Six

When Hollis was finished with two minutes on the electric toothbrush, then flossing, then mouthwash, she washed her face, added moisturizer, smoothed night cream under her eyes, and rubbed hand cream on her arms and elbows. At twenty, her nighttime routine had been kicking off her shoes and falling into bed. Now it could take up the evening.

She turned off the bathroom light and walked into the bedroom, where Finn was already propped up in bed reading.

“What’s the book about?” she asked as she climbed into bed beside him.

“The history of weapons, from ancient times to modern warfare.”

She was tempted to point out that he’d already read three books about weaponry, but Finn was a serial obsessionist. Last year there were months when all she heard about was ancient Rome. Each night as she would be drifting off to sleep, he’d tell her gruesome stories of executions and ambitious, insane emperors. It had gotten to the point where just looking at pasta made her slightly queasy. She had enough on her mind tonight, between the note and the fake passports; she wasn’t in a mood for a dissertation on the new ways humanity had learned to kill.

She put her head on the pillow and her hand on his chest, feeling the steady in-and-out of his breathing. Her heart was pounding but his face was a blank. Finn looked like he’d spent the evening debating nothing more important than the ending of a favorite book. His ability to calm himself was slightly unnerving.

They’d decided that Tomas would probably send word somehow—another hand-delivered package, a coded text message—and they would be expected to follow instructions. Once they got the word, the first call would be to Peter. It seemed like a sensible plan. Well, a plan anyway. Nothing about any of it seemed particularly sensible. There had been talk, briefly, of getting in the car and driving for parts unknown. But they would have to come back at some point. Whatever needed to be faced might as well be faced now. Even Finn agreed to that. And if they could help Declan, all the better. Finn had just shrugged at that idea.

“Did you lock the door?” Hollis asked.

“Locked it, checked it, checked it again,” he said. “Get some sleep. You don’t want to yawn through your execution.”

Hollis rolled her eyes. She wasn’t sleepy. She was too nervous. But there was something else mingling in with the fear—excitement. Declan had reached out to them for help. Clearly a man with some serious survival skills saw beyond the dull Midwestern college professor persona. He saw people who could handle themselves in a dangerous situation. Of course, he was probably wrong. With that thought, the fear rushed back in.

She needed to calm down. She focused on the hand that rested on Finn’s chest. She wasn’t particularly in the mood for sex, but she needed something to clear the anxiety. She tapped her fingers on his stomach lightly, but Finn didn’t react. She began moving her hand downward, slowly, until it rested at the lowest edge of his stomach. She looked up at Finn, but she didn’t catch his eye. After a pause her fingers moved southward again, her fingers lightly stroking him over his pajamas.

Finn turned his head toward her and smiled. “I’d love to. But can I finish this chapter first?”

She nodded. Sixteen years of marriage.

After the chapter, after the sex, after Finn’s mission accomplished grin had given way to sleep, Hollis lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling. She was trying to figure out the meaning of the note, but she couldn’t concentrate. Eventually she’d drifted off to sleep, but something woke her up—and kept her up. The back of her neck was warm, while the rest of her was cold. She could feel each muscle tensing one by one, from her head through her shoulders, arms, and legs. She felt her breathing get shallow. Suddenly she couldn’t catch her breath. She moved her hand over toward Finn. Maybe it—whatever it was—was bothering him too. But he was lying on his back, breathing heavily, happily. A man completely at peace.

She poked him.

He grunted a little, turned onto his side, and the heavy breathing began again.

She poked again.

“What?” It was half question, half whine.

“Something’s wrong.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I know the drill.” He rolled over to face her. “It’s the middle of the night, so naturally you want to talk about the state of our marriage. I’m all ears, just tell me what I did wrong.”

She bit her lip so hard that she could taste blood but at least she restrained herself from pointing out that this, right now, was what he did wrong. “I don’t do that.”

“So that’s not what you woke me up for?”

“No. But I don’t do that.”

“You don’t look for inconvenient times to talk to me about our relationship? Like how you didn’t want to talk about our marriage at my grandmother’s house at Thanksgiving, right before she served the turkey?”

“That was thirteen years ago. And your grandmother seated me at the kid’s table. I still can’t understand why you don’t think that was wrong.”

“She ran out of seats at the other table.”

Hollis thought about it. She could argue her point, still right, that his grandmother was being passive-aggressive because she thought Hollis wasn’t good enough for her perfect Finn, but she didn’t. There were more immediate matters. “I think someone’s in the house.”

Finn sat up in bed and looked toward the door. “You think it’s Tomas?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you heard something.”

“Not exactly. I felt something.”

“Oh.” He put his head back on his pillow. “Remember my family reunion when you felt that one of my distant cousins was hostile
because of the way he ate his burger? He turned out to be the nicest guy in my whole family.”

“That was fifteen years ago, at least. Remember how you thought we should save money by spending our wedding night at your folks’ house?”

“We were grad students. We got married three blocks from their house, and we couldn’t afford another hotel night. Besides, we went to New Orleans on our honeymoon, so it’s not like we moved in with them. What does our wedding night have to do with anything?”

“I’m just pointing out that it’s not fighting fair if you keep our entire history in your back pocket to fling at me whenever it suits you.”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about our relationship.”

“I don’t. There’s someone in the house.”

Finn pulled his head off the pillow, resting his body on his elbows, his eyes toward the door. They were both quiet. They waited in the dark and silence for almost a minute. But there was nothing, no strange noises, no creaks on the wood floors. “I don’t hear anything, Holly. I could point out that this is why we should have called Peter immediately, so we wouldn’t be worried about killers in the house. But I won’t.”

“No, you’ll wait until our fiftieth anniversary to bring it up.”

“There’s no one in the house, okay?” He kissed her cheek. “We’ve still got about twelve hours before Tomas is going to contact us. We’re going to get a good night’s sleep and tomorrow we’ll call Peter and he’ll get us out of this mess.” He patted her hip, then rolled over, his back toward her.

She stayed sitting up. Listening. The house was quiet but there was something wrong. She knew it. She poked Finn a third time, hard.

“Cut it out!”

“Finn, I’m not kidding. There’s someone in the house. I can’t explain why, but I can feel someone here.”

“Then go tell them you feel it’s time for them to leave.”

Hollis stayed in bed another minute. She waited, listening for anything that sounded sinister, not that she was sure what sinister sounded like. Finn sighed a few times, angry sighs, but then he started to settle. Hollis had a choice to make. Try to sleep and hope that she was wrong, or go downstairs and find out that either she was right and their lives were in danger, or Finn was right and know that fifteen years from now he’d still be bringing it up.

She got out of bed hoping she was wrong. Living with Finn’s smugness was still preferable to dying a horrible death. Though barely.

As she moved toward the bedroom door, as quietly as possible, Finn pushed the covers off and got up. He grabbed his cell phone. “I can’t let you die alone.”

“I appreciate that.”

She turned the handle on their bedroom door and pulled it open. A slight squeak. The sort of thing that she’d never notice but now seemed like an entire orchestra was announcing that she and Finn were on the move.

Once in the hallway, Finn got in front of her, going down the stairs first. Hollis put her hand on his back, one step behind, but still close enough that if a bullet passed through him it would likely also kill her. Why did she think such things? It didn’t help the situation. She shook her head, trying to wipe that image from her brain.

At the end of the stairs, they paused. Hollis could hear her own breathing, she could hear the clock in the kitchen tick slowly. But was there something else?

A sound. A shoe taking one step on their floor. Finn handed Hollis his phone. “9-1-1,” he whispered.

But before she could press a button, a deep voice boomed in the darkness. “That won’t be necessary.”