“That’s good enough. Just—” Karen’s phone rang, and she turned away to answer. “Stenano here. Yeah, she made it back. We’ll call after dinner. Mmm hmm.”
“Go on in, Erika. Just relax in the tub until you can’t stand to be in there anymore.” Keith’s voice sounded almost compassionate. “You did really well. You made smart decisions before and after you left and didn’t let your emotions drive your decisions. You did great.”
“I did, though.” As if unable to handle a gentler Keith, Erika struggled to fight back tears. “I was at the road and looked both ways. I decided to pick a direction and if I saw the opening to get to the cabin, I’d go back. Otherwise, I’d walk to civilization and figure out how to keep hiding out when I got there.”
Her eyes widened. Panic set in before despair. “Oh, no!”
“What.”
“I shouldn’t have told you that.”
“Why not? Keith was visibly confused.
“She’s letting me talk to my parents because I came back. I ‘passed the test,’ but now she won’t. Now she’ll—”
“Take a bath. You’ll talk to them later.”
With tears streaming down her face, Erika shuffled into the house, grabbed her duffel bag, and carried it into the bathroom. She cranked the water on full-blast, and then began undressing. Just as her foot hit the water, she realized she hadn’t locked the door for the first time in the longest week of her life. Tracking water across the bathroom, she hurried to lock it and then returned to sink into the water. Before long, the scent of broiling beef drifted into the room, making her stomach growl. “I think Saturdays are officially my new favorite day of the week,” she murmured, trying not to fall asleep in the water.
“I didn’t ask if Christians were a bad example of what Jesus taught. I asked if what Jesus taught makes sense.”
“And my point,” Karen countered, not even raising her eyes to acknowledge Erika’s return from her bath, “is that if his teachings were so wonderful, people would actually do it right. If a political party spouts high-sounding ideals but produces garbage, people quit voting for their candidates. The same is true of Christianity.”
“Apples and oranges.”
“That’s a copout. Jesus taught forgiveness, but His followers don’t forgive. So, His grand ideas about forgiveness are untried.”
“So, you’ve never met a true Christian who lived what they claimed to believe.”
“Other than you, no.”
Keith’s head snapped up as Erika snorted. “Yeah, because we all know Jesus taught his people to kidnap people from their beds and hold them hostage in the middle of nowhere.”
“He taught to take care of others, protect them, and do what we would want others to do for us. If I was in your position, I’d want someone to protect me, however they knew how, if it would save my life.”
Her eyes rolled as she turned to Karen for support. “Yeah. Like we believe that.”
“He means it, Erika. I agree with him there. When you’ve seen the other side of the coin, when you’ve walked into a house too late and seen people’s bodies ripped apart by bullets and watched their families try to cope with that loss—” Karen swallowed hard. “Yeah, you learn that sometimes the uncomfortable ways are the best.”
“Until you’ve walked a mile in my shoes, don’t tell me—”
Karen dropped the knife she was using to slice cucumbers and turned to leave. Keith, ignoring the confusion on Erika’s face, tried to stop her, “Karen, are—”
“Let me go, Auger.”
Sadness filled Keith’s eyes as he turned back to Erika. “She’s walked that mile, and then another. She knows first-hand just what those bodies look like. Her father was one man the agency didn’t get to in time, so be careful when you spout your little proverbs.”
“I—”
Had the knife in Karen’s soul not pierced her so deeply, he might have felt a sense of satisfaction in the shock on her face. He took a few steps toward the door and turned back. “When she comes back, don’t bring it up. If she wants to talk about it, she’ll say something.”
Stepping out onto the porch, Keith found Karen gripping the railing. “You’d think,” she ground between clenched teeth, “you’d get used to it, but you don’t. You just don’t. Every single time someone makes a snarky comment about how I don’t know what they’re going through, I see black and want to wrap my hands around their throats and scream, ‘You don’t know how lucky you are! Just be grateful and shut the—’”
“I know.” He knew it was rude, but Keith’s deep revulsion for women and any hint of foul language overrode his conversational etiquette. Even the milder words that many of his Christian friends used bothered him and, when spoken by a woman, revolted him. He tried to keep his opinions to himself, but he couldn’t help but try to stop it before it happened. “I should have guessed she’d be one of the ones. She’s feisty. It’s keeping her sane, but it also means some pretty sharp barbs.”
“I gotta get in there and get that salad made. We need to prep her for the call. Hey!” Karen’s eyes grew wide. “We left her alone in there with the knife.”
Keith shook his head. “It’ll be fine. She’s not going to use it. Not now.”
“You’re always so confident. Aren’t you ever wrong?”
“Yes.”
Ignoring his confession, Karen flattened herself next to the doorway, hand on her gun, looking through the screen to see if Erika had taken the knife, but it lay on the cutting board where she’d left it. “Dang! You’re right. She didn’t.”
Keith laughed. “Dang?”
“I know how much you like your words sanitized. I tend to forget, but I know.”
“He likes his words what?” Erika frowned, obviously trying to follow the conversation.
“Keith doesn’t ‘do’ swearing. You should hear him sing ‘Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown.’”
Disbelief flooded Erika’s face. “Don’t tell me he sings, ‘..baddest man in the whole dang town.”
“Nope. He just hums loudly there.”
“I’m right here!” he protested, glaring through his grin at the women.
“He just doesn’t do furious well with a smile on his face, does he?” Karen picked up the knife and waved it. “Do you want tomatoes? Keith doesn’t touch ‘em.”
“Love tomatoes,” Erika agreed. “And yeah, I didn’t know he could smile. I was starting to wonder if I shouldn’t take up stand-up comedy.”
“You told her about Mr. Bruner?”
He flushed. It wasn’t customary to talk about other cases with those under their protection, but it had seemed important. “I thought—” Shrugging, Keith popped a slice of cucumber in his mouth and then mumbled around it, “It just came up.”
“Ok, let’s prep her for the call while we finish up.” Karen pulled steaks from the oven where she’d put them to keep warm. “Medium, rare, or well?” The question was directed at Erika. Keith prayed she said well.
“Well.”
“Yes!” Grabbing a fork, he stabbed the well-done steak, popped it on a plate, and passed it across the counter. “Can we give her a steak knife? I really hate having to cut people’s meat into bite-sized pieces as if they’re five years old.”
Karen passed a steak across the breakfast bar and jerked her thumb at the table. “There’s a table, Auger. Use it.” Once seated, she spoke again. “Ok, we need to prep her for the call.”
Inwardly, Keith groaned. Erika wasn’t going to like it, and he knew it. Turning to her, praying feverishly that she’d be cooperative, he said, “Just try to keep an open mind about it, ok?”
“Why? What’s going to happen?”
“Well,” Karen was in her element. Prepping people for contact was a particular talent of hers that others, Keith being at the top of the list, found horribly difficult. “You see, it’s a controlled conversation, but you can’t let it seem like one. That takes some acting skills, and not everyone has those.”
“I can
act. I did Community Theater right after I got out of college.”
“Good. I was hoping that’d come in handy—but if I remember correctly, you were on the props committee.” She winked before continuing. “So, there are three things you need to know.” Karen popped a bite of steak in her mouth and sighed happily. “It didn’t get overdone. Whew.”
“What three things do I need to know?”
The way Erika inhaled her salad told Keith that fresh greens were essential. As much as it seemed like a pain, they really needed to make them a priority. A pointed glance at Karen and her nearly imperceptible nod told him she’d noticed and agreed.
“Well, first, you have to prepare yourself to lie. It’s highly probable that someone will ask you something that you can’t answer.”
Erika frowned and then nodded. “Oh, right, like if they ask if I’m in the mountains, I need to say that I went to the lake or something.”
“Actually, no. You mention the mountains as where you were, but you’re headed to the lake now or something.”
“Why say it at all? It seems like asking for trouble.” The skepticism in her tone frustrated Keith. It was as if Erika couldn’t stand not to question and push everything.
“Because,” Karen explained patiently, “and this is point two, you need to try to tell as much truth as possible without giving anything away. You make things less complicated and more believable when you stick to the facts as much as possible. Basically, you’re going to embellish truth rather than avoid or change it.”
“Ok, so first, be ready to lie, second tell all the truth I can without giving us away. Got it. What’s the third?”
“Change the subject without it being obvious you did.”
Erika’s eyes rolled. “And just how do I do that?”
“Ok, for example, if your mom asks where you’re going next, be frank and say something like, ‘Well, I’m not sure, but I thought about seeing if the car would make it to Nashville and places around there. Where would you go if you were me?’ Change that subject in a related vein and then slowly move it to something totally different like a movie you supposedly saw and then comment on how you don’t miss celebrity gossip. Anything to get the subject away but not so fast that it’s noticeable.”
“That’s insane!”
“It’s the natural flow of conversations. I’m going to have a pen and paper here ready to give you ways to change it up, so you’re not going to be alone in this.”
Disappointment flooded her features as Erika shook her head. To Keith’s surprise, she refused to call. “You’ll have to do it. I can’t do that. Maybe if I listen, I’ll feel more comfortable, but this just won’t work for me.”
Keith and Karen’s eyes met across the table, concern etched in hers, suspicion in his. After waiting all week for the chance to talk to her family, it didn’t make sense that she’d be unwilling to try. Just as he was going to question her, she added, “Besides, any voice changes might be noticeable. At least if Karen talks it’ll sound like it has been. She sounds nothing like me anyway. They might notice the difference.”
“There’s more to it than that, Erika. I can see it in your face.” He sounded accusatory and he knew it, but Keith didn’t care. Something was not right.
“I don’t know how to be someone I’m not. That’s what you’re telling me to do, and I don’t want to. Just hearing that my family is ok is enough for now. Maybe next week.”
“She’s hitting phase two faster than I expected.” Karen leaned across the table as she spoke. “Don’t give up fighting. You have to keep fighting.”
“I’m tired! It’s exhausting. I’m angry that this is happening, I’m angry that I escaped and then really didn’t, and I’m livid that I’m stuck in a cabin with the biggest hypocrite on the planet. It’s wearing me out.”
Pain registered in Keith’s eyes just long enough for Karen to see before he shut down again. He knew it the minute she asked, “Why do you say he’s a hypocrite? I don’t agree with his religious views, but I’ve never seen him claim to believe something he doesn’t at least try to practice.”
“The Ten Commandments. Whatever happened to ‘thou shalt not lie?’ He’s practically ordering me to lie. There’s one.”
Keith shook his head. “The Ten Commandments do not say, ‘thou shalt not lie.’ It says not to ‘bear false witness.’ We’re not to perjure ourselves in court. I think the point is not to do it to someone’s detriment since we’re told not to ‘take the Lord’s name in vain’ and that leaves connotations of swearing in court on the Lord’s name.”
“So lying is just ok for a Christian? I don’t think so.”
Again, he shook his head. “Well, I don’t know about that, but I do know that it wasn’t condemned when done to protect others.”
“Name once.” Erika’s disgust grew visibly with each refutation.
“Rahab. She brought in the spies, hid them, and when told to tell where they were, she lied and sent the king’s men to the wrong place. The Bible only commends her for saving the spies. It never condemns them, and people like Corrie ten Boom lied about having Jews hidden during WWII to protect them from the Nazis. It was a lie, but it was done for the protection of others. I don’t think God was in heaven, shaking His finger and saying, ‘tsk, tsk.’”
“Argh! That’s what I can’t stand about you people. You’ve got glib answers for every objection. Do they brainwash you until you can spout the party line in your sleep?”
He could see that she wanted to rattle him and almost felt badly that she would be so disappointed. Rejection of Jesus wounded him, but derision of his faith hardly registered. Christianity wasn’t about him. If people couldn’t see that, well, they’d be disappointed if they thought they’d use it as a weapon against him. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
“I never get you, but,” she pushed her plate away, “I just think it’s a wasted discussion. You don’t think you’re a hypocrite. I do. We don’t agree on much else, so why would we on that?” She turned to Karen, and nodded to the phone on the counter. “I’ll be over there listening.”
It took every ounce of Keith’s self-control not to try to comfort Erika. He watched, almost tortured by the pain in her eyes, the way she buried her face in her pillow when sobs wracked her body at something her mother said, and then the stoic—nearly numb—look on her face as the call disconnected. Without a word, she stood and strode into her room, shutting the door behind her.
Although he knew the answer, Keith couldn’t help but ask, “Do I have to lock her in tonight?”
“You know you do.”
Sighing, he nodded. “I know.”
“How close are we to nailing him?”
“Not close enough. He has too many men searching for her. Even if we managed to get him, there’s no guarantee that’d end it. We have to get them all, one at a time, as usual.”
Erika listened to the voices on the other side of the wall. So, he didn’t want to lock her in anymore. That surprised her. She was also intrigued to discover that Karen seemed to have seniority over him. Though her mind wanted to replay the conversation with her mother, she kept listening. Who was he? Why did Karen talk like there was more than one person after her?
Just as she was tempted to open the door and demand to know what they were talking about, she heard Keith say, “Careful. She’s listening, I’m sure.”
How did he do that? How was he always right on top of whatever she planned? Yeah, he was a professional; she’d give him that, but even professionals don’t know everything. Karen’s next words stunned her.
“I’ll come back Wednesday if I can. I might be within forty miles or so. If I am, I’ll bring more produce. Also, find out what kind of movies she likes. I just brought the three recent releases.
“What are they?” That was interesting. Keith didn’t sound interested.
“Back to Romance, Cry of the Heart, and The Girl Who Cried Sheep.”
Erika snickered despite herself, and
then choked back guffaws as he groaned. “Romantic drama, romantic comedy, and a politically correct cartoon. Great.”
Chapter Seven
Sunday morning, Karen let Erika out of her room. “Shh. He’s still sleeping.”
“Why—”
“He’s tired. We’re used to having someone to split day and night watch with. He’s not used to being ‘on call’ even when he’s sleeping.”
Erika shook her head as if trying to clear it. “Why don’t you have someone here then? Why aren’t you staying? Oh, wait. You were going to leave last night. You are staying. Duh.”
Karen waited until Erika left the bathroom and shuffled into the kitchen for a glass of juice, and then said, “I’m not staying, Erika. I might be back Wednesday, I don’t know, but I had to let him sleep last night.” The woman poured a bowl of cereal as she spoke. “Want some?”
“Why not have someone to help him then?”
“We’re shorthanded. There’s a lot going on right now.”
“You’d think an organization like the FBI could pull people from offices or something!”
An enigmatic smile spread across Karen’s face. “We’re not FBI, Erika.”
“What are you?”
“I can’t say, but we’re here to protect you. That’s all I am allowed to tell you.”
Understanding dawned. “NSA! Wow. You so have the wrong person. You really need to do a search for other Erika Polowskis. Find the right one before someone gets hurt.” As Karen began to protest, Erika nodded understandingly. “I know; you’re not NSA. They’re never allowed to admit it.”
Karen gulped down the last of her coffee and set it in the sink of dishwater before she turned back to their “guest.” She waited for Erika to meet her gaze before she forced every ounce of seriousness into her features and tone as she said, “Listen, Erika; we have the right person. I can’t tell you how I know that you’re the right one, but you are. There is absolutely zero chance that we’ve made a mistake. It has happened before—we’re not perfect—but this time, there is no doubt. You really need to trust us on this.”
Justified Means (Book One) (The Agency Files) Page 5