James 1: 12.
Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
Kate went upstairs to her bedroom and got the handgun she kept in a small gun safe under her night stand by her bed. She made sure it was loaded, flipped the safety off, and started a slow sweep of her house. It took over half an hour, but when she was confident she was alone, and that no one but Helen had been in her home, she felt safe enough to set the gun down on her coffee table and call someone.
The only person she could think to call was her boss, David Harper. David had been with WITSEC for some time, and he had been the only boss Kate had known there, even though she was going on her sixth year. She had started right out of college, after graduating with a Masters in Law Enforcement.
David answered on the second ring. “Hey, I didn’t think I’d hear from you for two weeks,” he said as soon as he answered.
“I got something weird here,” she said, and the tone was serious.
“What is it?”
“Something with my mail. A plain, white envelope, and inside were five pictures of me.”
“What do you mean, pictures of you?”
Kate looked at the photos again, and then shuddered. “Just pictures of me, one leaving a hotel, one pulling out of a fast food place in my car.”
“That’s odd.”
“Yes, I know,” Kate said.
“I can send someone if you want. I could get hold of the police out there.” David lived in Texas. Kate hadn’t seen him in a while, but she spoke with him once a week. The life of a WITSEC agent was a lonely one, but Kate had always thought of David as a father figure.
“Kate, are you there?” David asked. “Would you rather leave?”
“No, I want to stay,” she said. “We don’t need to bother the police.”
“Don’t be a dumb kid,” David said, and she didn’t take offense. It was simply how he had always spoken to her. “I’ll call someone; they’ll send someone out.”
“Okay,” Kate said. “Thanks.”
“All right, let me call them. We need to figure out who did this, and why.”
“Okay. Thanks, David.”
Kate hung up. She moved to the kitchen and pulled open her fridge. Helen knew when Kate was back each time, and she always went to the grocery store so Kate had a few things before she could get there herself. Really, Helen was a life saver.
Kate pulled a bottle of water from the fridge and opened it, drinking half. She was going to make a sandwich, but then she thought once more of Helen and felt ashamed. This odd thing had come in the mail for her, the mail Helen always brought in, and Kate was only now thinking to go and thank her thoughtful, elderly neighbor.
Helen pulled the door open after Kate knocked, and she smiled, even though she was in her nightgown and had obviously been sleeping.
“Hello, dear,” Helen said. “Do you want to come in?”
Kate shook her head. “Sorry, you were sleeping. I just wanted to thank you for everything. I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Well, it’s not your fault; a young person like you wouldn’t know us old folk are in bed by eight.”
Kate laughed, and then she got serious. “Is everything okay? Was everything all right while I was gone?”
The old woman nodded slowly. “Yes, of course. Why? Is something wrong?”
“I got a weird piece of mail.”
Helen’s eyes widened. “The envelope,” she said. “There was nothing on it. Yes, I thought it was weird.”
“It had pictures of me in it, pictures I didn’t know someone had taken.”
“That’s horrible!” Helen’s hand flew to her mouth.
“The police are coming, but I wanted to check on you.”
“I’m fine, really. Do you want to stay here tonight?”
Kate thought for a minute. She hadn’t wanted to flee her home, but she was concerned. She nodded after a moment. “That would be great.”
“I have a guest room all set up. If you need to go home and get anything, I can go with you.”
“No, that’s okay, let me go get a few things, and wait for the police, and then after I talk to them, I’ll be over.”
The older woman nodded. “I’ll be waiting. I’ll make a pot of coffee if you want.”
“No, that’s okay; please don’t go to the trouble.”
“Well, I made some coffee cake today, and you can’t have it without coffee, can you?”
Kate laughed. “Your coffee cake is so good, Helen; you’d better put a pot of coffee on I guess. Thanks.”
Kate returned to her house in the darkness and turned on the light of every room she entered. She took her gun and tucked it into the back of her jeans, and then packed a small bag with her pajamas and her toothbrush and toothpaste. She took it downstairs and made that sandwich after all, which she ate hurriedly on the couch in the light of the lamp beside her and the blue haze of the television that was still on. Within a few minutes of finishing the sandwich, there was a knock on her door. She pulled it open, to see two police officers standing there, with two squad cars parked at her curb in front of the house.
“Marshal Kate Briggs?” one of the cops asked. They were young guys, both with brown hair peeking out from under their caps, but while one had dark eyes, the other’s were bright blue.
“Yes,” Kate said.
“I’m Officer Coy,” the one with the blue eyes said. “This is Officer Landis.”
Kate stood aside. “Come in, both of you.”
For the next fifteen minutes, Kate told them about coming home and finding the envelope.
“Well, we can keep someone out here all night,” Landis said. “We’ll come by in shifts, have someone at your curb the whole night. Meanwhile, we’ll take those pictures and see if we get any prints off them.”
Kate nodded and rose, and the cops did as well. She got the pictures, handed them to Coy, and he dropped them in a plastic baggy. “I’m staying with my neighbor, if it makes a difference,” Kate said to the cops as they left.
“No problem. Having us out here will certainly deter anyone anyway, but it’s probably good if you’re not here for a night or two.”
As soon as the police left, Kate took her bag and turned off the television. She then shut and locked her door and went over to Helen’s. They had coffee and cake for an hour or so, and then both women headed for bed.
Kate lay on Helen’s comfortable guest bed, looking up at the off-white, stucco ceiling. There was a shaft of blue moonlight coming through the window next to the bed and it ran across the blanket and over to the far wall. Kate turned her head to focus on it.
After trying to sleep for some time, Kate finally accepted that she wouldn’t be able to. She got up quietly and crept downstairs for one more small piece of coffee cake. She ate it at the kitchen sink and then went out into the living room. She peeked out of the bay window there just in time to see Officer Cody returning to his vehicle after a walk around her home. He climbed in, sat behind the wheel, and then the dome light went out in his car and it was hard for Kate to see him.
She went back upstairs and used the restroom, killing fifteen minutes in there flipping through a three year old Good Housekeeping magazine that was sitting on top of even older periodicals in a wicker basket near the toilet.
Kate stole a glance at her house through the guest bedroom window, and what she saw froze her in her tracks. The window looked out toward the side of her house, and into her own bedroom. There in the bedroom, was a sweeping shaft of yellow light. It was someone walking with a flashlight.