Code name: Osprey

“Goodbye,” he whispered just before he kissed her dry cracked lips.

“I’ll come back for you.”

He turned away, pulling the bill of his hat down lower on his forehead and tucking stray hairs up under its sides. 

The door clicked shut behind him. 

***

A day earlier:

“We have to go… NOW!”

“What’s the rush? I don’t have to be to work for another hour.”

“You’re not going to work today.”

“What are you talking about? Are you feeling, okay? You look a little pale”

“No time to talk, our lives are in danger,” he said grabbing her wrist as he pulled her out the door.

The muffin in her opposite hand fell out of her grasp and crumbled across the floor upon impact. 

“If I don’t make it I left a note...”

A note?

He deposited her into the passenger side of the car as he ran around to the driver’s side and dropped inside. 

She wanted to ask what he was talking about, needed to figure out what was going on, but nothing came out when she opened her mouth. Water, she needed water, her throat felt like she had swallowed half a beach worth of sand. 

“I..I..I.” just as words started to form in her mouth, she was drowned out by sirens. 

Sirens. Getting louder and louder. Red and blue lights reflected in the rearview mirror. Cops.

What had my husband done?

Their car accelerated, and she had to grip the door to keep from crashing into the dash. 

“Hold on,” he said, reaching his right hand across her chest protectively as his left gripped the wheel tightly, as he jerked the wheel in her direction. 

Her eyes darted between the side mirror and the front windshield. 

“The bridge!” She screamed. 

Up ahead there was a small arch bridge. They were going too fast, there wasn’t enough time to correct the wheel. 

The car kept veering right and right some more. All the way to the side of the road, over the embankment, and right over the side of the bridge. 

The car plunged headfirst into the water below with a resounding splash.

Air. She needed air. Her arms flailed as she looked for the door latch, to open it, to open the window, something. 

Her lungs ached as her breaths became more labored. She had no more breaths in her. Stars filled her vision and just like that went dark. 

“Hang on Miranda, hang on baby!”

Steve pulled the headrest up and off the seat. Taking the metal ends, he bashed out the driver’s side window. 

Most of the time that didn’t really work, but you had to know how to use it, most people didn’t. He did. 

Lifting Miranda’s lifeless body, he laid her across his lap as he propelled her and himself out of the broken window, careful not to bang Miranda along the glass. Jagged edges ripped at his palms and his shirt as he went. 

Better me than her. 

The police had the road blocked off in both directions. 

He couldn’t risk being seen. 

Her life depended on it. He floated down the river with Miranda at his side, careful to dodge her around boulders and tree stumps protruding from the depths below. 

Once they were a safe distance away. Steve carried Miranda out of the water, laying her down on the grass. 

He held her nose as he breathed into her mouth twice. Then he thrusted the heal of his hand into her chest.

30 compressions, 2 breaths. 

30 compressions, 2 breaths. 

30 compressions 2 breaths.

Finally, he heard the sweet sound of gurgling that turned to coughs. 

She turned to her side, opening her mouth wide, as water began spilling out. 

First coming in spurts, and then like a waterfall. 

There’s my girl. 

“What happened?” 

“We just wrecked the car. You’re okay. You will be fine.”

“Stay here. Rescue will come for you.”

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I’ll be back” he didn’t give her time to respond. He ran off down the road beside her. 

No matter how hard Miranda tried she couldn’t figure out what had happened. The last thing she recalled was being pulled out of her house. 

It was all unclear. Why they had ran out so quickly. How she got so wet. Why her head was swimming. 

She sat and waited. Her body heavy, eyes closing in exhaustion.  

**

“9-1-1 what’s your emergency?”

“Yes, I was kayaking, and I saw a body on the side of the road.”

“Could you tell if they were breathing?”

“No, I was too far away, but I think I saw movement.” 

“What is her location?”

“Pine street, where it meets the mouth of the St. Frances River, just past the bait shop.” 

“Got it.”

“An ambulance is on the way.”

**

2 days earlier:

“Is it all here?”

“Everything you asked for.” 

“Thanks.” 

Just got the details from your husband’s computer.  Give me a day or two to see what I can find out and I’ll get back to you

-Steve

Thanks!

-Theresa. 

Steve took the thumb drive and put it into the front of his computer. 

There was a file folder labeled: Operation Spin Cycle

Inside there were spreadsheets, Images, and other misc. documents. 

He scrolled through each item one by one trying to make sense of it all.

Financials, most of it was bank statements. Receipts. 

In a sub folder labeled Osprey:

A handful of images. People on the street. 

He scanned the photos, and that’s when he saw it.

Images of himself. 

Oh my god!

Why would they have photos of him?

They were of him sitting in his car and walking in the crowded streets. 

This is when I was tailing Theresa’s husband. 

Someone was watching him too. 

Theresa had thought that her husband had been cheating. And that’s where he came in. 

He kept searching through each document, certain the answers were contained in these documents. 

It only took 45 minutes before he came to a chilling conclusion.

Theresa thought her husband was being unfaithful, but the part she had failed to mention was that her husband was an FBI agent.

All this information is for some local drug ring that was laundering their money through a large sized laundry mat. 

They were building a case against the “Spin Cycle group” aptly named after the laundry mat, they were using to clean their money. 

And now because I had been looking into Phillip, I’ve put myself right smack in the middle of his investigation.

 I’ve got to get out of here. 

**

Miranda is going to lose her ever loving mind. She always worried this day would come. That he would be in danger, but now it wasn’t just him.

He cursed the timing, the nature of his job, the whole damn situation. Miranda had just landed her dream job. She would never forgive him for this. 

Steve grabbed his gym duffle bag from the top of the closet and started packing. Jeans, T-shirts, sneakers and some toiletries. 

Once he had his things taken care of, he packed a bag for his wife as well. 

This was harder, there were so many outfits. But now wasn’t the time to worry about any of that.  He crammed some dresses and shirt and shorts into a bag along with deodorant and her toothbrush. 

Present Day:

“As soon as we get your discharge paperwork together and the doctor goes over it with you, you’ll be free to go,” the nurse said.  

“Okay,” Miranda mumbled. 

Miranda was fine, physically. She only had a few surface wounds. Scratches across her face and arms. After being X-rayed and checked, she was given a liter of saline solution intravenously. She felt her energy return and her lungs could fill with air without as much of the searing pain that she had been feeling.  

Mentally it was a different story. 

She kept replaying everything she remembered from the last 24 hours. But there were too many fuzzy blank spots to put it all together. There was only one thing she remembered for sure, and it is what she chose to cling to. 

A letter. 

He had left a letter. 

There was a letter that would hopefully explain everything. Because right now she was confused, hurt, angry, scared. Nothing made sense and she didn’t feel safe. 

**

Where would he have put the letter?

Miranda had asked herself this at least a dozen times since she had been back at home. 

The house was a disaster. She had torn it apart looking for this letter. She’d taken the cushions off the couch; Shaken out books from the bookshelf; Siffled through what remained in their dresser drawers. It wasn’t lost on her that clothes were already missing. She went through their nightstand drawers, the kitchen cabinets. The refrigerator. 

This is hopeless. 

What if she made it all up. 

What if there was no letter?

If there was one, one thing was for sure. It wasn’t in this house. 

Maybe he wouldn’t want anyone else to find it before she did. 

Where would no one else think to look?

Garage? No, he knew she would never look in there, even if someone else might. That was his space. 

Where was somewhere that was just her space?

Her sewing room. 

She had already torn that room apart and found nothing.

Look again

Going back into the sewing room, she flipped through the sheets and blocks of fabric.

Nothing.

Her booklets.

Nothing.

She picked up her sewing machine. 

The bobbin was in its place, the foot was right. 

She flipped it over. 

Nothing.

She was just about to turn it right side when something caught her eye. 

A corner coming out of the bottom cover plate. 

The corner of an envelope. 

She grabbed a seem ripper of the table and popped open the cover. 

One wrinkled bent envelope with only an M written across the front. 

Miranda tore it open:

M,

If you’re reading this that means we got separated. 

I didn’t mean for this to happen, and I am so sorry.

I took on a case for a client that ended up putting me in the middle of some shady stuff.

I’ll explain everything when I see you. 

I’ll be waiting for you where we spent the last night of our honeymoon. 

Their honeymoon?

They had honeymooned in Mexico. 

But where had they spent their last night?

Photos. 

She found the pictures from that album and scrolled and scrolled. 

She had taken a million photos that week.

Finally, she found the one she was looking for. 

**

You made it. 

Steve stood barefoot in the sand staring at his wife.

The way that Miranda looked at him, with a mixture of relief, longing, and anger, he knew she wasn’t going to forgive him that easily. 

I did, but you have some explaining to do, Mr. 

Yes. I do, and I promise, if I have to, I’ll spend the rest of our lives making it up to you, he says before he lowers his head and kisses her lips every so softly.