Authors: Debbie Viguie
He rolled his eyes at her. “You have a dress you wear to funerals. I saw it. At a funeral. That’s not a little, black dress. That’s a tragedy that you wear to appropriately tragic occasions.”
“Ouch.”
“You wanted tactful-”
“I should have called someone else. I get it.”
“Okay, then let’s get down to business. You’ll have to try on a few of them until we get the sense of what works best with your figure.”
“Don’t you already know?” she asked, unable to keep a hint of sarcasm out of her voice.
“I make it a point not to look at other women’s figures. Besides, with the clothes you wear I wouldn’t have been able to guess even if I had been looking.”
She punched him lightly in the shoulder. It was the only appropriate response she could think of. “Don’t hurt my feelings,” she threatened.
“I’m not trying to. I’m just saying that you’ve never been in the business of attracting the opposite sex. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you’re going to need to go at things completely differently than you have been. Fortunately for you Jeremiah is already head over heels about you. A little tweak here and there and he probably won’t be able to keep his hands off you.”
She felt herself flushing all the way to the roots of her hair.
“Don’t worry. I know you’re crazy about him, too. My lips are sealed, though.”
“Thank you. For everything.”
He smiled and patted her on the arm. “You’re welcome. Actually, I should be the one thanking you. I’ve been feeling pretty useless lately and this is great.”
Before she could question him he turned and started pointing to a couple of different racks. “Grab your size and head to the dressing room. I’ll be prowling around. Holler when you’re ready to model.”
Cindy grabbed the dresses he had indicated and headed for the dressing room. She’d never actually modeled clothes for a man before and she felt a little self-conscious as she walked out in the first dress, a halter top with a full but very short skirt.
“Turn for me,” he said.
She did a little turn, feeling even more self-conscious.
“Okay, try the next one,” he said.
She went through four black dresses before he had selected the one he thought she should get. It was form fitting with a sweetheart neckline that she was grateful only revealed the barest hint of cleavage. The shoulder strap mini sleeve things which she wasn’t exactly sure what to call angled outward on her shoulders. It was just shy of being an off-the-shoulder dress. It hugged her waist and hips tight and the skirt ended about three inches above her knee. It was shorter than she was used to, but not so short that she felt uncomfortable.
“There, that is perfection,” Dave declared with a satisfied nod.
She looked down at herself. She looked good, and the dress fit really well, but she wasn’t sure what made it better than a couple of the others. “Can I ask what makes this one sexier than some of the others?”
He nodded. “The neckline for one. The sweetheart neck emphasizes your natural assets. It shows barely any cleavage, just enough so that a guy can’t help but notice, but not enough to make it feel like you’re advertising. Then the angle of the straps emphasizes your collarbones and you have nice ones, along with very feminine shoulders. Form fitting around the hips and waist are great if your stomach is mostly flat which yours is. Finally, the hemline hits you in a perfect spot. If you were taller or shorter it wouldn’t, but where it hits really helps elongate your legs. Guys like to see legs and like to feel that they’re nice and long, but if you have a hemline that’s too high it’s not good. A bit of a tease is always better than a full reveal.”
“And here I assumed guys just wanted us wearing less material all over.”
“Not unless you’re talking about a bathing suit, which we will deal with later. No, sexy elegant is always better than slutty trashy, at least for any type of man you’d want to attract. You need to leave some mystery to yourself when you dress. It’s more tantalizing and it also gets you more respect. I know, it seems counter-intuitive, but it’s true.”
“I feel like I should be taking notes,” she joked.
He nodded. “Maybe so, because I’m going to let you try picking out the next two dresses. We want one that’s white and one that’s red. Then we’ll move on to daywear, swimsuits, all that kind of stuff. We’ll get you some shoes, too.”
“I’m not sure I can afford all this.”
He smiled. “Another one of the reasons why this store is so popular? The prices are cheap enough it will shock you. We’ll work it out, don’t worry.”
It took another two hours but when they were done Cindy had enough clothes for the trip and it didn’t break the bank. She thanked Dave and headed home. As she neared her house she realized that she was singing softly to herself. She smiled. Sometimes all a girl needed was a good shopping spree.
She turned onto her street and a moment later pulled up to her house only to be surprised to see Jeremiah’s car in her driveway. She parked next to him and got out. He wasn’t in the car and he wasn’t on the porch. She could see that the lights were on in her living room, though, and she was pretty sure she had turned them off when she left. Cautiously she approached the front door. It was unlocked.
She opened it.
“Hello?” she called, hesitant to go any further until she knew for sure what she was walking into.
Jeremiah appeared from the kitchen, a frown on his face. “You weren’t picking up your phone,” he said.
“Sorry. I was out shopping and I didn’t hear it. What’s wrong?”
“We need to talk.”
4
Cindy was pretty sure that there was no one on the planet who enjoyed hearing those words ‘we need to talk’. She knew she certainly didn’t feel good after hearing Jeremiah say them.
“Should I sit down?” she asked as she closed the front door.
“Yeah, come in,” he said as though inviting her into his home instead of her own.
“Thanks,” she said drily as she moved into the living room and took a seat on the couch.
Jeremiah stood in front of her, forehead wrinkled in concern. “I worried when you weren’t answering your phone. I let myself in.”
She nodded, not bothering to comment on the fact that he must have picked the lock.
“I could tell that you were busy trying to pack for the trip,” he continued.
“Yeah, sorry, the place is a bit of a mess.”
“It’s okay. Mine’s in a bit of chaos as well.”
She very much doubted that he had the entire contents of his closet strewn around his room, but she refrained from saying that. “Jeremiah, why are you here?”
He took a deep breath. “I realized that we needed to get our stories straight for the retreat and lay some ground rules before we get there.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, relaxing somewhat. “So, where do you want to start?”
“Well, they’ll likely ask us personal questions and we should be on the same page and remember what we’re saying so it doesn’t throw up any red flags. We are there undercover after all, and we don’t want that cover blown.”
She nodded as she realized that he must be used to doing undercover work. She hadn’t even really given much thought to what backstory they were going to give to the people at the retreat center. Once he said something, though, she realized that it would be important to have a consistent story.
“So, how long have we been together?” he asked.
She felt her breath catch slightly in her throat. “You tell me.”
“Okay. We’ve known each other for about two years, but we got serious over the summer.”
“That should be easy enough to remember,” she said drily.
“Obviously there are some issues we’re working through in our relationship. We both have different religions for one and that’s hard on us and our families.”
“That would be an understatement on the part of your family, at least.”
“Exactly. The key to a successful cover story is weaving just enough fact in there to make it believable and to help you keep it straight. I had Mark register us as Cindy Prescott and Jeremiah Goldsmith. We keep our own first names.”
“Well, one of us does at least,” she said, alluding to the fact that Jeremiah was already a false name.
He ignored her comment and continued. “We’re from northern California, Castro Valley in the Bay Area. It’s small enough that not all southern Californians have heard of it. We’re coming down here because we wanted to get away from family, friends, jobs, everything so we could just focus on us.”
“And why are we focusing on just us? Why do we need a couples’ retreat?”
“Obviously there’s been a lot of stress, pressure, cultural differences. We’re needing a retreat so we can figure out if this is going to work between us.”
Again she felt her breath catch in her throat. Was that part of the cover story or the truth? Then again, as he had told her, good cover stories had as much of the truth in them as possible.
“Sounds reasonable,” she forced herself to say. She hesitated a moment then continued on. “Just how physical are we as a couple? I mean, that’s bound to come up.”
He frowned as though thinking. “Not very. I mean we hold hands and kiss, but not a whole lot and certainly nothing more.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re religious, obviously.”
“And you’re not?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, of course, but it’s usually more realistic for the girl to dictate the level of intimacy in these things.”
“Is it?” she asked.
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“Oh, just asking. I wouldn’t know, you see. I’ve never had a serious relationship before.”
“That’s good. We’ll leave that in. It can help with some of the conflicted emotions we’ll be there to work through.”
Cindy stared at him wondering if he was an idiot or just pretending to be an idiot. As no answer seemed forthcoming she asked a new question. “What are we planning on naming our kids if things go that way? Most serious couples talk about things like that. At least, I assume they do.”
“We don’t talk about that.”
“Then maybe one of us is less serious than the other and having commitment issues.”
“Let’s try not to get too complicated with our cover stories. We need things that are easy to remember. The more we bog down with details the more likely one of us is to slip up.”
And from the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes she was pretty sure she knew which one of them he was worried was going to slip up.
“Okay, keeping it simple,” she said.
“Excellent.”
“Now that we’ve got that sorted out, do we have a plan for finding this missing friend of the captain’s?”
“We’ll have to keep our eyes and ears open, obviously, for anything suspicious. When we have a chance to slip away unobserved we can do some snooping around, maybe even break into the office and check for any records on him or his stay. Hopefully we can get a member of the staff to talk as well, start with a casual name dropping, and see where that leads us.
Casual. Cindy had a feeling that there was going to be absolutely nothing casual about this trip, including the “casual” daywear Dave had helped her pick out.
As if reading her mind he suddenly asked, “What were you shopping for?”
“Oh, you know, toiletries and such. A few things for the trip,” she said quickly, not wanting to give away the surprise. Fortunately, she’d left her bags in the trunk.
“Okay. Are you sure you’re up to this? With everything that’s happened...and I know undercover work is hard even for those trained for it.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, trying to put as much confidence into her voice as possible.
“Good. Do you have any questions?”
“Yes, actually, I’ve had something I wanted to ask you all day.”
“What is it?”
“What was going on when I came into the office and you said Marie said you should think about marrying me?”
“Oh, that. She was expressing concern about me and the fact that I haven’t found a nice Jewish woman to settle down with. She asked me to give serious consideration to marrying the next single woman who walked into the office.”
“And that just happened to be me?”
“Yes. Crazy, isn’t it?”
That wasn’t the word she would have chosen, but she was willing to let it go.
“Is there anything else we need to discuss?” she asked, feeling suddenly very, very tired.
Jeremiah was worried. He wasn’t sure Cindy realized the full extent of the potential danger they were walking into. A man was missing and once they were at the retreat center they would be effectively cut off from the outside world and help. Maintaining a cover for a couple of hours or a day was one thing. Maintaining a cover for a week while under relentless scrutiny from people whose sole job was to work with couples and help them improve their relationship was another thing entirely. If they weren’t careful they could be found out in a heartbeat. Until they’d had a chance to do some investigating, they’d have no idea who might be involved. There would be no one to trust, no opportunity to let their guard down.
“Are you okay?” Cindy asked.
“Yes. I’m just concerned about the risk we’re taking.”
“It will be fine. We’ve been in so many worse situations.”
He wasn’t sure if she actually believed that or if she was just trying to be upbeat.
“Cindy. This is going to be dangerous. We don’t have to do this. We can tell Mark that we’ve changed our minds.”
She shook her head. “We owe it to Mark. Besides a guy is missing and maybe we can help find him before he ends up dead.”
Jeremiah very much doubted that. It was difficult to keep a grown man prisoner for any length of time without proper facilities and personnel to pull it off. It was dangerous, too, as there was always risk of discovery. No, he was pretty sure that whatever had happened to the man, he was already dead. The best they could hope to do was find out why and see the killer brought to justice.
Cindy was looking tired and frustrated. She was also distracted. She probably wanted to finish packing without him around getting in the way.
“Is there anything I can do to help you get ready?” he asked, guessing that she would say “no”.
“You’ve already done more than enough,” she said with a tight smile.
“Okay, I’ll see you in the morning then. Call if you need anything.”
“Okay.”
He left. Cindy was acting a bit odd, but he didn’t have time to worry about that right now. He had to go home and figure out exactly what he should pack. A gun, as much as he wanted to bring one, was probably out of the question. Here he was just a regular citizen, even if he was being sent in undercover somewhere.
He toyed with the possibility of getting a concealed weapons permit, but that would not help him fly under the radar. Just because the people closest to him knew his secret didn’t mean he wasn’t still essentially hiding his true identity and attempting to do so for the rest of his life. He sighed. Why did things have to be so complicated?
After Jeremiah drove off Cindy got her bags out of her trunk. She threw what she could in the washing machine and went into her bedroom to grab her suitcase. It really did look like a bomb had gone off in the room and she stared for a moment, disgusted, as she thought about how much work it was going to be to put it all back, particularly since none of it was going with her.
Suddenly the pile of clothes on the bed moved. Cindy backpedaled quickly, heart pounding as someone or something seemed to be rising from their hiding place.
Cindy felt an intense surge of relief as a tiny black head popped out of the pile of clothes. Sleepy yellow eyes blinked at her.
“Blackie! How long have you been in there?”
The kitten yawned and stretched before sauntering over to her. She shouldn’t have been surprised. He loved to tunnel under anything and everything he possibly could. She sat down on top of the pile of clothes and he climbed into her lap, purring his heart out.
“You’re going to get to stay with Aunt Geanie and Uncle Joseph for a few days,” she told him. “Aunt Geanie will pick you up after work tomorrow.”
She had to feel a little sorry for Geanie and Joseph. They had somehow become the go-to babysitters for all the kids and pets in their little circle. At least they didn’t seem to mind. Jeremiah’s dog would be going there, too. Captain and Blackie had become good friends. The big German Shepherd seemed to think that the tiny kitten was his responsibility. Joseph’s poodle was so well-mannered that she had no more than sniffed Blackie once when they were first introduced and then promptly ignored the mischievous kitten. So, no worries there. Cindy did have one other concern, though.
“Just don’t get lost in their big house and make everyone have to go look for you,” Cindy admonished.
Blackie closed his eyes, clearly making no promises.
The next couple days sped by and Cindy woke Monday morning with butterflies in her stomach. She was far more nervous than she had thought she would be. She put on a new white pencil skirt that was shorter than the little black dress and paired it with a sleeveless, pink blouse of raw silk. She slid on a new pair of pink pumps. After fluffing her hair and putting on some make-up she squared her shoulders as she faced herself in the mirror.
“You can do this,” she told her reflection. “Find the bad guys, save the day, wow the guy. You totally can do this.”
She heard a car pull up outside. That would be Mark come to pick her up. She took a deep breath, walked into the family room, grabbed her bags and headed out.
Jeremiah was already in the backseat and she hesitated.
“Love birds sit together in the back,” Mark said as he helped her put her luggage in the trunk. “Just pretend I’m your chauffer.”
“Should we call you James?” she asked, smirking.
“Do and I’ll turn this car right around,” he threatened.
Moments later she was in the backseat. Jeremiah quietly reached out and grabbed her hand, surprising her slightly. She gave it a squeeze, expecting him to let go, but he held on.
“New outfit?” he asked.
“Yes, do you like it?”
“It’s very nice.”
They were on the road in a minute.
“Okay, my captain’s friend who went missing was named Malcolm Griffith. Here’s a picture,” Mark said, passing a photograph back to them.