Fiancé by Friday

With one side of her mouth curled up, she found a double mat to place in the bottom of a tent and added it to their supplies.

“I want a campfire.” Cozy firelight and Neil? What could be better?

For a moment, she thought he’d veto her suggestion.

Then he added a bag of marshmallows to the cart.

In silence, they moved through the store. She added sweatshirts for both of them. His was triple extra large and hers a medium…both with a picture of the Colorado Rockies on them. Neil added a small pan and several cans of pull top food, soda, instant coffee, and water.

The clerk at the checkout chatted as he rang them up. “Looks like you guys are going camping?”

Gwen smiled, and remembered to stay silent.

“Looks that way,” Neil said.

“You have bug repellant?”

“We’re good.”

“We try and go a few times a summer.” The clerk looked beyond Neil to her. “Where you headed?”

Gwen noticed the muscles on the back of Neil’s neck tense. “We’ll figure it out when we get up there.”

“Those are the best trips.” The kid told them the total and bagged up their purchases.

“Have fun.”

Neil grabbed the bags. “We will.”

Gwen offered a smile and followed him out the door.

Once in the car she finally felt like she could talk. “Next time you go through the checkout without me. Who knew staying quiet could be so difficult? Not sure how you do it all the time.”

He opened the door for her. “Practice.”

As the road stretched out in front of them, so did the silence. And Gwen wanted a few answers.

“So how much longer are we going to go on like this?”

Neil narrowed his eyes. “Like what?”

“On the road…cheap hotels, and now I need to add camping. How many more days like this?”

“Not much longer.”

“That’s not an answer, Neil.”

“Three, maybe four days.”

That didn’t seem like that long of a time. “Then what?”

“I take you someplace safe.”

“Where will you be? Someplace unsafe?”

Gwen could see him shutting himself off from her. In an effort to bring back his smile, she placed her hand on his thigh. “Why don’t we both go to where it’s safe? Let the police handle whoever killed my neighbors. You do think they were murdered, don’t you?”

“I know they were.”

“How?”

Neil moved around a large semi truck having a hard time going up the steep grade into the Colorado Rockies.

“How, Neil?”

“I just know. You’ll have to trust me.”

“You think I don’t? I’d think after last night, you’d know just how much I trust you.” She kept her eyes on him even though his were on the road. “I’m not a child. I’ve gone along for the ride without too many questions at all. We can both agree to that, right?”

He nodded. Said nothing.

“How is it you know they were murdered and it wasn’t just an accident?”

Neil hesitated before he answered. “The ravens. My l-last mission in the service was code named Raven. The dead birds you found were meant to taunt me.”

“How does a dead bird next to my car taunt you?”

“Our guy’s a coward. He uses women to get to the men.”

“So when I didn’t tell you about the dead birds, our guy as you call him, made sure you knew he was causing the problems?” She didn’t want to think of a murderer as our guy.

“Exactly. He knew I’d take action.”

“How many people knew about your Raven mission?”

Neil stretched his neck as he drove. Gwen knew she was pulling this information from him, that it didn’t come freely. Now that she had him talking she wasn’t about to let up. It might be the only time she learned anything.

“Very few. It was a covert mission. We were an elite group.”

“How many men were in your company?”

“Seven.”

She rubbed her forehead and tried to see what Neil did. “Six men went on the mission with you. How many others knew you were there?”

“A dozen…maybe less. The bigger the secret, the less people know about it.”

“So it isn’t likely you can ask your government to step in and help.”

“The general rank and file of the government knows nothing about Raven. The secretary of defense, the president…one or two who answer directly to them, and that’s it.”

“Do you think one of the other six men are behind this?”

Neil glanced at her briefly for the first time in their conversation. A flash of pain met his eyes. “There are only three of us left.”

Gwen’s heart leapt. “Oh, Neil…I’m sorry.”

“It happened a long time ago.”

“That doesn’t make it easier. They were your friends.”

He nodded. “The best. Four of us made it out alive. One recently…died.”

“You don’t think that one of your friends did this…do you?”

Neil snorted. “That’s like asking if you think Blake is capable of killing you.”

“That’s preposterous.”

“Exactly.”

“I’ve read my share of novels,” Gwen said. “And it seems the hero is always trying to get into the head of the killer. What is motivating this guy? Why is he after you? Was there something about the mission you knew and the others didn’t?”

“I led the mission. But we all knew our goal.”

“Maybe someone is seeking revenge from the mission itself.” Part of her wanted to ask what the mission was, and then she remembered Neil’s restless night. Perhaps she was better off not knowing all the details.

Neil shook his head. “Raven was a person. And he’s dead.”

The conviction behind his words convinced her that he knew this fact because he’d seen it with his own eyes.

“Did Raven have a brother?”

Neil’s jaw tightened. “He might have.”

Yet her logic didn’t make much sense either. “Of course, if Raven had a brother, how could he know about the code name? I assume Raven wasn’t the man’s real name.”

“It wasn’t.”

“If someone is seeking revenge for Raven…and it’s not directed solely at you, then your remaining colleagues might be at risk, too. Perhaps you should call and warn them.”