Protecting Holly. Lynn Bulock

about the handsome, secretive man she worked with every day.

      When Holly got to Jessica’s office she was surprised to see it empty. It looked like Jessica had been there and just stepped down the hall for something, so Holly stood there by the doorway and waited for a minute.

      Jessica’s office was brighter than Holly remembered it. Looking around, she tried to decide what the difference was. There was a great photo of Sam, Jessica and her sweet daughter Amy on the desk. It must have been taken on their wedding day this last fall. All three were smiling broadly at whoever had taken the picture.

      It wasn’t just a photo or two that made the room brighter, though. It seemed a warmer, happier place than it ever had before. Of course, Holly hadn’t been in here since Jessica had found her daughter after she’d disappeared, kidnapped by a baby-sitter. Nothing about Jessica’s life had been particularly bright when she was looking for her daughter. Now that Amy was back and Jessica had married Sam, her life was so different.

      As Holly stood lost in thought, praising God for the changes in her friend’s life, Jessica hurried down the hall toward her. “Holly, good to see you. I hope you haven’t just been standing here in the hallway very long.” She motioned her into the office and they both sat down.

      Holly waved away her concern. “Not long at all. Besides, I was enjoying looking at a desk where you can actually see the top of it.”

      Jessica laughed. “Ouch. I don’t have to ask how things are going at work for you, then, do I?”

      “Not exactly. Jake is working on stuff for Alistair Barclay’s trial, and it’s coming up soon. I guess that’s partially why I’m here.”

      Jessica looked confused. “What does somebody as slimy as Barclay have to do with you being here?”

      “Just his trial. It has us so busy, and Jake so completely swamped, that I came by to do two things. I need for you to take me off the volunteer schedule for a while until things get back to normal.”

      “I can pass that word on to Susan, the shelter’s director. I hope this doesn’t mean you’ll miss the Christmas party.”

      “Not if I can help it. I can’t make room for much on my schedule this month, but if I do anything, it will be the party here. It’s always such a good time.”

      Holly had been volunteering at the shelter for most of the time she’d been back in Colorado Springs since leaving her job in Ohio. This was probably the fifth Christmas she’d been around the Galilee Women’s Shelter, and she didn’t have any intention of missing the best Christmas party in town. Mayor Montgomery might have a more elegant one, and Jake probably went to half a dozen most years that were flashier than this one, but nobody had one where more delighted kids squealed over their gifts.

      “I really hope you can make it. This one is going to be such a special Christmas for me personally. Lots of firsts involved.” Jessica’s gray eyes shone with happiness.

      “I guess so. I’ll just have to make it here for that,” Holly said. “And it ties in nicely with the other reason for my trip over here.”

      “Oh? If you’re going off the volunteer schedule, it can’t be an offer of help for the party.”

      “Not exactly. At least not from me. But Jake needs to get his mom a meaningful Christmas gift, and he thought that contributing money for something here would be the best thing to do. Once you mentioned the party, I thought maybe I’d ask if you needed any more funding for it.”

      “Always. Even with all the wonderful people like Liza Montgomery who give time and money to this place, there’s always more that can be done.” Jessica’s normally smooth forehead wrinkled. “Especially since we were counting on one hundred thousand dollars from Mr. Barclay that turned out to be nonexistent. We could hardly take money from him now. But maybe if you guys put people like him away, and others who help bring drugs into town, we’d have fewer clients to have to provide for in the first place.”

      “Wouldn’t that be great?” Holly tried to imagine a world in which no woman felt the need to go to a place like Galilee. It was hard for her to do. Once her life had been sheltered enough that she hadn’t known places like this existed. Now she’d seen enough of the outside world’s ugliness, even before working for the FBI, that she knew just what some people were capable of. Silently, she thanked God that most people weren’t capable of terrible evil.

      “It would. And we can always pray for it to happen.” In a flash, Holly knew what was different about Jessica, and about this office. It wasn’t just a physical brightness in the change of lightbulbs, or pictures of smiling people that made things in this office look different. It was Jessica’s new attitude, radiating from her because of her walk with the Lord. It wasn’t just displayed in things hanging on the wall, although when Holly looked around, she noticed a wonderful poster with words from the Psalms on the wall in a location where both Jessica and visitors to her office could see it as a reminder of God’s goodness.

      Holly could feel herself smiling, reminded again about how good God was in every situation. “We sure can. And if you want to, we can pray together right now for that, and a little guidance on how to spend the rest of this Christmas present money from Jake in a way that will make his mom happy, honor the Lord and do the best things for the shelter.”

      Half an hour later Holly was on her way to the office, buoyed up by the prayer time and discussion she’d had with Jessica, and the knowledge that she’d gotten this errand done quickly and so well. She stopped at the coffee shop in the lobby, never doubting for a moment that Jake hadn’t made coffee upstairs. He drank plenty when it was made, but didn’t bother making a pot just for himself. So she ordered a latte for herself and their largest cup of dark roast for Jake, complete with the three ice cubes he always had them put in the cup to bring the brew to his perfect drinking temperature. Going up the elevator took less time than usual, at what seemed like midmorning for her. When she got to her office, there was only one light on and her computer screen was dark, giving the front office an eerie, almost cavelike look. From his slightly open doorway, she could hear Jake talking to himself, and small metallic noises.

      She set her coffee down along with her purse and knocked on his door. “Hey, Jake. You mind company as long as I come bearing coffee?”

      “Come on in, Holly, as long as you can stand the mess in here.”

      She started to say something glib about never minding the condition of his office, but froze a step into the place and forced her mouth closed to keep her shock from showing. “Uh, Jake? I think Barclay’s computer exploded.” The tower housing of the machine was in pieces and there were bits of the insides of the computer strung out over almost every flat surface in the room.

      Jake laughed and took the coffee from her. He took a long drink before he said anything, setting the cup down on a small island of clear space on his desk. “I know. It’s not the commonest way to find somebody’s passwords, but I’m down to desperate measures. See, you can find the BIOS password by taking apart hardware, and I’m figuring that this will lead me to the other passwords I need to open the files he thought he’d hidden. I found them, just can’t open them.”

      “Okay.” The room still looked like the elephant’s graveyard of computer parts. Holly trusted her boss to do the right thing in most situations, but this was a new one on her. “There sure looks like there’s more than one computer in all this.”

      “There is. Somewhere along the line someone apparently expected this kind of interference. So when I opened up the tower, there were dummy circuits as well as the real thing. I looked around this morning until I found somebody with a similar unit and borrowed it for a little while to compare the innards.”

      “This means that somewhere in this building is an agent who has no idea that his computer, which he loaned you, is now totally in pieces.”

      Jake’s grin was a delight. “Well, yeah, but it’s Bob. He doesn’t use his computer all that much anyway, and I’m nearly to the point of putting it back together. He’ll