. “Run for cover.”

She dropped to the children’s level and opened her arms. The boy toddled to her. She held the little guy close, murmured something soothing to the girls and then gave him the glare he’d come to expect from her.

“You owe them an apology,” she said, her voice quiet. “You’ve scared them for no reason.”

“No reason?” He shook his head and pointed to the plain car with his weapon. “Get in there before they come back for another try.”

Carlie shook her head. Her look turned pitying. “Have you lost all touch with reality? Is that what your job does to you?”

“Reality, lady, is that you’ve got a bull’s eye on your back.”

“Reality, Dan, is that you overreacted to a car’s backfire.”

“What?”

“Dan…” She patted the boy then stood and approached, exasperated. “That old truck backfired when the driver pulled into the diner while we played, and it did the same thing a minute ago after the guy finished his breakfast or cup of coffee. Get real. We’re in the middle of nowhere. My family’s not about to show up here. Put that thing away, okay?”

He scanned the road, and when he saw nothing to arouse his suspicions, he realized how ridiculous he looked. Not to mention how frightening he appeared to three little kids. His outstretched arm suddenly weighed more than the average tree trunk, and his face heated up.

“Ah…well, if you’re sure that was a truck…”

“Listen up, Secret Agent Man, we’d better get out of here before the motel owners come out, see you in spook mode and call the cops. That wouldn’t help our cause any, would it?”

With one quick move, he shoved his gun into his waistband and grabbed his duffel bag. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

She grinned. “Can I have that in writing? That ‘you’re right’ thing? It’s the first time. We need to mark the event.”

He chuckled. Against his better judgment. But instead of commenting, he unlocked the car, threw his bag into the back seat, placed the gun on the console, where he always kept it while driving on assignment, and then turned to the kids.

“Sorry, guys. I figured we could maybe play ‘cops and robbers,’ but Carlie is right. We have to go. Maybe next time we’ll play some more.”

He slid behind the steering wheel and waited for Carlie to buckle up. Through the windshield, he watched the little boy run to his oldest sister and bury his face in her belly, while the younger girl reached out and patted him on the back. The air of vulnerable innocence hit him hard.

“Do you have any idea how stupid that stunt was?” he asked, barely leashing his anger.

“What stunt? All I did was play with a couple of kids.”

“Exactly. In an open parking lot, with no protection, in full view of the road. You know we’re being followed, yet you just hopped around out there.”

“But nothing happened—”

“They could’ve picked you off!”

“That could happen any time, Dan. I have to continue to live.”

“And how about innocent bystanders? Like the kids? Do you think your brother’s pals would spare that little boy? Or the girls? Not if they thought those children could identify them.”

Carlie gasped. Out the corner of his eye he caught her expression. Shock etched her face. All color drained from her cheeks, the sparkle left her eyes. She began to shake.

“Oh, Lord Jesus,” she murmured. “Forgive me.”

On the tail of her prayer, the tears began to fall. They didn’t come as a surprise. What stunned Dan was his pain at every drop that rolled down Carlie’s cheeks.

He didn’t want this.

He didn’t want to be this vulnerable—to her.

But he was.

He wanted to wrap his arms around her, hold her until the last tear dried, to promise her she’d be safe, that he’d make sure of that. But he couldn’t do that, none of it.

So instead he continued to drive, his feelings in a kind of tangle he’d never experienced before.

FIVE

Dan had never felt so incompetent in his life. Up till now, he’d always been confident in his abilities, but now, when faced with Carlie’s contrite misery, he had no idea how to proceed. Was there anything he could do? Could he offer comfort? How?

And her faith…how did he deal with that?

That faith seemed to be her greatest source of strength, of…well, yes, comfort. She’d kept her head down while she wept, and although he didn’t hear any proof of it, he knew she was deep in prayer. Any word he might offer seemed inadequate in this circumstance.

What did he know about faith?

Nothing.

All he had on which to put his trust was his training, experience and instincts. He couldn’t see the point of relying on some vague being out there somewhere.

Her words broke into his thoughts. “I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am,” she said, her voice soft and sad.

He tightened his hold on the steering wheel. “I know that. But you can’t go on beating yourself up about it. What’s done is done, and you have to look at the upside. No one was hurt.”

“Of course, I see that. What bugs me most is my thoughtless behavior. I’d rather think I’m more aware of what’s happening around me. Oblivion isn’t a good thing—at least, not in my case.”

He kept his eyes on the road, even though everything inside him urged him to look her way. “If it made you more aware of reality, then in the end, it was worth it.”

“But those kids…”

The shudder that racked her reminded him again of her extreme vulnerability. He reached out to place a hand on her forearm. “Carlie, forgive yourself. You made a mistake. You’re human. We all make mistakes.”

“That’s going to be tough,” she said. “I know God forgives me, but I’m not nearly strong or wise enough to see how I can forgive myself.”

Now what did he say? Where was J.Z. when he most needed the guy? Since nothing came to him, Dan offered a soft, wordless, hopefully sympathetic murmur, and continued to drive.

After a while, she turned toward him. “You know, I’m not afraid for myself. I’m serious, I don’t want to die, but more than what I want, I’m interested in what God wants. If He wants me to go home to His side, then I’m ready to go.”

She’d done it again. What could he say to that? He didn’t have that kind of belief.

So he just said what came to his mind. “I can’t quite get my head around that attitude of yours. Don’t get me wrong. I’m familiar with it. J.Z. and David, another agent at the Bureau, believe as you do. But I…I don’t get it.”

She stared at him for a moment, her gaze piercing and, he suspected, perceptive. He wriggled in his seat.

“I was in that place not so long ago,” she said. “And it wasn’t all that great an address. The loneliness hurt more than any other pain I’ve known.”

“But I’m not lonely,” he argued. “I’ve got friends—David and J.Z., for instance—and I’m always surrounded by people, suspects and colleagues.”

Her smile spoke of secrets. “Um-hmm, I know what you mean. But what happens when you go to bed at night, when you close the door to all those ‘friends and colleagues,’ when it’s just you in the dark?”

The question hit a private corner of his heart. He shrugged, somewhat defensive. “I’m like everyone else. We’re all alone when you strip away the outside world.”

“Oh, no. We’re not all alike.” This time she reached out, put her hand on his shoulder. “Not if we realize we don’t have to be alone.”

“If you’re suggesting marriage or a dog, you might as well forget it.”

“Don’t be so blind on purpose.” She shook her head. “You know where I’m going, and I won’t let you pull that kind of dumb act. You have Christian friends. You know they’re where I am on this. We’re not alone in the dark.”

“Now you’re going to tell me I have to come to Jesus, to be born again, to fall on my knees, a broken-down man.”

“If you would just cut out the sarcasm, maybe then we’d get somewhere.”

“Don’t you understand?” He spared her a sideways glance; her irritation made him even more uncomfortable, more resistant, more determined to get his point across. “There’s nothing out there for me to see, to cling to when the loneliness hits.”

Another shake of her head, this one accompanied with a look filled with pity. “Have you even tried? Have you ever reached out to God, to see if He did or didn’t answer?”

“Of course not. I’d feel ridiculous talking to something I couldn’t see or feel.”

She chuckled. “That, Danny Boy, is what’s called faith. We reach out and trust that something we can’t see or feel. And that’s exactly when God comes and meets us, at our most fragile moment, when we have no safety net under us.”

He shrugged. “I’m not ready to take that fall.”

“He won’t let you fall. God will catch you in the palm of His hand, and never let you go.”

“It must be nice to have that kind of image to hold on to.” Somewhere inside him, an even greater gaping hole than that of the private loneliness made its presence known. “I’ll admit I sort of wish I could believe. And I get what makes you tick these days. But I can’t join you on this. I can only count on myself.”

“And you think you can…oh, let’s say, go into the lion’s den, armed only with your self-reliance and your gun, and beat my family and all their connections? One other Daniel didn’t think that was so smart.”

He blushed. “Well, if you put it that way, it does sound kind of arrogant.”

“Yep. That’s just a teeny-tiny little bit like seeing yourself as equal to God.”

“Hey, I never said that.”

“No, but that’s the attitude that, like you said, makes you tick.”

His squirming got worse. He’d never thought of himself as arrogant, just a confident, self-sufficient man. “Look, all I know is that the federal government spent a bundle to train me. I’m an expert at what I do, and I’m highly motivated. Not only is success the goal in the job I love, but I’m personally sold out here, in your case.”

“What do you mean?”

“I owe you for what you did. You saved J.Z.’s wife—my partner’s future wife back then. That means a lot to me.”

“So you only see me as a job, a duty to repay a debt.”

“A crucial job, one that demands commitment at a higher level than most, and it’s an obligation I’ll gladly undertake, no matter how great the responsibility. After all, it’s in my hands, my alertness, my response to danger, whether you live or die.”