Page 70 of Look for Me

She was gone.

Chapter Thirty

Four long months had passed since Martin returned to Savannah, back to work. Dad questioned how his Shelby was messed up, and all Martin could say was he had been in a fender bender outside Key Largo. Everything else had to be kept a secret.

“Did you see Corinne?” Everyone asked, from Dad to his wife to Tina to her husband. “Where is she now? Has she ghosted you again?”

“Stop asking me about her.” And that was the end of it.

He didn’t want to think about Key Largo, about the love lost, love found, and love lost again.

Yet he knew now, more than ever, that he loved Corinne. No matter what she had gone through, the blood of Christ had cleansed her sins from her—past, present, and future.

He would have to surrender her to God. There was no other way.

He couldn’t call up the FBI hotline and ask for Agent Tanaka.

The only hotline he had was to God’s ears. He prayed in the Name of Jesus Christ that God would protect Corinne, Dahlia, and the new baby.

He prayed that God would bless them and keep them safe and draw them close to His heart.

He prayed that God would fill Corinne’s heart with eternal love, endless peace, and everlasting joy—all found in Jesus Christ.

Still, Martin wondered how she was doing. She was probably three months along now. Six more months and the baby would be born.

Martin decided that he would sell his 1966 Shelby to Dad, and put the money aside for Corinne and her children. If she didn’t need it now, she could keep it for their college funding in the future. He had no idea how he was going to let her know or give the money to her, but maybe Pete and Angelina could help later on.

He wondered what else he could do. He would give up his career if it meant he could see Corinne again. He would give up the whole world for her.

Then again, he had no idea what was happening with Corinne now. Was she still in hiding? In a safe house somewhere? In WITSEC? Helping Agent Tanaka?

Or perhaps, had she married and moved on?

Maybe she could if she didn’t love him as much. However, Martin knew he couldn’t move on.

He would be a bachelor for the rest of his life.

* * *

Thanksgiving at Mendenhall Retreat was quiet as there weren’t many small children around. In fact, Dahlia was only one of a few children there at their hiding place because they were in danger.

Larina Brannigan, the director of the facility, kept the kids occupied during the week with Bible studies and classes at their grade level. Dahlia was the only three-year-old, but in four months, she was reading books meant for four-year-olds. Needless to say, Corinne was delighted at the progress and forever grateful to Larina.

Every little bit helped. Corinne did some work for the retreat center, helping Larina and her office manager, Phoebe O’Tierney, with some office work. After all, Corinne had been trained as an office manager herself in her previous line of work—back in Savannah when she worked for Martin’s sister at her pottery studio.

By November, Larina increased Corinne’s pay as she filled in for Phoebe, who took two months off to take her children to see her husband’s family in Ireland.

Phoebe had better come home by the end of December because Corinne wouldn’t be able to cover for her any later than that. Baby Liam was due at the end of January.

Corinne didn’t mind working there, but the uncertainty of her future was another reason not to get attached to the place and atmosphere.

The four months of hiding away in this place, without being able to visit the nearby mountain town, was making her feel claustrophobic. She didn’t know how much longer she could take it.

Still, it kept her alive.

Here, nobody would come for her. According to FBI Special Agent Tanaka, she and Dahlia would be safest here.

When pressed, Tanaka divulged that there was a mole inside the FBI that had compromised their informants’ whereabouts, including their transfers to the WITSEC program. Without authority, Tanaka took Corinne off the grid and brought her and Dahlia here, a remote secret retreat on the top of the Great Smoky Mountains at the border of Tennessee and North Carolina.

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