Page 52 of Wait for Me

“You’re quitting what?”

“My job.”

“Which one? Your translator job or the one you can’t talk about?”

“They’re the sa—I can’t tell you.”

“Were you trying to tell me they were thesamejob?”

Marie didn’t respond.

“See what I mean?” Logan threw up his arms. “This is why we fought and argued a lot. You know me, but I don’t know you.”

“There’s not a lot I can tell you, truly.”

“Tell me enough inasmuch as it concerns Jonas. We will cross the other bridges after you retire—or quit—from whatever it is you’ve been doing behind my back for the last six years.”

Marie closed her eyes. “I can tell you this much. Until two years ago, I translated for the State Department. While traveling around the Middle East, I was also their eyes and ears in meetings and conferences.”

Eyes and ears?

Like a spy?

Logan didn’t say a word but he was wondering how he never knew that Marie had been a spy. Still, she hadn’t come right out and say it until now.

Eyes and ears.

Logan shook his head. “Was it dangerous?”

“Not if you’re trained.”

The other shoe dropped.

“Trained? So you’re not just a translator?”

“Many ordinary people in various professions are sometimes called to help the government in times of war. You know that back in the World War II era, even Julia Child—the world-renowned chef—was asked to listen in.”

“Are we at war, Marie?”

Marie shrugged. “We’re always at war. The point is, I was in the middle of an assignment, when your bungling PI waltzed in, brandishing photos of our son and me to everyone.”

Logan’s heart dropped. “I put you in danger.”

“Yes, you did. I was reassigned after that, but the enemies went to Atlanta to track down the boy in the photo.”

“Our son. I put our son in danger.”

Marie stopped him from berating himself. “I paid Espy to send someone from Mendenhall Security to Atlanta to keep an eye on Jonas.”

“I had no idea.” Logan drew a deep breath. “It must have cost a fortune.”

“What is the price of our son’s head?”

Logan was taken aback by the question.

Marie sat down. “The good news was that after nine months, we—they—caught the bad guys, and so Jonas wasn’t in danger anymore at that time.”

Logan left the sofa. He sat down on the carpet in front of Marie’s armchair. “I wish you had told me. We could have dealt with it together.”

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