Joshua 1: 9.
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain.
Don’t use any curse words.
Don’t say anything prideful.
Don’t wear make-up, or cut your hair.
No mirrors are allowed.
Be humble, quiet, and modest.
U.S. Marshal, Kate Briggs, sat on the edge of the bed in the small room, and rubbed her temples. Her head was spinning from the crash course on how to be seen as Amish that the bishop and his wife had just given her.
The last few days had been crazy. She had never met an Amish person until today, and now she had to pretend to be one.
Kate thought back to how it all started, less than forty-eight hours ago.
* * *
Kate shook hands with Charlie and then stood just beyond the front door of the small town diner in which they had lunch. She watched him walk to his car, get in, and drive off. Her own car was closer, and she made her way to it. She did not start it right after climbing behind the wheel; instead she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was only two hundred or so miles from home, and it was going to be the first night she had spent in her own bed in three long months.
Kate’s job kept her on the road, traveling from small town to small town, checking in on people in the FBI Witness Protection Program. It was known to many simply as WITSEC, and she really did like her job, even if it was demanding sometimes. It was hard for her to have many friends back home, and she had been raised in so many foster homes that she’d lost count. Kate was a loner, and she preferred it that way.
Charlie and the rest of her charges were the closest relationships she had, and she only spoke with them a couple of times a year. She liked Charlie. He was an older guy with thinning, gray hair and a severe, hawk-like nose. He was Italian, and had once had some sort of mafia nickname. He was indeed a mobster, up until the leader of his family got it into his head that Charlie was an informer. At the time Charlie actually wasn’t an informer, but when his own guys came after him, he decided to turn pretty quickly. He got in contact with the feds, sold a few guys up the river, and now he lived in a small town of a little over a thousand people in Idaho.
And there were people similar, people with whom Kate spoke as she traveled across the Midwest. Now, finally, it was time to go home. She had two weeks off, and she was beside herself with excitement. She turned the key in the ignition, and the engine of her car turned over, roaring to life. She hurried and got onto the highway.
It was early evening when Kate pulled into her driveway, the sun falling steadily on the horizon, the sky growing dark. There were white wisps of thin clouds, but otherwise it was going to be a beautiful night, and the sky reflected that. She stepped out of the car and paused, letting the soft breeze blow the ends of her hair about her shoulders.
Kate lived in a small subdivision of cookie cutter houses just outside a small town in Wyoming. It was quiet, and she liked it that way, having grown up in the hustle and bustle of Chicago. She didn’t miss the noise and the crushing crowds, and while winters could get bad in her town, they were nothing compared to Chicago.
Kate unlocked the front door and locked it behind her, before kicking off her shoes and moving into her living room. She flopped down onto her back on her couch, closing her eyes for a moment, debating whether she should sleep right there for the night. But no, the draw of her soft bed was too much to ignore. She opened her eyes and sat up, reaching for the TV remote on the coffee table in front of her. She turned the TV on, and then stood, knowing she should go lug her suitcase from her trunk, but then decided it could wait until tomorrow.
Kate went into her kitchen and looked at the pile of mail on the counter there, next to the toaster. Her neighbor was an older widower named Helen and she had a key to Kate’s house. She would come in, bring the mail a couple times a week, and keep on top of things like dusting, or running the heater every now and then in the winter. She wouldn’t take payment for it, even if Kate had more money than she knew what to do with and Helen was surviving on a small chunk of change every month from social security.
Kate pulled open a few bills, but she did most of her banking online, from whatever hotel room she was in at the time. There were a couple magazines for which she wasn’t sure why she kept renewing her subscription, and then something else caught her eye. A plain, white envelope with nothing written on it. Kate quickly put together than it hadn’t been delivered in the mail. No, someone would have had to put it in her mailbox in person, and Helen had brought it in with the actual mail.
Kate opened the envelope and pulled out a stack of about five photographs. She turned them over and almost dropped them. The very first picture was a picture of her, sunglasses on, leaving a hotel in the morning. There was a small date written in digital orange font in the corner of the picture, indicating that the picture was taken a little more than a month ago. Every other picture was similar: Kate during her daily routine, out on her state-wide, slow moving tour. She personally met with over a hundred people in witness protection each year. It had been crazy for her to find out that there were so many people in the program. But it wasn’t as crazy as getting an envelope of pictures of herself.