“Artie, no! I know that customer. I’ve seen her here before.”
“When did you first notice her? Before or after the murder?”
Smythe slapped her fist on the seat’s arm rest before crossing her arms in front of her chest. Barely an hour with the baker. What the hell! It’s not like I’ll go scurrying away to my apartment!
“I don’t know, maybe after. I mean, the woman would come in and grab a coffee and talk with the baker. I assumed he knew her. Sometimes she would sit, other times—I don’t know. I mean, she smiled at me. She seemed nice enough. I thought she was a regular. She just seemed harmless, Artie!”
“Perhaps, but my gut’s not usually wrong. Something changed when she entered the shop.”
Smythe had so much more to say, but bit her tongue, knowing that her words would be biting and caustic. She remained quiet and simply stared out the backseat window.
“I’m not sorry, Smythe.”
Silence filled Team 3’s SUV for the duration of the drive. Smythe was worried. The baker was her friend and confidant. She reasoned that any injury to him would be her fault, and Artie and her teams were the only ones who could protect him. Right her apparent wrong—to visit him. Once safely inside of her apartment, with an air of command, Smythe snapped.
“I need you to find out if Joao is ok!”
Artie stood in the middle of the living room, her New York fighter rage rearing its head. While she understood the need Smythe felt to remain in the presence of her friend, she also had a job to do, and nothing would prevent her from ensuring Smythe’s safety. She did her best not to verbally pummel Smythe, responding coolly to her. “He’s alright. I received confirmation. As I said, I have a separate team with him right now.”
Smythe took in a long breath. She moved in front of her picture window and exhaled, simultaneously realizing knots were beginning to form around her shoulders from the stress. She rolled her neck from side to side and drew in another long breath before releasing it. She bit the inside of her cheek and stared expressionless at a nearly empty parking lot, lost within her thoughts.
“Please move away from the window, Smythe.”
Reluctant to heed the warning, Smythe held her tongue and complied. With her head bent, she concentrated on each footstep she took into her dining room. She turned to face Artie, her arms crossed against her chest, and glared.
“I don’t have much going for me at the moment, Artie. To get out of my head, I usually stay at the baker’s shop and write. It’s a great place to people watch and talk with Joao. I’m not convinced that woman was a hired assassin. But if she was, what really concerns me is Joao. When we left his shop, he was all alone. If she was there for me, to harm me, she could have easily turned on him. And—and I never got to say goodbye. My momma didn’t raise an animal!”
Artie softened her tone. “Smythe, Team 1 arrived before we even left.”
Smythe slowly shook her head from side to side.
The ache within Smythe’s voice was noticeable. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t imagine not going back to the shop. But at the same time, I don’t want to place his life in danger. I’m not even sure if I should visit my mom.”
“We got this, Smythe. I have a team stationed inside his shop. But this is the thing. All of the people that you care about are at risk. All of them.”
Artie walked into the dining room and stood before Smythe. “You refused WitSec, so we’re working with a less than an optimal plan, at least where your safety is concerned. I would love to keep you confined to your apartment until—”
“Don’t you dare!”
“See what I mean? It is a less than optimal situation, but I’m working on making it doable. I’ve got enough teams to cover you and some of the most important people in your life, but it would be helpful if you limit that number in your sphere for now.”
Smythe fell silent for a moment.
“So, I guess, in a way, I am in witness security; only I’m confined to my apartment most of the time.”
“You were already confined, Smythe. Listen, not a whole lot has changed for you. Two weeks ago, even a week ago, you were visiting the baker. He wasn’t harmed then. Nor was he harmed today. You’ve visited your mother since the murder, and she’s not been harmed.”
“But—” Smythe started.
“No, let me finish!” Artie caught the anger rising within her voice. She released her shoulders and changed her posture, standing with her feet only slightly apart and unfurrowed her brow. “Their lives are no more in danger if you went into WitSec or not. What I am more concerned about is your movement. They want you, Smythe, not Joao. They want you, not your mom. But they may try to use them to get to you, which is why I have teams covering them. Your benefactor has allowed me to use all of my available personnel to keep you safe and to keep tabs on your mother, as well as the baker. You’re my only long-term case right now. Just keep your circle small. The less people in your life right now, the better.”
Smythe finally understood and nodded. She took a seat at her dining room table. So much of her wanted to bask in the waters of self-pity and woe. Who wouldn’t? After all, like so many people, she was conditioned to think the worst, referring to past events to confirm present circumstances. The problem with such emotional conditioning is she unknowingly continued to train her body to live in the past.
Smythe stared out her window for a few moments. She knew she had a choice: she could wallow in self-doubt or stay on task. Remaining on task by studying seemed the better of the two. She forced herself to smile at the blue sky and white billowy clouds as they drifted by until she began to actually feel grateful for the peace the clouds gently demonstrated. Eventually, she nudged her thoughts toward the mountain of studying she set out to accomplish for the day. Artie watched the change in Smythe’s demeanor. Let her be for now, she thought. This is a lot for her to handle. She moved into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
Artie turned around to face Smythe, unsure of what to say next, but Smythe excused herself and entered her bedroom to change. When she returned, she carried three books in her arms. She looked around her space—Artie had left the apartment. It’s better this way, she thought. I don’t owe her an apology. Just forget about it and get to work. She placed her books onto her dining room table alongside a notebook and her tablet and settled in to begin her work.
After a couple of hours, Smythe leaned back from her chair. She recalled an Albert Einstein quote which said, “Everything in life is vibration.” She thought about her last video module. Her mentor spoke about vibration. Ever the one to think deeply about new concepts, she began to weave a construct.
Our thoughts, our emotions, our very words are vibrations as well. The energy of our thoughts, emotions, and words manifest into reality. They become a creative force.
I’ve buried my father, resigned my position, started a new business, took on a year-long education program, and witnessed a murder. What the hell kind of energy is that?! What stories am I telling myself? What am I creating, even right now?
Everything I’m reading says that we can shift our vibration, lifting ourselves out of a state of mind through intentionality and positive action.
It was then that her Beloved spoke. A tingle flowed from the base of her neck, and a single thought emerged.
“You have the ability to transform hate into understanding, fear into the purest form of love, and sorrow to the highest mountain peaks of joy.”
She stopped to jot down that last thought. She read it, then read it again, lightly touching the paper.
“Thank you,” she muttered. “But it begs the question, how?” She returned to her dining table and continued to study.
How Did We Get Here?
THE MORNING GRAY SKY GAVE WAY TO A SUNLIT SPRING AFTERNOON, filling the air with a hope of sorts. Smythe stood up. She shook her legs and bent over, stretching out her hamstrings and calves before walking into her bedroom. She sat on her recli
ner, comfortably erect, feeling the support of the chair. She breathed in deeply and slowly, releasing her breath, and gently closed her eyes.
Similar to a news crawl at the bottom of a television screen, her thoughts began to scroll through her mind, demanding her attention—demanding her agreement. Yet, she chose to simply observe them momentarily before focusing her attention on her breath. After a few minutes, for just the briefest of moments, she glimpsed her life in its totality. She remembered a meditation her mentor recorded.
Without judgement, she whispered, “I am not my thoughts. I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts.”
She continued to breathe, silently repeating her mantra. After a time, she became aware her thoughts quieted to a whisper. Much like the way the clouds from her window continued along their path, without placing her attention upon them, her thoughts moved into her conscious awareness and then floated away.
She slowly opened her eyes and began to scan her surrounding area. A small polished burnished sage pebble sat on the arm of her chair. She picked it up and held it gently in the palm of her hand. It was a stone of gratitude, given to her by a medicine woman several years ago. It served as a reminder to return to the creative Universe to offer gratitude for all that is. To remember the earth, the wind, the lakes, and the forests; to honor all living beings, to remember the abundance of life itself. Recalling the significance of the stone, she spoke quietly for all that she was grateful for.
“I am immensely grateful no harm came to me. And grateful for my protector and her team. Thank you for a home of safety; for the abundance of life in and around me. For the food I eat and the clean water I drink, I offer appreciation. And most of all—I am grateful for this moment. For in this moment, I am grateful for you, my Beloved, for I know you hear me.”
Silence deepened around her. She repeated her gratitude quietly, discovering additional reasons to appreciate all that is. With each offering, she allowed her words to synchronize with expanded feelings of gratitude. And with each new offering, a smile shone brightly upon her face, and the exuberance of love embraced her.
“The journey really has begun,” she quietly mouthed.
It seemed for just a moment Smythe experienced a deeper truth. In the midst of chaos and uncertainty, the power to change her vibration and her responses to any situation were always available. The sheer act of gratitude has the cleansing power to raise her energy, and reconnect her to what is present in the here-now moment. She need only to connect this gratitude to additional higher vibration emotions and linger in the present. In so doing, she would come to understand time as not a linear entity, but vertical, stacked upon itself with the power of choice. For the briefest of deepening moments of consciousness, Smythe glimpsed the here-now moment, which contained all time in the present and in which all that she would ever need was available to her. From the present moment, she would know all was well, even in what appeared to be chaos.
Not yet fully able to grasp the elegant art of emotional elevation, but glimpsing the truth of it all, peace enveloped Smythe. She sat for several minutes before returning to her dining room to resume her studies. She watched as Artie paced back and forth along the sidewalk. Artie’s presence reminded her of the abrupt departure from the baker’s shop. She frowned and swept the thought away with intention, returning to the task at hand. She replayed specific portions of her videos, opened her manual, and reviewed corresponding sections.
Hours later, saturated from all that she learned, she stood up again and began to pace. She couldn’t help but think about her circumstances once again. She thought about the people who made an attempt on her life. She glanced at her library of books as she replayed the moments leading up to the murder. Cold shivers danced along her spine as she remembered the terror she heard in the man’s voice. “Why did he have to die?” she questioned aloud. She scanned the book titles, looking for something that would answer her question. None popped out at her.
She stared at her image reflected in the glass of the cabinet and wondered about the effect of the crime ring’s tactics upon community members in her tiny enclave. She imagined the intimidation used against them and the resources taken from others.
She looked deeply into the eyes reflected back to her. How did we get here? How did that poor guy get there? What was it they offered to this man that we as a community could not give?
In the present moment, Smythe was unaware of her role in the divine intervention of circumstances she was now uniquely a part of. If she had, she would rest in the grand design of her soul’s reason for participating in a seemingly violent reality. She could have rested in her role to offer a community a certain measure of justice and let go of the how. But like so many with a myopic view of the world, she missed what her soul was up to.
She turned toward her front window and stared out toward the sidewalk. She could hear faint bits of Artie’s conversation as she stood outside. Her mind was spinning with thoughts of the fragile fabric of trust within her community and the role she and Artie were playing within it.
Could there be a positive outcome, or are we destined for more bloodshed?
My Beloved, I recognize my own issues with trust. Yet, I understand trust is an essential element in the overall health of any community member, not to mention the community as a whole. To trust not only each other and ourselves, but to trust You as well. Yet here we are. Our trust has been so easily eroded by the echoing cacophony of divisiveness. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not sure I know how to trust or to build trust. You’ve asked me to, but it is such a struggle.
She recalled French sociologist Emile Durkheim using the term “collective consciousness.” She could recite the definition, “The set of shared beliefs, ideas, and attitudes which operate as a unifying force within a society.” Intrigued by the term, Smythe studied it as it related to her work in diversity education.
She imagined not only her energy, but the energy of the community, wondering how the disease of distrust grew so terminal. And she, too, wondered if there was a cure.
*
* *
Artie stood outside the apartment and paced. While Smythe aspired to live within the spiritual realm, knitting a tapestry of unity, Artie moved solely within the physical plane. She held no interest in anything other than what she could see, touch, or hear. Even when her intuition was at work, she simply attributed the intuition to prior experience and her ability to read her environment. In her present circumstance, she gave no thought to the “why” of the crime ring and the community’s role in its rise. Implacable to treachery and deceit, she held only the perspective the group was a menace to her client, seeking to gain power, and she was determined to drive the group from Smythe’s life.
Artie thought about her unconventional way of protecting Smythe. Her training taught her to work by the book, making the necessary adjustments for only the most important activities in a client’s day, restricting all other superfluous movements. Her former clients understood her edict and had been fearful enough to make the necessary changes in their lives, but Smythe was different. She was “headstrong,” as Artie had nicknamed Smythe to her team.
The nickname was not used as a putdown, but instead as a way to understand the overarching behavior of her client—the client who would not cooperate and get herself killed if she was not granted the necessary freedom to move about her life. Her earlier insistence to drive to the baker’s shop was Smythe’s most recent example for the nickname. But, long before that, Artie and her teams had been tailing Smythe, dismayed at the number of risks she took tooling around town without a care in the world. The dilemma was a risk Artie was uncomfortable with. Yet, she had a reputation for looking at all angles and calculating the best chance for the desired outcome. And, with each passing moment she spent in Smythe’s presence, the more focused she became.
She continued to pace outside Smythe’s apartment and called Carole to fill her in on what she believed was a veiled threat to Smythe’
s life. With that news, Carole became angry and second-guessed herself. Replaying her previous conversation with Smythe, Carole’s initial judgement to place her in Witness Protection was the best overall choice, but Smythe refused. Now Carole wondered if placing Smythe under WitSec’s protective custody was the necessary option, whether she wanted to relocate or not.
While Carole trusted her friend, the unexpected threat concerned her. Was Artie using enough of her resources set to keep Smythe from harm? Perhaps moving her out of state, with Artie and her team, was a better option instead of WitSec. Her mind raced. She thought about the career changes her friend had made. FBI special agent to defense attorney and now, CEO of her own private protection agency. Artie certainly had the experience to handle this assignment.
They discussed their initial assumptions when they first met to discuss Smythe’s protection. Both women believed Smythe was nothing more than an annoyance to the crime ring. They theorized those closest to the case, which included the judge, the lead District Attorney, and members of the jury would be likely targets through either bribery or threat. At the time, they had no reason to believe the crime ring knew who Smythe was; therefore, any attempt against her life would have to occur at trial.
However, recent circumstances now shifted their belief. Most troubling for Artie was the fact that the crime ring apparently knew identity of Smythe as the anonymous witness. Since her identity had not been revealed publicly, Artie continued to question Carole, particularly how the crime ring determined it was Smythe who had identified the suspect and what they believed she had witnessed.
“After all, it’s quite possible Smythe could’ve simply found the victim lying on the concrete,” Artie said.
“It doesn’t matter how they found out. Given your report, they obviously know! Trust me, Artie, I’ve been working this case hard. From my end, we’re investigating several members of the ring and their affiliates. They may even be involved in several homicides on the island of Oahu. If you recall, just as you left the bureau, this ring was becoming more ruthless and widespread. Remember the Chris case at your firm?”
No Place to Hide Page 9