Secret Agent Minister

“Okay.”

Lydia’s heart fell apart with a shattering like little fractured bits of stained glass falling from a window. She stared after him, then she followed him back to the dark truck. She wanted to wake up safe in Dixon. She wanted to get up and drink her two cups of coffee and get dressed and walk down the street to the church, where she’d find various volunteers waiting to help her with her duties there. And she wanted to find Pastor Dev sitting at his desk eating a banana muffin from Aunt Mabel’s diner. He would offer her a bite. She would decline, but she’d bring him an extra cup of coffee to wash it down. She wanted that so much.

She wanted normal back.

And she wanted Pastor Dev back.

They drove over Lake Pontchartrain as the sun was rising behind them. A fine mist of fog rose off the lake, rays of newborn sky filtering through to wash the dawn in bright white-pink light.

“We’ll be safe here,” Pastor Dev said, his voice weak and hoarse from not speaking. Not since his meltdown at the roadside park, at least.

Lydia had honored his need to remain silent. She had some thinking of her own to do. Now she could tell he was trying to reassure her.

“I’m a burden to you, aren’t I?” she asked now. “You’re stuck with me—with protecting me.”

His smile was rusty. “I don’t mind that burden.”

Something inside Lydia deepened and widened at that simple statement. He was that kind of man. He’d gladly carry the burdens of those he loved.

Does he love me? she wondered now, wishing, hoping and praying. Then she told herself to shut up. Don’t be selfish. Please get us out of this, Lord. Keep him safe. That would be enough for a lifetime, Lydia decided.

“I’m sorry you have to watch out for me.”

He looked over at her as they came across the Mississippi River into New Orleans. “Don’t apologize, Lydia. None of this is your fault.”

“It’s not yours, either,” she replied, watching for signs of distress.

But he was back to being Commando Dev now, all business with brusque, curt replies. “Yes, it is. But I don’t have time to explain that right now. I need to brief you.”

Brief her? Lydia accepted that things were probably about to get dicey again. “Go ahead.”

“The safe house—it won’t be all white picket fences and magnolias in a garden.”

She let that soak in, her mind reeling with images of dark, smoke-filled alleyways and double-locked doors. “Keep talking.”

“It’s called Kissie’s Korner. It’s in the Quarter.”

“My mama—”

“Would want you safe,” he finished before she could voice her mother’s disapproval.

“Not in a place like that. It sounds so—”

“Decadent?” he asked with that tight little smile.

She didn’t dare look at him. “Yes.”

“It’s a blues club. Some of the best blues and jazz musicians in the world have passed through Kissie’s place. But that’s just a cover.”

“Uh-huh. So you’re telling me that even though this place sounds like the devil’s playground, it’s really as squeaky clean as a church pew?”

He actually chuckled. “Ah, Lydia, I’m almost glad you’re with me on this.”

That caused her heart to glow just like the dawn all around them, bright and full of hope. “Thanks, I think,” she said to hide that glow. She had to keep reminding herself she did not want to be here. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

“Kissie’s Korner is a very clean place, faithwise. Kissie takes in troubled teens, turns them toward the Lord and sets them on their way. She’s probably saved more teens in her thirty-five years of being an operative than anyone else on the planet.”

“That is mighty respectable.”

“Kissie is a good-hearted woman. She loves the Lord and serves only Him. She doesn’t put up with any bunk, I can tell you.”

“Drunken, rowdy blues players constitute bunk in my book.”

“Kissie doesn’t allow for any of that kind of stuff. Her place is a coffee bar.”

Lydia’s mouth fell open. “Nothing stronger than caffeine? I don’t get it.”

“Neither do the ones who try to pull anything. She boots them out, but they usually come back, begging for redemption. Kissie is that good.”

“Wow.”

“Wow is right,” he said as he steered the truck down a narrow street just on the fringes of the French Quarter near Louis Armstrong Park. Then he parked and glanced around, his eyes doing a recon roll. “We’re here.”

Lydia looked up at the massive house in front of them, a soft gasp of shock shuddering through her body. It looked so old and dilapidated she had to wonder if it had been here since the beginning of time, or at least since the beginning of New Orleans. Two-storied and painted a sweet baby-blue, the house leaned so far to the left, a lush hot-pink bougainvillea vine actually floated out and away from it. The house reminded Lydia of an old woman holding a lacy handkerchief. The tall, narrow windows were surrounded with ancient gray-painted hurricane shutters. Antique wrought-iron tables and chairs filled the lacy balconies and porches. Petunias in various clay pots bloomed with wild abandonment all around the tottering, listing porch, while a magenta-colored hibiscus flared out like a belle’s skirt right by the steps. And a white-lettered sign over the front porch stated Kissie’s in curled, spiraling letters that matched the curling, spiraling mood of the house.

“This is a safe house?”

“Completely safe.” Pastor Dev came around the truck to help Lydia out. “Trust me.”

“Trust you?”

“You will, won’t you, Lydia?”

The way he looked at her, the way he asked that one simple question, made Lydia feel as sideways and unstable as this old house, while the look in his eyes made her want to stand tall and believe in him with all her heart.

“I guess I have to, now, don’t I?”

His smile was as brittle as the peeling paint on the house. “Yes, I’m afraid you do. Because, I have to warn you, this is only the beginning.”

“Oh, great,” Lydia said, using humor to hide her apprehension. “You mean, there’s more ahead?”

“Lots more before it’s over,” he said. “They won’t stop until they find us.”

And this time, he wasn’t smiling.

FIVE

“Get yourself on in here, man, and give Kissie a good and proper hug.”