Secret Agent Minister (17 page)

“Because I know better than you how to deal with this situation. We wait until it’s good and dark, then we make our move. But we’re not going back to that cabin. I have to get you away from here. You know too much already and you don’t need to see anything else. For your own good.”

“Pastor Dev has been telling me the same thing for days now,” she retorted, good and mad at the lot of them now. “I’m so tired of hearing that. I can think for myself and anyone can see that you’re holding me here for your own purposes. Pastor Dev—”

He stood up straight like a bear rising, smiling then, his arms crossed over his barrel of a chest as he jeered at her. Arms still crossed, he leaned down again. “That’s real cute, for true, the way you call him Pastor Dev. I read all about how you love him so much—there in your journal. Sappy stuff, that. Pastor Dev this, Pastor Dev that. Oh, Pastor Dev, I love you so much. Oh, Pastor Dev, I’m praying for you. Oh, Pastor Dev, I love your superhero T-shirt.”

“You shouldn’t have taken my journal. That’s private.”

Looking down at her, he shook his head. “You are so out of your league,
catin
. If I hadn’t found that book at Kissie’s, we’d probably all be dead now. You wrote about—what did you call them—the VEPs. You didn’t name names, but you had evidence. Strong evidence, tracking both of you from Atlanta to New Orleans. You need to learn to keep your mouth shut and your pen dry. CHAIM does not operate in a tell-all fashion. So be glad I hid that journal for you.”

“After you read it, of course.”

“I read it to get clues—and I thank you for that, at least. But,
oui,
I could have done without all the mushy love letters.”

Lydia’s anger and shame caused her to find the strength she needed to bring the broken limb up. With a swiftness that had him lifting his eyebrows in surprise, she brought the heavy limb around and managed to land a sharp whack on his head, right above his left temple. Then she watched as he stumbled and fell down, his hands flailing in the air. He wasn’t out completely, but he was rattled. He came to enough to hear her next words, though. And since she knew he’d be up and after her soon, she shouted as she was backing away at a fast sprint.

“I do love him. And that’s why I’m going after him.”

E
verything after that happened in a blur of darkness and shadows. Lydia ran down the mountain, keeping her eyes on the single light shining from the cabin below. Thank goodness she’d memorized landmarks and rock formations on the way up, or she might have been lost in the wilderness for a very long time. But she knew God was leading her; she wouldn’t lose her way. So she stayed the course, all the while aware that Eli Trudeau was right on her heels.

She heard him call out. “Don’t be foolish, Lydia. You’re going to get all of us killed.”

Lydia kept on running. If she died tonight, well, at least she could die knowing she tried to help the man she loved. She was stronger now than she’d been a week ago. Never again would she be meek and mild Lydia. Now she would be assertive, firm Lydia, sure in her faith and even surer in her path in life.

And right now, that path was leading straight to that little mountain cabin.

Dev waited for just the right moment. He was tired, thirsty, hungry and hurting, but a rush of pure adrenaline had him on high alert right now. Something didn’t feel right. Something was about to happen.

He watched as The Peacemaker paced in front of him, his gun held in place to keep Dev still and cooperative. Dev wasn’t afraid he’d be shot again. But he was deathly afraid that if he made a wrong move, Lydia would die.

He still hadn’t put it all together, but his analytical mind had pretty much figured most of it out. The Peacemaker had been running drugs for years now, under the guise of working for CHAIM. And somehow, Eli must have found out more than he’d let on. Then in true Eli fashion, he’d gone off by himself to fix that wrong. But why had Eli almost gone off the deep end down there? Why? Dev just hoped Eli would come clean on that angle and finally end the mystery once and for all. Whatever the case, when Dev had brought things to a halt, someone had inadvertently alerted The Peacemaker and then everything had gone wrong.

Now they were after Dev, at first making it look as if Eli was the one seeking revenge. The Peacemaker had certainly been patient, waiting to strike exactly when Eli was released from his “retreat.” But there was one missing piece to this entire puzzle. Why hadn’t The Peacemaker killed Eli already, since Eli obviously had the goods on the man’s illegal operations? Why had The Peacemaker let Eli live for five years, when he could have so easily had him murdered either at the retreat or now when they’d been chasing each other all over the country? And why hadn’t Eli told anyone about what he’d found in South America? Why?

“You’re very quiet,” The Peacemaker said now, whirling to stare down at Dev. “Are you contemplating meeting your maker?”

Dev laughed, shifted his weight, grimaced as pain shot through his leg. “No, actually I’m contemplating how you managed all of this. I’ve pieced together most of this equation, but I have yet to understand the connection between you and Eli. There has to be one.”

“Of course you’d figure that out,” The Peacemaker replied, nodding. “That, my dear boy, is a rather long and sordid story.”

Before he could get an answer to that burning question, a commotion from outside caused The Peacemaker to hurry to the back door, his gun at the ready as he slowly opened the door a few inches.

Which presented Dev with the opportunity he’d been waiting for. It was now or never.

Lydia cried out just as she reached the clearing leading to the cabin. She was once again being held by a set of supersized arms. Eli had caught up with her.

“Let me go,” she hissed, tears of frustration falling down her face. “I have to help him. I have to—”

He held her, but his grip gentled as he leaned close, whispering into her ear. “I understand that, honey, but you need to understand something else. You can’t do it alone.”

Somehow, Lydia heard the sincerity and the resignation in his words. “Will you help me, then?”

She felt his nod. “
Oui,
although I keep thinking fools rush in—”

“Where angels fear to tread,” she finished, gulping back a sob. “What are we going to do?”

“Well, you’ve foiled my attempts to keep you out of harm’s way, and you made enough racket to wake up the whole mountain, so we don’t have a choice except to go back in for a nice little visit. But I do have a plan. I always have a plan.”

“Just like Pastor Dev,” she said, tears falling from her face to land on his big hand on her arm. She could see the wetness glistening in the white wash of moonlight. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me until it’s over.”

“It will be over soon,” she replied, her silent prayer echoing that sentiment. “So what’s your plan?”

Eli pushed her away. “I’m going to surrender myself to The Peacemaker. He’s really after me anyway, you see. We both know that, but he’s been stalling, hoping to get in three kills with one strike, so to speak. I need you to stay right here and wait for Dev. He’ll come for you soon, because I’m about to give him a head start. I’m going to be the first kill.”

With that, he took off toward the cabin, calling out in a loud voice, “Hey, old man. Go ahead on and get this over with. Take me out and let them go. The girl doesn’t know anything. And Dev is a good man. Besides, I never told him anything about what I knew. And I never will. So let’s end this thing now, just you and me. What do you say,
Grandpère?
”

Grandfather?

Lydia gasped as she rushed forward. At about the same time, the cabin door came crashing open as Pastor Dev pushed the old man out the back door with all his strength and body weight. In a shadowed dance, they fell together, rolling off the porch onto the ground, while Eli ran toward them.

Lydia was right behind him.

Eli shouted again, reaching them just as Pastor Dev managed to rise into a crouch, his features etched with pain, his hand holding tightly to The Peacemaker’s forearm as he tried to wrestle away the gun. Lydia watched in horror as Eli flew into the fray, struggling with the older man. But in the muted moonlight, she couldn’t be sure if he was trying to help or hinder Pastor Dev’s efforts.

Then The Peacemaker twisted with a grimace, aiming the gun right toward Lydia, with Pastor Dev slapping and hitting at his arm to stop him while Eli stood over him, calling out for him to let go. Dev shouted at Lydia, trying to warn her, then a shot rang out. Seconds passed, then another one followed.

Lydia waited, her eyes squeezed closed, for the pain she was sure would come. The gun had been aimed right at her. But she didn’t feel the pain of being shot. Instead, she watched in shock as Eli slumped to the ground.

And then the mountain went still and quiet again.

Dev saw Eli go down, but he also saw The Peacemaker slump over in defeat. Then he heard a soft moan.

“Lydia?” he called out, rushing to her, his hurt leg dragging as he met her beside Eli’s still form.

Lydia fell down, her hands touching Eli’s face. “He’s still breathing,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “He’s not dead.”

Another shot rang out. Dev turned to find The Peacemaker struggling toward him, his gun wobbling in his shaking hand. “I’ll kill all of you. I’ll kill everyone—”

Then he fell over to the ground, the gun dropping away from his hand. Dev looked down at Eli, then turned to Lydia. “Stay here.”

She nodded, her hand rubbing against Eli’s arm. “Don’t die on me,” she said, her tone pleading. “Disciple, don’t die on me.”

Dev went to The Peacemaker and checked his pulse. He was dead. Then Dev saw the blood streaming from his midsection. In the struggle one of the shots had hit him.

The Peacemaker was dead, and as Dev kneeled over his lifeless body, he prayed that God would grant this bitter old man the peace he had not found on earth.

Then he rushed back to Lydia and Eli. “Eli, can you hear me? Eli?”

Eli moaned, slanted half-shut eyes toward them. “It wasn’t me, bro.” Then he passed out again.

“We have to do something,” Lydia said, her sobs coming hard now. “He saved us, Dev. He saved our lives.”

Dev dragged her close, kissing her tears, her hair. “I know, honey, I know. Eli is that kind of man. We’ll try, I promise we’ll try.”

He went about that task, giving Eli first aid, doing what he’d been trained to do when someone went down. He worked on reviving his friend, trying to determine there in the moonlight just how bad the wound was.

“Eli, stay with us,” he said over and over, his own tears coming at last. “Eli, you can’t die now, do you understand? You can’t die.” Grasping at how to save his friend, Dev knew there was only one secret left. And he had to tell Eli that secret in order to save him.

He looked over at Lydia, praying that she’d understand why he’d never told her this. Then he grabbed Eli by both arms and held tightly to his friend. “Eli, stay with me. Stay with me, please. Eli, you have to live. You’ve got a very good reason to live.” Then he leaned close. “Eli, you have a son. Do you hear me? You have a son.”

Dev heard Lydia’s gasp of surprise, saw the glaring brilliance of his secrets and his betrayal there in her confused eyes as she looked up from Eli to him.

And then, he heard the helicopter coming through the night, its lights shining like a welcome beacon in the moonlight. He heard Kissie’s voice calling through the megaphone.

“Hang on down there. Help is on the way.”

Reinforcements were here at last.

It wasn’t too late for Eli, but Dev wondered if it was way too late for Lydia and him.

She wondered what would happen now.

Three days later, Lydia stood in her bedroom, safe back in Dixon now. Remembering how her parents had met them at the airport in Albany, she dashed at the tears that always seemed nearby these days.

“Lydia, baby,” her mother had said, rushing up to touch her, hug her, then touch her again. “I can’t believe you’re home. We were so worried. No one would tell us—except that you were in some sort of danger and Pastor Dev had you in a safe place while the authorities searched for a killer. Honey, that doesn’t make a bit of sense to me.”

Her father, ever stoic and stern, had only nodded, hugged her tight, and then backed up, swallowing what surely must have been a big lump in his throat. “Girl, you gave your mama a surefire scare.”

She’d tried to explain it all; she’d tried to gloss over everything, sticking to the story that Pastor Dev had suggested way back when this had begun. Yes, they’d been involved in a murder, and yes, they’d been safe. They’d been on a retreat, a quest of sorts, working hard to find the truth while the authorities found the killer. But Lydia knew no one was buying that story.

Yet even when her mother pressed her for the truth, Lydia couldn’t put it all into words.

“Just pray for me, Mama,” she told her mother last night. “Just pray for Pastor Dev and me.”

At her mother’s concerned expression, she’d ventured on. “Nothing happened between us. I’m still Lydia, Mama. I’m still your baby girl. And I’m so glad to be home.”

Her mother’s instincts had hit the nail on the head however. “Something did happen. Something big, I know. You fell in love with each other, didn’t you?” Then her mother had opened her arms wide, letting Lydia cry. All of her sorrows, all of her doubts and fears were expunged in that gentle purging.

“He’s a good man, Mama. The best. He saved my life. He was always putting me first. I love him.”

And that had ended the questions. Even though the whole town was whispering, wondering, comparing notes, Lydia’s family had somehow managed to put a shield around her.

Or maybe Pastor Dev had done that.

Right along with avoiding her like the plague.

Now she stood staring up at her poster of Rhett and Scarlett, her heart hurting with such grief that all she wanted to do was curl up with her cat and never leave the safety of this room. But she’d have to get over that notion.

“I had a life,” she said as Rhett brushed up against her legs. “I will have a life again.”

She’d just have to find another job. Because she couldn’t work with him, not now, when her love for him hurt her in every fiber of her being.

He apparently did not love her enough to fight for her, since she hadn’t seen him in three days, not since they’d left the airport in separate cars. She with her parents. He with some high-up bishop or elder from the church, and probably from CHAIM.

He had some explaining to do, no doubt.

But all Lydia had were her memories and her nightmares. Memories of his smile and his kisses, nightmares of Eli as he lay near death, and of The Peacemaker, that pitiful old man who apparently had not one ounce of love in his jaded heart, even though he’d masqueraded as a missionary down in South America.

“Forgive him, God,” she said now, wishing with all her heart that someone had been able to penetrate that wicked man’s soul. “And help Eli, Lord. He’s suffered enough. Too much. Help all of us, Lord.”

Eli Trudeau had a son. That much she knew. But Pastor Dev hadn’t bothered explaining that little tidbit to her. Not on the helicopter ride to a Denver hospital, not in the long hours they’d waited as Eli went through surgery, and not even after Eli had survived and they’d been cleared to come back home.

Now, she had no idea where Pastor Dev was, or Eli, either. CHAIM took care of their own, one way or another.

Lydia grabbed up Rhett, holding him close as she snuggled her face into his thick fur. “I guess it’s just you and me again, Rhett. Another lonely night.”

Dropping the purring cat, she decided she’d make some chamomile tea and watch a sappy movie. As if she needed to cry even more. But what else could she do? The man she loved still didn’t trust her or love her enough to share everything with her. Maybe he never would.

And even though she knew he loved her back, maybe a man like Pastor Devon Malone just couldn’t let go of his warrior’s heart long enough to show her that love.

“We’ll think about that tomorrow,” she said in a long, drawn-out drawl to Rhett. “Won’t we, pretty boy?”

And then, the doorbell rang.