I was desperate to understand her and for her to understand me. Just when I was beginning to lose faith, we would have a moment, and I would feel a flicker of hope. By the look in her eyes, I could see she felt that way, too. It was so much more than her being a bitch and me being dumb. It was two people who had lugged all of their baggage into a relationship trying to sift through their own shit to see the love that brought them together in the first place.
I slipped my hand beneath her hair and began to rub her neck with my thumb and index finger. I used to do that when we’d sit on the couch and watch a movie after the kids fell asleep. It had been a long time since I’d been able to do that, and her tense muscles melted under my touch.
Alyssa touched her radio. “I have a possible on my four o’clock, six back.” I couldn’t hear a reply, but Alyssa didn’t seem alarmed.
“Someone is following us?” Hollis asked.
Alyssa smiled. “Possibly, smarty pants.”
“Is it the same guy who shot Uncle Tommy?”
“No,” Alyssa responded.
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s in jail.”
“How do you know?” Hollis asked again.
“Hols,” Falyn said, tapping him.
“Because I put him there myself,” Alyssa answered.
“You did?” Hollis said, leaning against his seat belt. “How many people have you arrested?”
“A lot.”
“How many people have you shot?”
I frowned. “C’mon, buddy.”
Hollis waited for Alyssa to answer.
“Only the ones I had to,” she said.
Hollis sat back, impressed. He hesitated before asking his next question. “Has my Uncle Tommy ever shot anyone?”
“Ask him yourself,” Alyssa said. Hollis was satisfied, but Alyssa wasn’t. “I like your name.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“What about mine?” Hadley asked.
“Yours, too,” Alyssa said.
“We should let Alyssa concentrate on driving,” Falyn said.
Alyssa didn’t skip a beat. “I can do both.”
The muscles in Falyn’s neck began to tense, and I looked for a sign that would tell us how many miles to Eakins.
“If you think someone is following us, maybe you shouldn’t,” Falyn said.
The moment the words came out of her mouth, she regretted them. Hollis looked up at her, surprised at her rudeness. Falyn and I had many late-night talks about what we would do if Alyssa wanted to be in Hollis’s life again or if he started asking questions. He knew Falyn wasn’t his biological mother, but he didn’t know more than that, and he certainly had no idea that the cool, gun-toting woman in the driver’s seat was the enigma he’d no doubt wondered about his whole life. Falyn didn’t really want to keep them from talking, but I knew it had to be hard for her.
“I mean,” Falyn said, clearing her throat. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t tell you how to do your job. You know better than me what you’re capable of.”
“It’s fine,” Alyssa said, unaffected.
Falyn’s apology won her big points with Hollis, and he snuggled up against her again.
Alyssa exited off the highway, and I sat up, trying to see where we were. It definitely wasn’t Eakins. She drove three miles, turned down one road, and then another after another three miles, parking in a dirt driveway. She turned off the motor and tossed me the keys.
“Stay put,” she said.
“What are we doing?” Tyler asked. “This isn’t Eakins.”
A red Corolla pulled up behind us, and Alyssa unholstered her side arm. “Hadley. Hollis. Close your eyes and cover your ears.”
“What’s going on?” Hadley whined.
“Just do it.”
She stepped out and walked to the road.
“What the hell?” Ellie said. “I’m uncomfortable with this, I—”
A set of shots rang out, and I threw myself over my family. Tyler did the same. After another set of shots, the only sounds we could hear were the cicadas in the trees, and the crickets in the grass surrounding the van.
The driver’s side door opened, and Alyssa climbed back in. She held her hand out to me, and I handed her the keys.
“A little warning would have been nice,” I said.
“Did you … did you shoot the people who were following us?” Hollis asked.
“Well,” Alyssa said, starting the van, “to be fair … they shot at me first.” Hollis swallowed, and Alyssa backed out and drove toward the highway. She touched the small black apparatus in her ear. “Clean up on aisle five.” She waited for confirmation. “I got tired of waiting on you. Yes. We’re three less Carlisis. Three miles west and three miles north.” She smiled. “Thank you.”
I was worried that as we passed the Corolla, the kids would see a gruesome scene, so I covered their eyes, but each of the victims in the car had their shirts or a newspaper covering their heads. The moment we were out of range, I removed my hands from the kids’ eyes, and I patted Hollis’s shoulder and kissed the top of Hadley’s head.
“Who the fuck are the Carlisis?” Tyler asked.
“You’ll have answers when we get to our destination, I promise,” Alyssa said.
“Did that just happen?” Falyn asked, breathing hard and holding onto the door. “What the hell is going on?”
I shook my head, unable to answer. I wasn’t sure whether to be freaked out that our driver was the one-night stand who gave me full custody of my son, or that it made sense now why she’d done it, considering she was a trained killer, or that the woman I had once spent an entire night banging while she’d yelped like a dying poodle had just killed three people without blinking.
“Thank God Gavin sleeps like me and not you,” Ellie said to her husband.
Alyssa navigated the van to the on ramp, and we returned to the highway, gaining speed toward Eakins. Alyssa drove faster than she had since we’d left the airport, and I looked down at the passengers in the cars we passed. They had no idea that we’d just been involved in an execution just a few miles off the highway or that our driver was the executioner. I felt more uneasy the closer we got to Eakins.
“What’s your total now?” Hollis asked.
“Hollis!” Falyn shrieked.
“Don’t answer that, Alyssa,” I said. Falyn craned her neck toward me. That was the first time I’d uttered Alyssa’s name in years, and it obviously didn’t sit well with my wife. “Agent Davies,” I corrected, and then swallowed.
Alyssa chuckled.
“What’s funny?” I asked.
“You’re just a lot different than I remember.”
“Yes, he’s sober … and clothed,” Falyn snapped.
“Oh, my God,” Tyler said. “Is she …” he thankfully trailed off, not wanting to drop that bomb on Hollis.
“Holy fuck,” Ellie said under her breath.
I sunk back into my seat, reliving the moment I had come clean to Falyn all over again. It was even worse that she didn’t blame me since she’d been the one who’d asked for the break. Where Falyn hadn’t raked me over the coals, Ellie never missed an opportunity—not only to let me know how shitty it was that I slept with someone days after my girlfriend asked for some time to think but how ridiculous and flat-out gross it was that Falyn blamed herself.