Beside Still Waters (Psalm 23 Mysteries)

  “Whereas I know you have no problem seeing me suffer,” Mark said.

  “It’s not that I want to see you suffer. I want you to heal. You can’t heal unless you can first accept the truth about everything that happened...both good and bad.”

  Mark buried his face in his hands and shuddered. Jeremiah sat quietly. If Mark needed the space to scream or cry or laugh he’d give it to him. There were only so many human responses to grief or guilt or anger. He’d seen men go through all of them, sometimes in the span of a minute. Everyone coped in their own way but even then there were only so many ways of coping, or not coping, known to man. The important thing was to let Mark feel and express whatever emotions he needed to. The people that were ticking time bombs were the ones who didn’t know how to express or had no safe forum to do so.

  Ten minutes passed with Jeremiah hyper aware of each one. The counseling process was such a delicate one. With most, perhaps all, of the members of the synagogue he would have walked over and put a hand on their shoulder. Human touch was a powerful thing that could reach people when nothing else could.

  Mark was a fighter though, a warrior despite the fact that he’d never been part of any army. He would need the human contact eventually, but he had to be ready to receive it. Trying to push him before he was ready to be that vulnerable would destroy everything they needed to achieve.

  Finally Mark looked up. His eyes were moist but his cheeks were dry. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “I only held the mirror, you were the one who saw the truth,” Jeremiah said.

  Mark stood abruptly. “I think I’m going to go for a walk. I need to think for a while.”

  Jeremiah nodded. “I think that sounds like an excellent idea.”

  Mark nodded and left, closing the door behind him. Jeremiah slumped a bit in his seat. It was true, he’d just been holding up a mirror to allow Mark to behold the truth but the effort he’d had to expend to make sure that Mark didn’t catch a glimpse of the real him had been overwhelming.

  He took several deep breaths as he reassured himself. You did well. He suspects nothing about you. Well, nothing new at least. Thank G-d for small miracles.

  Fortunately he had no appointments later that day. When he went out for lunch he told Maria that when she scheduled Mark’s appointments to make sure he was the only appointment for those days. There was no way he could handle counseling anyone else so soon after his sessions with Mark. She looked puzzled since he’d never made a request like that when dealing with anyone else, but she agreed.

  He went home and took Captain for a walk to clear his head. The dog happily paced beside him, tongue lolling. He was more grateful for the creature’s presence than he could express. He himself had been on the verge of becoming a ticking time bomb a few months before. He found, though, that the more time he spent with the dog the calmer he was. He tried not to think about the fact that the dog was the only one he could truly be himself with.

  The rest of the day passed swiftly and finally it was time to pick up Cindy from the airport. He felt a growing excitement as he drove. He had missed talking to her while she was gone and couldn’t wait to hear all about her trip. Hawaii was one of the few places he’d never been and he’d dearly love to see it someday. He figured they’d grab some dinner and she could tell him all about it.

  He reached the airport and opted to park the car and meet Cindy inside at baggage claim. The thought of circling the airport with the assorted locals and tourists all racing to cut each other off was not his idea of a good time.

  Besides, meeting someone at baggage claim was more personal, special. Maybe a little too special, his inner voice whispered. Where Cindy was concerned he’d been ignoring that voice a lot lately.

  After parking his car he made it into the baggage claim area. People hurried here and there, some arriving on business or vacation and others returning home. He had always found airports fascinating. They were filled with people from every walk in life who only shared one common goal and that was to get somewhere. An older gentleman walked by him, leaning heavily on his cane. Jeremiah couldn’t help but wonder if the man realized that the woman who brushed past him was a famous actress, one whose movies he almost assuredly had never seen.

  Jeremiah couldn’t help but chuckle. Airports were an amazing place to people watch. You could tell so much about people just by observing how they navigated through the spaces and handled the stresses of travel.

  He found a monitor that listed the carousel for Cindy’s flight and moved to stand by it. A few minutes later a steady stream of passengers began to fill the space around him, all anxious to find their luggage and leave.

  The conveyor belt began to move and the thud-thud-thud of bags sliding down the chute and onto it started up. Jeremiah stepped a few feet farther away from it to allow more people to claim their bags. He kept eager watch for Cindy.

  Finally the trickle of people coming his way seemed to stop.

  She had probably been one of the last ones off the plane. She might have stopped in the restroom before heading to baggage claim. A couple more minutes passed and he began to feel anxious. He knew he couldn’t have missed her. He also knew that the suitcase she’d had with her when she left was way too large for her to have tried to take it as a carryon. She had to have checked it.

  He pulled out his phone. No missed calls. He tried dialing her phone but it went directly to voicemail.

  “Excuse me,” he said to one of the women standing near him.

  She turned and frowned at him suspiciously.

  “I’m waiting to pick up my friend. I think I’m in the right place. We’re you on flight 439 from Honolulu?”

  “Yes. That’s right. And there’s my bag, so this is the right place,” she said, before moving to retrieve a fuchsia roller bag.

  I’m just being paranoid. There’s a dozen reasons why she might be slow getting down here, he told himself.

  He pulled his phone back out and called her home number. Her roommate, Geanie, answered.

  “Hi, Geanie, it’s Jeremiah.”

  “Hi! Did you pick up Cindy? Did she have a great time?”

  “No, not yet. I’m waiting for her here in baggage claim and she hasn’t shown up yet. She didn’t tell you about any change of plans? She wasn’t changing her flight or having someone else pick her up?”

  “No. I haven’t heard anything from her at all,” Geanie said.

  The warning bells were going off at full volume in his head now. “Okay, if she calls tell her where I am.”

  “Sure. Call me when you find her.”

  He hung up and moved to a white courtesy telephone. A minute later the operator was paging Cindy all over the airport. His stomach twisted in knots as he waited. Finally he had to admit that she wasn’t able to pick up the phone. He went to the service desk and found a plump, spectacled woman with a nametag that said Dorothy on it.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’m picking up my friend and I can’t find her. She’s not answering her phone and I had her paged but no luck.”

  “Well, it can be a rather long walk.”

  He shook his head. “It looks like everyone else from her flight is here. I’m worried. Can you check and tell me if Cindy Preston made the flight? It was 439 from Honolulu.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, I can’t release passenger information. I’m sure she’ll give you a call soon. It’s possible she missed her flight and she’ll be here on the next one tomorrow morning.”

  He passed his hand through his hair, feeling his agitation grow. “If she missed her flight why didn’t she call to let me know?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, sir,” the woman said, her smile slipping. He wanted to press but he could sense that she was about five seconds away from calling a security guard. He cursed under his breath. Ninety-nine percent of all the airport regulations and paranoia did nothing to stop terrorists, they just tormented everyone else.

  He moved away from
the help desk and took another scan of the area. He tried her phone again and again it went straight to voicemail. Finally, he called Mark.

  “Hello?” the detective answered, sounding bone weary.

  “Mark? I need your help. It’s Jeremiah.”

  “I got that much from the caller id. What’s going on?”

  “I’m here at LAX. I’m supposed to pick up Cindy and I can’t find her. She’s not answering her phone and Geanie hasn’t heard anything from her.”

  “Maybe her phone battery is dead and you two keep just missing each other.”

  “No, I’ve been waiting here in baggage claim. I would have seen her.”

  “Humor me and check outside to see if she’s waiting on the curb for you to drive by.”

  Jeremiah ground his teeth but turned and strode out the nearest door. He looked up and down the sidewalk.

  “No, she’s not out here.”

  “Maybe she missed her flight. Maybe she had someone else pick her up.”

  “No!” Jeremiah said, simultaneously rejecting both proposals with more vehemence than he had intended.

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Something I should know about?” Mark asked.

  And even though the question infuriated him, Jeremiah couldn’t help but notice that Mark must be doing better. He was getting his obnoxious sense of humor back.

  “I’m supposed to pick her up. If she had missed her flight I’d think she would have called if she could have. I tried talking to someone at the airline but they refuse to tell me whether or not she actually got on board the plane.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Mark asked, sounding slightly bewildered.

  “I want you to help me find her!” Jeremiah roared.

  There was a pause. “Okay, I think you just need to take a deep breath and calm down. Cindy’s a big girl. Maybe you got your wires crossed and it’s the wrong day or she took a taxi.”

  Jeremiah closed his eyes and prayed for the patience not to kill someone. “Mark, I have a very bad feeling about this. Can you please find out if she was on that plane?”

  “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m suspended. And if I get caught trying to play the cop card-”

  “Ask someone else to do it. Surely someone at the department owes you a favor.”

  “You’re serious about this,” Mark said, starting to sound worried himself.

  “When it comes to Cindy not being where she’s supposed to be I’m always serious,” Jeremiah said.

  It was Mark’s turn to swear. “You’re right. Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll call you back.”

  Jeremiah paced while he waited. The area around the carousel cleared out and there was no one left. One single black bag circled lonely and he double-checked to make sure it wasn’t hers. Finally the conveyor belt stopped.

  When his phone rang he practically shouted hello as he accepted the call. “Jeremiah,” Mark said, his voice stressed. “I was able to verify that Cindy had a ticket for the flight but she never showed up. The airline doesn’t have a record of her changing the ticket and no airlines have her leaving Hawaii on any other flights.”

  Jeremiah stood, mind racing. If she wasn’t scheduled on another flight then it wasn’t something so simple as her missing her flight.

  “Hello? Can you hear me?” Mark asked. “Jeremiah?”

  “I’m going to call her hotel. You start calling hospitals,” Jeremiah said.

  And for a wonder Mark didn’t argue with him. Jeremiah pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket that had all Cindy’s trip information on it. He found the hotel phone number and called it.

  As it rang he realized that his hands were shaking. How many people from his past would be amazed to see that? He stared at his left hand. I’m in shock, he realized. He knew he was jumping to conclusions, that he should calm himself down.

  But he couldn’t. Because it was Cindy. And deep down in his gut he knew she was in trouble.

  8

  “No!” Cindy gasped as she realized the implications of what the yacht owner had just said. She spun and lunged for the railing. If she could make it back in the water she had a chance to escape.

  An iron hand clamped down on her shoulder and yanked backward hard enough to sweep her off her feet. She landed on her back with enough force to jar every bone in her body and her teeth snapped together.

  She needed to get back up but her head was spinning. When she looked up the man’s face floated in her vision.

  “I’m afraid, my dear, you’re out of the frying pan and in the fire, so to speak. I gave that idiot orders to kill you after he recovered our property from you.”

  Belatedly she realized he was the shouting man she’d heard when she first came to in the hull of the other boat. She heard pounding feet and a minute later her kidnapper was standing over her as well.

  “Sorry, Boss.”

  “What happened over there?” the other man demanded.

  “Nothing. I took care of it.”

  “Like you took care of her? Not good enough. Tell me everything.”

  “That guy came out of nowhere. I don’t know how he knew I was here. He thinks I owe him--”

  The yacht owner raised a hand. “Spare me your tales of financial woe. Did you kill him?”

  Her kidnapper nodded.

  “Great, so you’re going to have to clean that up, too.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Boss, I can handle it.”

  “No, if you could handle it, it would already be handled. Now just shut up and stand there and don’t shoot off your mouth or your gun until I tell you.”

  He turned to Cindy.

  “You have posed more of a problem than I would have thought,” he said, almost conversationally.

  “Who are you?” Cindy asked, struggling to understand what was happening to her.

  He smiled at her. “You can call me Mr. Black, and this,” he said, indicating the other man, “is my associate.”

  “That sounds like a fake name,” she blurted out, not knowing what else to say.

  “It’s as real a name as you’re going to get, sweetheart. Now, let’s talk about what you have and how you’re going to give it to me.”

  “That’s the problem, I have no idea what anyone’s talking about.”

  “Okay, I’ll play along, for a while. Uncle, you remember him?”

  She blinked at him. “The dead restaurant owner?”

  “Yes, that Uncle. Very good. See, I knew you were a smart girl. So, let’s talk about Uncle.”

  “I found his body. I went to his restaurant for lunch and there was no one there and the cash register was open and it all just seemed weird. I went into the kitchen and found his body and then I called the police.”

  “Of course you did. Smart. Nice job posing as the innocent bystander by the way, couldn’t have done better myself. Clever girl. Now be a clever girl and give me what I want.”

  “I wasn’t posing!” she half-yelled, desperate to make him understand.

  “Save it for someone who believes it. When you found Uncle dead, what did you do with it?”

  “Do with what?” she asked, choking on a sob. This was stupid. Why wouldn’t someone just tell her what they were looking for? She swallowed hard. Mr. Black had told the other guy to kill her when he got what he wanted. If they knew for sure she didn’t have what they wanted wouldn’t they go ahead and kill her anyway?

  She struggled, trying to figure out what to do, what to say that wouldn’t get her shot.

  “Come on. It wasn’t in your room. You clearly hid it somewhere. Just be a good girl and tell me where.”

  “Why should I if you’re just going to kill me?” she asked, stalling for time to think.

  And then she heard a siren in the distance. Police! They must have been called because someone heard the gunshots. Her heart leapt.

  “This is what happens when you get sloppy,” Mr. Black said, turning to glare at his associate. “Now, go clean up the mess on th
e other boat before they search it.”

  “But the girl-”

  “Leave her to me,” Mr. Black said. He ducked inside the cabin for a moment and then came back out with what looked like a pillowcase. She stared at him in shock, wondering what he intended to do with it. As he moved toward her head she understood. He meant to blindfold her. That meant that not only would she not be able to see where he was taking her but also that she wouldn’t be able to watch to see what new dangers were coming her way.

  The man who had kidnapped her leered at her, his eyes sullen. As Mr. Black moved the cloth close to her head she smelled something pungent.

  “Please, don’t blindfold me again. I’ll be good.”

  “Oh, you won’t be giving me any trouble.”

  He put the pillowcase over her head. She sucked in air to scream.

  And her world went black again.

  ~

  Jeremiah hung up. A woman at the front desk of the hotel Cindy was staying at had just informed him that she’d never checked out that day. He began moving, heading for the ticketing counters even as he called Marie.

  “Hello?” his secretary answered.

  “It’s Jeremiah. I’ve got a bit of a...family emergency.” He winced. He knew his secretary didn’t like Cindy and didn’t approve of the time he spent with her. He was in no mood for a lecture now.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked, alarm clear in her voice.

  “I don’t know yet. I’m getting on a plane. Can you please take care of Captain for a couple of days? I’ve got a spare house key in my desk with the pens.”

  “Of course. What else can I do to help?”

  “Cancel all my appointments for the rest of the week. I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”

  “All right. The gentleman who’s coming in to meet with you tomorrow hasn’t given us any contact info, though.”

  Jeremiah shook his head. Otto wouldn’t be happy, but there was nothing he could do about it at the moment.

  “Then give him my apologies and get it from him. Try to reschedule him for next week. He’s bringing something for me, if he leaves it just put it in my office.”

  “You’ve got it.”